When does an author step out of his mentor’s (or parent’s) shadow and bask in a praise that is well deserved and earned on his own merit? Christopher Rice’s readers just might forget who his mother is after THE HEAVENS RISE hits big. Yet many will see just another supernatural novel set in The Big Easy. Another writer riding on the coattails of another. Those who think that will not have cracked open the cover and discover a story that is at once beautiful and scary at the same time.
Friends Niquette, Ben, Anthem, and Marshall grow up in the bayou in a world that is a far cry from the down and out parishes that will soon be ravished by Hurricane Katrina. Living the life of four young people who have nothing but promise ahead of them, tragedy soon strikes quicker than that storm and with damage that will affect all for the remainders of their lives. Niquette and Marshall find themselves immersed in a strange well in a stretch of land her father wishes to turn into a paradise betting its name: Elysium. Yet what lies deep inside that well transforms the two with a darkness neither can fathom. Parasitic in nature rather than ghostly, the darkness will live inside both and alter the lives of everyone around them. Afterwards, Niquette’s family is dead and after battling what lives inside him, Marshall dives out a window thirty-one floors high. In his comatose state he realizes he can cause pain to those around him near and far. Niquette has realized something within herself as well but distances herself from those she cares for but knows she will have to confront what exists within her soon enough.
This is a story that would make King and Straub proud. Yes, it has atmosphere and dread reigning true on every page but Rice’s characters embrace his style and grab hold of each scene.
Akin to Gone South and the New Orleans of someone he is related to, THE HEAVENS RISE captures the best of those authors but is all his own. Rice has emerged as an author who appears as someone who, if he keeps churning out tales like this, will no longer be known as the son of someone else. As Peter Straub states, “Rice is a magician.” This reviewer is beginning to believe in the hype.
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