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R. Patrick Gates

Grimm Memorials Mass Market Paperback – 5 June 2005

by R. Patrick Gates (Author)

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Seeking a quiet community to raise their children in peace, Steve and Diane Nailer leave the bustle of Boston to live in the town of Northwood, unaware that Eleanor Grimm, a woman of unfathomable power, has bewitched the parents of the little New England town in order to claim the souls of Northwood's children. Original.

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Product details

Publisher : Pinnacle Books (5 June 2005)
Language : English
Mass Market Paperback : 444 pages
ISBN-10 : 0786016981
ISBN-13 : 978-0786016983
Dimensions : 11.38 x 3.02 x 16.97 cm

Customer Reviews:
13 ratings

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Carolann Brousseau

Five Stars

Reviewed in Canada on 5 October 2014

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Great price, fast shipping. Thank You :)

Brandon St. Pierre

A cult-classic must-read!

Reviewed in the United States on 25 December 2017

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Grimm Memorials!!!

Holy WOAHHHHH!

What a great book. This may be the last one I get to read and review in 2017, and as such, I couldn't be happier to close the year out with such a stellar choice.

Grimm Memorials was put on my radar by several of my online friends at the Facebook group, Books of Horror, who generally have never steered me wrong. They certainly haven't here either, as this is pretty much everything I am looking for in a read.

R. Patrick Gates' second and arguably most well-known novel, a cult-classic of sorts that delivers all it promises in spades, is just perfect reading for a guy like me.

I was a huge fan of his first book, Fear, which I reviewed here on Halloween. Now, on Christmas Eve, I review this...which takes all of the things I enjoyed about that book and turns it up to 11 by refining every quality Gates seems to carry, mastering it and throwing it in the reader's face.

This is the literature equivalent of abrasive punk rock, taking a fairly basic premise, then adding heaps of hallucinatory moments, relentlessly vicious gore, supernatural villains and true human horror for a final product that ends up being one of my favorite books ever.

That's right, Grimm Memorials is one of the most enjoyable books I have ever read. It places Gates' in "favorite author" status for me, as I enjoyed Fear equally.

I recall reading Fear and being blown away by it's approach, reading like a carnival dark ride run by maniacs, with outlandish set piece after outlandish set piece bombarding the reader, just an incredibly fun, messed-up book for Horror Fiction fans to love. In my review, I said that Gates writes 'feral reading' in presentation...

He masters that here. Those feral moments are still present, just managed in a more linear way. I wouldn't say Grimm Memorials is subdued reading by any stretch of the imagination, of course. It's just more linear and timed in its sequences of viciousness than Fear.

Grimm Memorials takes the same approach, blasting the audience with even more disgusting and unnerving moments but adds much more in the way of engaging narrative. Pacing is perfect for the almost-450 page book...and that's something you'll be hard pressed to hear me ever say again. My feeling is generally that the horror novel sweet-spot is around 300 pages, the equivalent to 90 minutes in film. You get in, you tell your story, you get out.

But Gates' just does those extended set pieces so perfectly that you don't even notice the length. It's never once a boring or slow book, and there would be potential for that to happen with a less-skilled author.

Grimm Memorials tells us the story of the Nailer family who have just relocated to a small, woodsy town in Western Massachusettes from Boston. Dad's got a new job going, Mom's got a baby on the way, Jackie and Jen, the couple's young children are growing up fast...things are going well for the family. Until they cross paths with there twisted neighbor, Eleanor Grimm, a descendant of the Brothers Grimm and proprietor of Grimm Memorials, a mortuary and crematorium. She's a cannibalistic witch, on a quest for immortality with a taste for young children and powers to make her victims hallucinate in truly messed up ways. Along for the ride is her ghostly brother, vicious dog and a basement full of tortured kids...Are the Nailers going to end up the menu?

What do you think?

Originally published by Onyx Books in 1990, Grimm Memorials got republished in 2005 by Pinnacle, as a companion piece to the then-newly published Grimm Reapings, the sequel to this.

My copy is the reprint, whose cover art makes it look like a Lifetime Halloween special or something...don't be fooled by it...the book is ferocious.

Also, if anyone has an Onyx copy, I'd love to hear from you, because that's the art I want in my collection :)

Anyway!

Grimm Memorials is just about everything I could want in a book. It's fun, it's disgusting, it's sad sometimes. I can't think of a single complaint I have here.
Most of the violence in the book does take place against children, so I can see some being unnerved by that. Tread lightly, if that bothers you.

If I could give it a 5+, I would. A total 5/5, with my utmost recommendation. One of my favorite reads of all time, right here.

Originally posted on my blog Undivine Interventions dot blogspot dot com

Veronica Lynn Pit Bull

An interesting spin on an old fairy tale

Reviewed in the United States on 1 August 2005

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While I do not speak from first hand experience, I understand the original Brothers Grimm fairy tales were quite genuinely creepy; before they were watered down and rendered politically correct. Gates seems to have an excellent grasp on what I imagine the original tales must have been like. His wicked, child-eating witch Eleanor is perfect. I did not find the gore to be over the top, but there were a few scenes that were notably disturbing. Gates does a wonderful job portraying Eleanor throwing herself into her rituals with glee, gusto and such obvious enjoyment that it is chilling.

Why then only 3 stars? Unfortunately there were a couple of points towards the end of the novel that seemed dragged out. Instead of heightening the tension as I assume was the intention, I found myself getting bored and a bit annoyed. I also found it hard to connect with and really identify with/care about any of the characters. The adults were all under Eleanor's mind control for almost the entire book, so while their behavior was understandable given the circumstances; the characters were never really fleshed out. Jackie, the main protagonist, engendered sympathy but was hard to identify with simply because he was 6. My other main complaint is that Gates did not delve deep enough into Eleanor's past and back ground. As a fan of horror fiction, I found Eleanor to be the most fascinating aspect of the story.

In summary, despite my at times overy critical nature; Grimm Memorials is definitly worth checking out by all aficionados of the horror genre.

5 people found this helpful

Jordan

Ummm. Some people need to know how much is enough

Reviewed in the United States on 5 March 2019

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Good book, it would have been better about 100 pages shorter. It kind of draaaaags with the same formula over and over again. Getting straight to the point would have made for a more dynamic read. I mean come on, the stories climax DID NOT have to be close to 80 pages long. One is not supposed to start skimming what is supposed to be the best part of the story. Too many ideas in the authors head. It seemed that he liked every one too much to widdle them down. That made for an over saturated ending that left me exhausted.

Jose Jones

Once you get by its stagnant opening, there's a lot to like.

Reviewed in the United States on 4 May 2006

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Though it has many flaws, "Grimm Memorials" has plenty for horror fans to love: it has loads of nasty violence and gore, its villain is remorselessly evil, it's creatively shocking at times, and once the story gets going it runs at an intense pace.

Taking fairy tales and nursery rhymes and exposing them for how ghastly and violent they are, "Grimm Memorials" tells the story of an evil old woman, who can control people's minds, who's collecting innocent little boys for a black-magic sacrifice to gain immortality.

The Nailer family, with its pregnant matriarch, who have just arrived in her small town and moved by her house (a creepy funeral home in the woods), are the final pieces that she needs to make the sacrifice work.

This book comes hyped as a gore-galore affair, and it mostly lives up to it. There are occasional scenes of stunning depravity (even a little bestiality). Gates does a really good job of picking up the pace after a slow opening and the novel starts to whip along, at its best, as Eleanor (the "witch") gets more frantic as she tries to put everything in place for the sacrifice. As she furiously sets everything in order, the violence spirals out of control and the bodies pile up. Eleanor's health is deteriorating and she has to hastily tie up loose ends. No one is immune from her brutality, and some characters meet abrupt, messy ends.

There are some miscalculations in this novel, too. Though I enjoyed it, I found the main conceit of the "witch," Eleanor, using fairy tales to entice children naively unrealistic. I seriously doubt modern kids know much about fairy tales, and I also doubt you could use them to lure them anywhere. (Eleanor isn't, after all, a real witch, and some of these scenes come off as silly.) Gates cheats a bit in irritating ways, too. Eleanor has grave health issues and has at least one heart attack during all this. She's so weak she can barely walk, yet she's constantly hauling around sacks of kids and at one point overpowers a terrified teenager, who from pure adrenaline would have broken her in half. This novel also teaches us this basic truth: if a dog "the size of a lion" is loose in a house you've entered unbidden and you see it eating human remains, don't ignore it and move on.

The other problem is the writing itself. I don't expect great prose from these types of books, but some of the writing is distractingly bad. Sentences are awkwardly constructed (too much information is jammed into them) and the characters are pretty shallow. The opening chapters focus too much on the young boy Jackie, who is whiny and annoying. I couldn't wait for the witch to turn him into stew. His parents and sister are much more interesting, and luckily they are the main subjects for the rest of the novel.

"Grimm Memorials" is far from perfect, but once you get into the meat (no pun intended) of the story, it really starts to pick up steam and charges ahead to its blood-soaked ending. It could have been even better with a little sharper editing, but I recommend it unreservedly to anyone who likes a little gore with their frights.

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