Soon

August 26, 2019
The residents of a tiny, isolated town in the Australian outback are haunted by a malevolent force in this wonderfully taut novel, which is laced from start to finish with creeping dread. Every evening as the sun sets, the streets of Nebulah fill with a strange mist that swirls with terrible visions of the dead and dying. Only locked doors and windows keep the mist at bay until dawn comes—and those who linger outside are murdered, their bodies never found, their forms added to the specters in the mist come dark the next day. Aging former cop Pete is one of the last stubborn holdouts in what has become a ghost town, with most residents either disappeared into the mist or fled to safer climes. Despite strict habits of vigilance—being indoors by dark, locking doors and windows, and clustering together at night—the survivors’ numbers are rapidly whittled down by suicide, surrender, and slip-ups until only Pete and his closest friend, retired schoolteacher Milly, remain. Murphy deploys sharp, fluent prose and a skillful command of atmospheric terror to tell a story that gets at the heart of real horror: the very human emotions of regret, loneliness, despair, yearning for home, and having nowhere to go. Readers who appreciate subtle horror grounded in human failings will appreciate the buildup and maintenance of tension through this book, as well as the fateful ending, which successfully drives home that same vulnerable humanity.

July 27, 2017
Five four-wheel drives with tinted windows roll slowly, mysteriously, through a small Australian town during a winter solstice. Their purpose is unknown, their arrival an ominous portent. When they depart, just as inexplicably, the birds disappear and a malevolent evening mist descends on the town each night. A handful of locals, led by ex-policeman Pete, either can’t or won’t leave the only place they call home, and so they stay to face the mist. Loosely based on the true story of the asbestos town, Wittenoom, and written with a poet’s instinct for language, Lois Murphy has created a unique, haunting and atmospheric tale in her debut novel. The ‘soon’ of the title sets the tone of the book, and each page drips with foreboding. Her characters are the kinds of people you might meet in any small Australian town: battling to survive and wilful in the face of change, as their home becomes a ghost town. While Soon draws on genre tropes (from crime and horror in particular), the story focuses on the human relationships in the face of adversity rather than the strange happenings themselves. It will appeal to readers who like their literary fiction with a dash of the mysterious and strange. Deborah Crabtree is a Melbourne-based writer and bookseller