Review: Think Yourself Lucky

Think Yourself Lucky by Ramsey Campbell
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Review of THINK YOURSELF LUCKY by Ramsey Campbell

I think Ramsey Campbell is a genius. Not only a Grand Master of Horror and awarded the World Fantasy Award, the August Derleth Award, and many others, he is the only author I've read who manages to personify the Inanimate and invest it with life, emotions, thoughts--and make the reader believe. With any of his works, there is no suspension of disbelief needed; the reader believes, and believes innately, and continues to believe even after the last page is turned.

THINK YOURSELF LUCKY, his newest novel (November 2018 release), focuses on an unassuming young man in Liverpool, David Botham, the adult offspring of two very dedicated local social workers. David works in a travel agency, which really doesn't elicit either his passion nor his intellectual ability, and is in a relationship with a chef. His former girlfriend unfortunately is his usually critical work supervisor.

David, he will tell one and all, is NOT a writer. Not at all. But he is also unassuming and quite a bit a people-pleaser. Roped in unwillingly and unwittingly to a local writers' group, he firmly insists "I am not a writer." But when pressed by a published author, he tosses out a title ("Better Out Than In") and then rushes away. Later, the bookstore owner (odd man) who hosts the group tells David, "Someone's using your title." True enough, there's a new Blog with that title, and it's a scary one: all about how the narrator deals with people who annoy him (which are many in number). Soon the events (actual and in thought) reach closer and closer to David, until a watershed climax.

You won't be able to set this book down. It's a compelling, ultimately nightmarish, read about a man's control of his own mind and his own life.


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