For The Road by Stark Holborn

I would like to thank the author and PS Publishing for an advance copy of this novella in exchange for a fair and honest review

Publisher – Absinthe Books

Published – available to order via https://pspublishing.co.uk/for-the-road-hardcover-by-stark-holborn-6606-p.asp

Price – from £18 hardcover

Lost, wounded and alone, Jesse Bartos wanders the wilderness with no memory of how he came to be there. He only knows that he is in danger, and that the suitcase in his hand is worth more than his life. At the point of death, he happens upon the abandoned railroad station of Dawn’s Holt, run by an enigmatic family who assure him—despite appearances—that the train will arrive any day. Jesse is desperate to escape, until he meets Reo, the family’s eldest son . . . As the days pass, Jesse falls deeper under the spell of Dawn’s Holt, until he’s caught in a battle between past and future, memory and reckoning and fiercest of all, between his conscience and his own heart.

Fantasy is often about the journey, travelling through vast countries, visiting strange lands and meeting new people. It’s often always on the move. As any commuter will tell you though there is something strange when you get stuck awaiting a ride (why yes, I do use trains a lot), here you can’t move until you’re allowed, and you may be stuck with people you would rather not be hanging around with. Sometimes those moments while frustrating can also give you new insights into yourself and the wider world. In Stark Holborn’s fantasy novella, we head into the desert where an injured young man finds himself in a dusty desert station with a strange family awaiting a train that may never actually come to save him.

Jesse Bartos remembers being on the run, being shot and ensuring his suitcase did not leave his hand. Walking through the desert sun he spots a station with rails covered in sand and dust. This is Dawn’s Holt. A family run it and tend to Jesse’s injury as he recovers, he is told the train will come…eventually but Jesse finds the family increasingly strange and wonders if he can ever escape. Even as the enigmatic Reo the son of the family increasingly occupies his thoughts.

This is a fantastically weird and lyrical western-style tale where you feel the heat and the listless days that pass for Jesse as he enters the strange life of Dawn’s Holt. Each day feels the same as dust blows in and the family run through their monotonous daily tasks. Jesse is our narrator from a big town from the early 20th century based on the slang and images he knows but Dawn’s Holt is very much outside of his own knowledge. A dusty disused railroad station on a line that is seldom used. Holborn makes you get the sense both that Jesse is using this time to slowly recover from injury but also that he is carrying some unnamed trauma from the events he was running from. He is a young man’s mix of bravado and unsureness that makes him feel increasingly vulnerable especially out in the world he knows very little about. Dawn’s Holt becomes a mix of pit stop and hotel. I really liked the attraction building between Jesse and Reo that feels very organic, pleasingly unjudged for a gay relationship at the time and for both characters offers some light, passion and love in a world that seems to have become very sparse and desolate and give the story its heart for events to circle around.

The mystery comes from the strange family running the station. Under the grumpy but straightforward man known as Lug we also have his wife Rosmerta, their idle daughter Navia and the compelling Reo who often only arrives at night. Forever circling around Dawn’s Holt is Lug’s brother Heck and his gang of motorcyclists forever looking for new recruits. There is the sense of a long-running family drama here but also something is very off about them all. They do the dame tasks, eggs around them seem to be forever off and there is a sense of secrets being kept from Jesse. We are put on our guard and cleverly Holborn is using mythology that is not immediately obvious, but the clues slowly mount up and Jesse finds himself caught up in a much bigger battle than the one we initially expected. The story morphing into that tale really works picking up the pace and moving from a dusty western into something much more older, epic and elemental with roots in European folklore to uncover. This is story where the imagery becomes ever important be that lovers meeting to encounters with strange motorcycle gangs and it’s a hazy dream of a story then moving towards nightmarish tale of bargains and desperate sacrifices that mean we don’t feel the outcome is ever certain. When you’re up against destiny it is hard to change the rules.

I’ve been a big fan of Holborn’s work for many years and this is another fine entry into an author getting ever stronger. Taking myths and creating something quite new and in particular very lyrical about the story that means it’s hard to stop reading once you’ve started. Fans of the stranger side of fiction should definitely pick this up and it is strongly recommended!