NNtG: Shivers #30: Creepy Clothes

CONTENT WARNING: DISCUSSION OF CHILD ABUSE AND TRAUMA, AND SPECULATION OF S.A. IN THE CONCLUSION. AS USUAL WHEN IT COMES TO THE HEAVY STUFF, READER DISCRETION IS ADVISED.

 It's time to open up the big old Tickle Trunk that is Shivers. Been a couple months since our last foray into the series and our exposure to a book with the wonderful message of "Please forgive the white guilt of racist murderers", so anything from that can be a strep up. Shivers is always a fun gamble, so it'll be interesting to see what we got on tap this time. Will this book fit like a glove or be in desperate need of some tailoring? Let's check out those Creepy Clothes.

Well, if skeleton picnic was enough to scare me, then you'd best believe skeleton American Gothic would have done the trick as well. It's a Shivers cover alright. Moody skies mixed with dead trees, the moon and an old haunted looking house. And skulls because that's a calling card too. I love this cover because it does something I don't think enough Shivers covers did and that's be silly with the cover. And you don't get any sillier than a freaky subversion on one of the most famous paintings of all time. So for memorability, nightmare factor and dark comedy, this cover is top form. And if you know what me loving a cover means, I'm now worried for what the book actually brings.

Patricia Carson is sad. It's her birthday and her parents are off on a business trip. They were due back but haven't returned home. So she and her younger brother Sam have less to do. Patricia makes some coffee because that was usually her routine for her parents, then laments that there's nothing to do in Riverdale. Well, unless Homer Simpson shows up and Archie and the gang kick him out. Oh sugar sugar could I just sit around and make Archie references, but I don't want to come as too much of a Jughead and we'll return to the book at hand. After making the coffee, Patricia finds a body on the couch! Oh, wait, it's their housekeeper Abby. As they talk, they see that Sam made a mess in the kitchen. But this mess gets interrupted when a cop car arrives in the parking lot. The officer tells everyone that Mr. and Mrs. Carson were in a car accident, and are dead! No, wait, they're just banged up and at the hospital. Look, it would have been seen as a dark thing to have killed the parents off, but this is Shivers, you can't be too sure.

The cop, a woman named Sheriff Yancy, tells the kids that their dad has a broken leg, while their mother is concussed comatose and may have a metric ton of internal injuries. Patricia, Sam, Abby and their neighbor Mrs. Patterson and her daughter Cindy, all head to the hospital and see for themselves. It's a grim sight, but the doctor, Dr. Bishop, tries to keep Patricia and Sam calm down. But it's not all as cut and dry as it sounds because Mr. and Mrs. Carson are going to be stuck in the hospital for an indefinite amount of time, so they need another family member to take care of them. That being their aunt Dolores Carson. She's their aunt on their dad's side, who apparently he hasn't talked to in twenty years and barely ever mentioned. So yeah, enjoy living with a woman you barely know and having to fly to Atlanta for god knows how long. Fun!

Patricia and Sam are then sent off to Atlanta to meet their Aunt Dolores, who looks like a bony old witch with a cane. She also has a messy car that hasn't been cleaned ever. She drives them into a rather sketchy part of town and dismisses a homeless person washing her windows. She takes them to her apartment building which looks more like the Bates motel while an old man in a wheelchair sits on the front porch angrily with his German shepherd. Her house is also a mess and smells like cigarettes. The kids get to sleep and wake up the next day to what sounds like gunshots, but Dolores claims it's just the radiator. Riiiight. Later, the kids wake up with no sign of Dolores, so having nothing else to do, they explore the place, with Patricia noticing a photo of Mr. Carson and Aunt Dolores when they were kids, to which Patricia says that Aunt Dolores used to look pretty when she was young. Okay well fuck you too then.

The kids then check the closet in Dolores' room, which opens to a hidden passageway to the attic. In the attic, they find an old trunk filled with clothes (we're about halfway in and we're now getting to said creepy clothes) and find a blue evening gown and an old Davey Crockett cap. They put the clothes on and then suddenly find themselves caught in a strange tornado as everything spins around, eventually taking the kids outside. Everything looks older, Elvis music is playing and a boy and girl are wearing the exact same clothes they are. The two kids don't notice Patricia and Sam so I guess they're astral projected into this trip back in time. The girl sings Venus while the boy gets stuck in a tree. Despite her dress, she goes up to get him down, ruining the dress. This leads a man to exit the house, get mad at the girl and then start to beat her. Oh. Great. Child abuse. I mean this is the 1960s by the look of it, but oh Shivers you shouldn't have. NO REALLY, YOU SHOULD NOT HAVE. 

The brother tries to defend her sister, but she tries to quiet him down, and because of it she's not allowed to do piano lessons or go to her recital. Also, this is their stepfather who is now the only parent after their mother died. Not gonna make assumptions but given he's going to beat up a young girl I can't help NOT making assumptions. It seems like the siblings have a decent enough relationship and, as you figured out, are Dolores and Mr. Carson. The kids return to their normal time and begin to realize why their dad never talks about his family. He and Dolores' father died not long after Mr. Carson was born and their mother not long after either. Because of that, they lived with their abusive stepfather, which yeah, this is starting to be less fun horror and more real horror. I only like it when I'm pretend scared. They talk with Aunt Dolores later about her stepfather and she reacts angrily. 

The next day, they put on a tie-dyed dress and an army jacket which sends them into the late 60s/early 70s at a hippie music festival. Dolores is there in the same outfit Patricia wears, and rallies everyone to petition against the Vietnam war alongside a boy her same age named Paul Griffin. All goes well until she's grabbed again by her stepfather. Paul tries to intervene but gets punched in the face and Dolores dragged off. Patricia realizes that they should follow and see what happens. They follow back to Dolores and Mr. Carson's house as their stepdad is cleaning a gun. Dolores is frustrated feeling like a captive to an abusive monster, but gives her brother a bunch of money so that he can get to college and at least one of them can escape. Before Patricia and Sam can leave, they hear gunshots. They think they got shot, but instead it's just the stepdad shooting at cans. The kids return to normal time only to then find a newspaper article showing Dolores getting arrested for SHOOTING THE STEPDAD!? Okay, like I'm cool with that, fuck the abusive shithead but I WAS EXPECTING A SILLY FUNTIMES HORROR BOOK AND SHIVERS DID IT TO ME AGAIN! 

So yeah, Dolores, now 25 at the time of the report, shot and wounded her stepfather before driving off with Paul Griffin. After a pursuit with the cops, the car crashed and flipped over a curb. The kids then hear arguing downstairs. Dolores and the man in the wheelchair, who is Paul Griffin. He's not happy to be out of a home while the kids are there. After the argument, Dolores sees that the kids are in the attic and is not very happy. Suddenly, they hear a voice. It's Tom Carson, their father. We get an answer as to what happened. Dolores went to jail for five years after the attempted murder, but still managed to help Mr. Carson pay for his college tuition and to become a lawyer. But things got bad afterward with Dolores becoming bitter that while Tom's life ended up good, hers didn't.  And in Tom's defense, he doesn't care to be blamed for a crime he didn't commit. They both apologize for having caused this rift between them and it's a nice happy ending. Dolores tells the kids they can take anything they need from the trunk, she doesn't need those memories anymore.

What I love about how I blog these books is that I review and read in real time, as blind as possible, so that my reaction is more genuine than if I was made aware of what's up. It means that when I get caught off guard, you'll know just how off guard I was caught and oh man, was I caught the hell off guard here. I mean, it's Shivers, so I always have to be on my guard as to just where the hell things are going to go, and after the white guilt book last time, far be it from me to expect that the very next Shivers book I cover would be a book about freaking child abuse and trauma. And that the book really isn't about any supernatural horror, but realistic horror. My only real issue with the supernatural stuff is that we have zero explanation as to why the clothes have this power to be a time portal. Like, were the events they were a part of so pivotal to Dolores' past that they became an enchanted portal to go back to? It feels like it could have been anything, even just the kids reading newspaper clippings and you'd get pieces of what the plot is without magic clothing.

But the magic clothing isn't the point of the story. The point of the story is about the life of Dolores Carson. And it's a sad life. She got the rawest of deals, her parents both dying and her being forced to live with a monster of a stepfather until eventually she finally snapped and tried to kill him. And here's the thing. We only get a small window of what we know happened to Dolores. We know she was physically abused, but let's not kid ourselves, the fucker likely raped her too. So yeah, I'm glad she shot him and it's a shame he lived. Granted, Dolores would still be in jail and we wouldn't get much of a book out of it, but still. I also like that they present Dolores as a good person, especially to her little brother Tom. That no matter what happens to her, she needed to make sure that Tom escaped and that Tom could have a happy life. And yeah, it sucks they fell out, but it's also realistic as well. Tom is right for feeling like he's an accessory to attempted murder and Dolores is right for feeling like for everything she did, she feels like it wasn't fair to her, because it wasn't. But at least we get a mega happy ending... or I guess A happy ending.

Patricia and Sam exist as our viewers of the story. Nothing really more nothing really less. Literally they are only able to observe what's going on back in time, and they can't interact with anyone. They, I guess, can move objects and stuff, which I guess if this is just a flashback and not a full time travel, doesn't mean some butterfly effect stuff. But I kind of like that they don't affect time itself or change events. Because I mean what COULD they do to help Dolores? But also it always feels fresh to have a story reflect the bitter truth that you can't change the past. That unfortunately things happen because that's how life is. It's not fair to everyone. But, as the ending of the book clearly shows, it's not impossible to make for a better present and future, which is the optimistic ending that the book presents. A kids horror book with an optimistic twist. Stine would NEVER.

So as a book with a message, I respect it because it's a book with some deep subject matter that trusts the young audience to understand and respects the reader in that aspect. BUT you look at that cover and you even read the back blurb of the book and when you read the book to find out it's about child abuse and trauma with no silly fun horror aspects, you can't help but feel a little deceived. Though, like, by that token what could the cover have actually been to represent the story? I mean, you can't show child abuse, so skeleton American Gothic it is. So it leaves me conflicted. I respect the message, but it feels like a bait and switch. I want to recommend it, but I also feel like if you are someone who is easily triggered by acts of abuse, then I have to spoil the book's events for you lest you get caught off guard. How is it the book about white guilt has me less conflicted than this one? Oh Shivers, you are the Pandora's box of kids horror. So ultimately I will give it a positive rating. If you want a fun horror book, look elsewhere, but if you want something more realistically dark with some mild supernatural stuff, this one works fine. Creepy Clothes gets a B.