This is a weird, unsavory, nasty horror novel from the late 1970s. It takes place in a small town in Alabama in the mid 1960s. The town is home to a munitions plants turned rifle factory, that supplies jobs for most of the citizens and rifles for the local army base, getting newly drafted soldiers ready to go to Vietnam. During a rifle practice session, a local boy is using one of those rifles when it misfires, explodes and horrifically injured him, destroying his face and large parts of his brain. He is brought home to his mother’s house, where his wife lives rent free (something that the mother reminds her of constantly).
After his return home, his friends from around town show up to pay respect. One, a foreman at the factory who we find out was unable to give him a job and keep him out of the war, is given an amulet by the mother. Weirded out he accepts, giving it to his wife. We are treated to a gruesome scene in which the wife puts on the amulet and proceeds to set fire to their house, killing the couple and their five children. The novel goes on from here slowly getting the amulet to others around the town who start dying in gruesome ways.
We spend the bulk of the rest switching off from these scenes to the wife/daughter in law who starts to put it together.
So like I said this novel is pretty gruesome, and ultimately pretty bad. It’s overtly ridiculous at times, but does a few things well. This town is fully rendered in a lot of interesting ways. It also discusses race in a way that white writers don’t do a very good job today doing. It was an interesting find, even if I didn’t think it was great.
(Photo: https://www.amazon.com/Amulet-Michael-McDowell/dp/1939140455/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1572818179&sr=1-1)