Bentley Little is a top craftsman of the horror tale in long form. He has the ability, more unusual than you might think, to imagine 300 to 400 pages' worth of horrific incidents that add up to a long-lasting and powerfully unsettling mood. In The Store Little examines the steadily expanding influence, over all of us, of chain stores. Listen to what one character says: "A lot of these loonies ... are so worried about the federal government, and I never saw a government agency that worked worth a damn. These guys're so afraid of Big Brother and creeping totalitarianism, but our government's always seemed to me to be full of inept bunglers, not brilliant organized master planners. Hell, they couldn't even pull off a third-rate burglary. It's the corporations we have to worry about, I think. They're the ones with the money. They're the ones who can afford to hire the best and the brightest, to competently carry out their plans." The Store builds paranoia by starting with simple descriptions of the picturesque landscape and the deceptively banal Western town that is Juniper, Arizona. Then The Store arrives. The Store razes a lovely hill to build its huge parking lot. The Store offers well-paying jobs and an astonishing variety of consumer goods. The pattern of delight and worry in the citizens, as The Store spreads its tentacles into local concerns, is believable--disturbingly so. The Store seems like any other of the familiar chains that reproduce like rabbits, invade communities, wipe out small businesses, and turn unique localities into a generic America that looks just the same from Alaska to Florida.
But what exactly goes on, when Samantha and Shannon meet with their boss in the basement of The Store? And who are the Night Managers?
This is dystopia in microcosm. This is horror fiction at its subversive best. --Fiona Webster
Book Description
In a small Arizona town, a man counts his blessings: a loving wife, two teenage daughters, and a job that allows him to work at home. Then "The Store" announces plansto open a local outlet, which will surely finish off the small downtown shops. His concerns grow when "The Store's"builders ignore all the town's zoning laws during itsconstruction. Then dead animals are found on "The Store's" grounds. Inside, customers are hounded by obnoxious sales people, and strange products appear on the shelves. Before long the town's remaining small shop owners disappear, and "The Store" spreads its influence to the city council and the police force, taking over the town! It's up to one man to confront "The Store's" mysterious owner and to save his community, his family, and his life!
* Bentley Little is the author of The Mailman, The Ignored,Dominion, and University
* Stephen King praised both University and The Ignored
* Bentley Little's books appeal to the same readership asNew York Times bestselling authors Stephen King,Peter Straub, and Dean Koontz
* Bentley Little is a recipient of the Horror Writers Association'sBram Stoker Award
* We have much more coming from Bentley Little
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