Nothing to Get Nostalgic About
By: Eddie Brophy
Publisher: Atmosphere Press
Publication Date: September 2020
ISBN: 978-1649218735
Reviewed by: Barbara Bamberger Scott
Review Date: April 11, 2021
In this multilayered horror fantasy by debut novelist Eddie Brophy, a man has earned an enviable chance at the limelight in his career, but remains so haunted by his childhood that he can barely cope.
Charlie Harris is tormented by memories and demons that have chased him for much of his life. Addiction has plagued him since growing up with parents who were addicted, alcoholic, and insane and who knowingly moved the family into a sinister, tragedy-soaked house. In the case of Charlie’s father, the insanity takes the form of sadistic displays and torturous punishments, with his young son and two older daughters as the often chosen victims, though the girls may be getting the worst of it, as bloodied wrists and a baby with no identified father eerily attest. Young Charlie, who fears darkness and has a weak stomach, possibly from the pills his mother forces on him, feels compelled to bury his one source of comfort, his “blankie.” Something has to change; but when change comes, it will not make Charlie’s life easier, as the specters that dogged his youth will not easily release their grasp.
The book opens on what should be a happy time, the night before grown-up Charlie, now an acclaimed author, is to receive a significant award from his former alma mater. But he wanders out after a spat with his wife, and does just what she accuses him of – drinks some booze, then talks openly with a spooky acquaintance about the very things he fears most – not being able to protect his toddler son from the monster that devastated his own boyhood and has never loosened its grip. In an ironic twist of Brophy’s elaborately constructed plot, one book for which Charlie is specially lauded carries a disturbing resemblance to his real life fears and foibles. The only thing, it seems, that can free Charlie Harris from his fraught past is a meeting with a woman appropriately named Destiny.
Brophy has paced this mysterious, at times mystical, drama with great care. There is a significant chronology, with the plot providing a lively cluster of incidents before and after the one chilling event at its heart. The inner thoughts, feelings, and conjectures of the characters – especially Harris, his sisters, and an investigator connected to some of the unsavory circumstances – smoothly stoke the action. Too, this is a notably intellectual epic, filled with well-drawn portraits of brainy men and women trying to examine and understand their bizarre situation through the symbols and metaphors of time-honored literature along with some more current media sources.
Quill says: Readers who like their fantasy laced with fear, and reality overlaid with the supernatural, will find satisfaction with Brophy’s imaginative concoction.
For more information on Nothing to Get Nostalgic About, please visit the author's website at: eddiebrophywriter.weebly.com
Nothing to Get Nostalgic About
by Eddie Brophy
Fiction - Horror
362 Pages
Reviewed on 07/06/2021
Reviewed by Ruffina Oserio for Readers' Favorite
A tale about fear, written in the most poignant and captivating manner, Nothing to Get Nostalgic About by Eddie Brophy is a welcome treat for fans of horror and thrillers with strong psychological underpinnings. Charlie Harris lives with a brutal reality: a painful childhood. He understands that there are some things we don’t outgrow, no matter how fast we grow in stature and intelligence. One of those things is fear because it always finds a way to sneak into our lives at the most unexpected moments. He is an addict and a depressed individual who is also haunted by his childhood. He has successfully masked his pain behind his writing craft, becoming a successful and award-winning author. When the life of his infant son is endangered, he must face his own painful childhood. Both his and his son’s lives are at stake.
This is a story that is as disturbing as it gets. As readers follow the compelling hero of the story, they become painfully aware of their own demons, of those situations that altered their lives in inconceivable ways. The author explores the protagonist's inner world with intelligence and skill, allowing readers to clearly perceive the effects of domestic abuse, violence, and sexual harassment. Eddie Brophy’s prose is stellar, and he writes about the psychological conflict with ingenuity. The characters are not only rock-solid but real, and they represent the dreadful world of the nightmares that haunt readers, the fear of a painful past catching up with them. Put together a troubled past, a haunted house, and a family with dark secrets, and you get the ingredients for a relentless ride of horror in Nothing to Get Nostalgic About.
