Mr. Shivers is a little hard to classify. It starts out as a dark, gritty novel set during the Great Depression, but then it twists and turns into something more along the lines of supernatural horror. The story follows Connelly as he makes his away across the broken, dusty landscape of the Midwest in the wake of the scarred murderer known to many as Mr. Shivers. Revenge is the only thing that motivates Connelly, and the longer he stays in Shivers' wake, the more he and his vagabond companions change.
The characters all take to the road after their loved ones are murdered by the scarred man, each one wanting to exact their revenge. While a tale of revenge set in a bleak time certainly has emotional resonance, some of the supporting characters failed to make an impact on me. Connelly meets two different groups of tramps during his travels, but they all kind of blend together. They all have lost someone to Shivers, but the real emotional impact of their losses doesn't come through the page. Monk and Roonie are two supporting characters, but even after just finishing Mr. Shivers, I can't tell you anything about them other than their names. They might as well not have been in the book.
However, the core group that surrounds Connelly is a little more fleshed out. There's Roosevelt--okay I really don't remember much about how he's first described--Pike, a former man of the cloth, and Hammond, the Jew. It's kind of strange. The characters make a big deal about Hammond's religion, which makes sense given the time period, but then that aspect gets dropped later on, even when they are introduced to new characters.
While some reviewers complained about the stiltedness of the dialogue, I have to disagree. Like the drought-plagued landscape, the dialogue in Mr. Shivers is just as cracked and sparse. I remember only a handful of instances where there were extended speeches. It makes sense. As they spend more time on the road and riding the rails, the more focused the characters become on killing Mr. Shivers. They wouldn't need to babble back and forth to each other. Personally, I also loved the novel's descriptions when describing the landscape and the hardships of the Great Depression. There was a harsh beauty in them that captured the "feel" the novel was going for perfectly.
Despite the fact that the book kept me reading late into the night, I was never truly surprised by the plot. I predicted both of the twists, but that's not a bad thing. Even if you figured out what's going to happen, it's still entertaining to see how the author will make your predictions come to pass. Bennett does a skillful job in wrapping everything up.
While I wasn't expecting the turn for the supernatural Mr. Shivers takes towards the latter half, I wasn't disappointed. Both what the Mr. Shivers is and what it could have been--had it stuck toward the more grounded mass murderer stalking the vagrant camps--have their own merits. Some reviewers complained about the direction the novel took. I'm not one of them. Who are they to say that it would've been better had it stuck closer to reality? If you're looking for a creepy, suspenseful novel about hobo murderers and the hopelessness of the Great Depression, then look no further than Mr. Shivers. Even if you're not looking for a novel about hobos and scarred maniacs, then look no further than Mr. Shivers.
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