The Shotgun Arcana by R.S Belcher: a review

I’ve started reading this book a few times, but always left it too late to finish. It’s a library find, as many of my recent finds have been. Often borrowing it when I was on break from university, meant that I had a limited time. I couldn’t just renew it when I’d soon be miles away in the middle of Wales. This Summer I was determined to get it read, no matter how I felt about it.

            Shotgun Arcana by R.S Belcher follows the residents of the town of Golgotha, Nevada in the mid to late 1800s. There are a few plot points as it follows many of Golgotha’s residents but there are two major plot points. The first is surrounding Malachi Bick, a fallen angel who runs Golgotha. There’s another angel using folk affected by a skull to go and kill Bick. The skull turns people to murder, and, in the first chapter, we find that the teeth of the skull have been scattered around. The people that find these teeth are in the opposing angel’s army. The other plot point is the investigation into a serial killer who is brutally murdering prostitutes and displaying them. The two do have overlap, and I am aware I’m not describing it all that well, but the plot is rather intricate.

            In the first chapter there’s a description of bodies piled up like firewood, and it’s haunting. The cause of death is bleak, and the book rarely takes a lighter turn. There are sweeter moments, but even they usually have undertones of danger or malice.

            One of my favourite things about this book is that it places the Gothic in the Wild West. I’ve seen Gothic features in many places, but never here, but it fits so well, likely because of the isolation.

            There’s a section early on beginning “he began to imagine” which, of course, leads the reader to do the same, and I really wish it wouldn’t because I don’t really enjoy the idea of my flesh being clawed at or bitten off. Throughout the book, Belcher excels at being truly grotesque. He knows exactly how to get your skin to crawl.

            The idea of monsters is so casually introduced, and I adore this; Chapter 2 opens with two of our protagonists, Jim and Mutt, giving chase to a strange, bat-like creature. The monster is not a surprise to these two deputies and it’s a great way to get the reader into the existence of monsters. It shows us that we should never be surprised by the existence of anything throughout.

            It’s not uncommon in Gothic works for creatures to have the feature of being not all there. You can see them, you know they’re there, but there’s something not quite right. Belcher does a brilliant job of describing this:

            “It’s hard to look at. […] Like it ain’t quite finished baking.”

I think this is a perfect way of describing a creature such as this.

            There are points in the book where I can praise Belcher for his natural speech patterns. In Gothic literature, this can be hard to come by, but he seems to do it really well at times. Though I know that later on this can deteriorate.

            His gruesome descriptions are so revolting. For the first victim of the serial killer, he gives us the most visceral description of how her intestines are strung up coming out from inside of her. It’s a reminder that the book isn’t exactly one for the squeamish. Belcher leaves little to the imagination, and, though horrifying it works really well.

            Another thing that Belcher does brilliantly throughout is fight scenes. The first that we get full description of is Maude’s fight with a cougar. It reads like a ballet, and is a genuine pleasure to read.

            Okay, so Belcher can do some brilliant descriptions, but isn’t great at describing women at all:

            “a striking woman, slender and tall […]”

So, we seem to be off to a good start here, this is a fairly standard description, but then we get to:

            “[…] but with a feminine form.”

I can only assume he means that she’s curvy. If so, I really can’t be sure as to why he didn’t just say that. Though, it isn’t just women (they do get the worst of his bad descriptions though) because apparently a man “wore” his handlebar moustache. I think he grew it, or just say he had it. I doubt that he’s wearing it. Maybe it’s a stick on one and he’s having to use it as a disguise. Many of Belcher’s descriptions are fantastic, but his descriptions of people are either like the above or painfully overused. They get tiring after a certain point, and unfortunately that point is rather early on in the novel.

            There is a gay couple in the book. Unsurprisingly there isn’t much mention of it, what with the relationship having to be kept secret. I was worried some harm would come to one or both of the couple because of their sexuality, but I’m glad to say nothing really happens. It’s quite nice really. There’s also an interracial couple; something nearly happens to one of them, but it’s resolved and good does come of it. This does remind me that there are racial slurs in the book. You are expected to hate every character that uses one, and they do get somewhat of a comeuppance later on.

            Until we get close to the end, there’s a lot of short chapters that are entirely there to let you know that these people will be important later in the novel. They are a page or two of description of one of the people in the army against Bick; they are a description of the person’s atrocities and that they have a tooth of the skull. They do get somewhat repetitive after a while, but they are useful.

            In the fight with Vellas (a member of the opposing army), we are reminded that Belcher is superb at writing fight scenes. This is a truly cinematic moment, and a real joy to read.

            I don’t want to spoil the scene in the barn at all. I feel that it’s something you have to read for yourself. It’s utterly grotesque, but not something that I want to spoil. It’s not just something to read, it’s something to experience.

            Almost every physical description involves a section about hair, and this would be fine if every time he didn’t choose to tell me what colour the hair is “shot through” with. He’s talking about the highlights, and these would be common if folk are spending a lot of time in the sun, but just once use the word highlights, it would be far more pleasing.

            Frankly, there are times where I’m not sure if this book had an editor. There are obvious punctuation errors throughout, and the serial comma is non-existent, and really should be.

            Though the Christian faith is the one that is most apparent throughout the book (Mormonism being the sect that has been chosen), there are other faiths that are recognised, and they all play amongst each other excellently. All faiths mentioned are shown to be real, and all myth is accurate in some form or another. There are Chinese people and Native Americans that have their faiths explored, and it’s enjoyable to see more than one faith explored while they work in harmony with one another.

            There’s a German character named Auggie. He generally speaks English with an occasional “ja” on the end of sentences. That’s all easy enough to read. However, sometimes he speaks German, and it isn’t always easy to gather what he’s saying through context clues. Google translate has been my friend throughout this book, and I do wish there was some kind of appendix just to help me along.

            I’m not going to lie, around the halfway point, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to continue with this book. It’s not that it’s bad, I just wasn’t being gripped by it. I’m glad that I borrowed it, because I feel like I might have been disappointed if I’d have bought it. I am glad that I stuck with it, though.

            So, earlier I said that the speech was natural up to a point. Just after the halfway point that begins to deteriorate. More accurately, the men seem to have fairly natural speech, but women have nothing close to natural speech. The best way to describe it is that they’re like Joss Whedon’s women. Occasionally, they’re badass and snarky, but it’s a ruse to lure you away from seeing that they’re all oddly similar.

            The more physical descriptions I saw, the more I was reminded of My Immortal. I’m generally not one to compare something to a text like that, but it was the only comparison I could make.

            I have a feeling that this may have been serialised before it was a novel. If not, I had been reading for about 250 pages (of a book of about 470), and yet Belcher somehow felt compelled to remind me that Gillian Proctor runs a boarding house, and that Constance Stapleton is Maude’s daughter. If it was a serialised piece at first, this would make sense, but in a novelised format it gets really irritating.

            I’ve never read a physical description of a kiss and not been a little bit grossed out. Give me an emotional description, it’s far more impactful.

            Mutt, the Native American deputy gets lynched. It’s an intense scene, but thankfully no harm comes to him. At some of the books least likeable characters get their comeuppance. I don’t mean worst in terms of how they’re written. They’re men, of course they’re well rounded, but they’re just morally terrible.

            “The woman swooned” because of course she did. If it were from the Nevada heat, maybe, just maybe I could forgive it, but I have never seen someone faint simply due to bad news.

            The revelation of the murderer was a genuine surprise. I hope that, if I were to read it again, I’d find clues all about the book about who the killer is. I don’t just mean that he isn’t at all a likeable character.

            While Auggie speaks English well, there are German characters that are awful caricatures. A note to all authors, do not write speech as if the character is speaking with an accent. I have so rarely seen it done well. It looks so much cleaner to write that they spoke in a German accent. It feels like John Cleese at times, rather than the authenticity that I imagine Belcher had hoped for.

            It takes a little too long for this book to get interesting. The first few chapters are amazing, but there’s a slump for an alarming amount of time until things pick up again.

            I have a pet peeve here in two parts:

1.  Omniscient narrators, as we have in this book, know exactly how long things take. There is no need to say “about” when talking about how long something takes. Give me an exact time.
2. He says, “about 10 minutes”, and I really don’t think that’s as short a time as he thinks it is. The characters are doing absolutely nothing. Set a timer, and do absolutely nothing for 10 minutes. Just sit there. Don’t even read a book, you have to do nothing at all. You quickly learn how long 10 minutes really is.

As genuinely horrifying Clay is as a character, his part in the final battle was one of the most enjoyable parts to read. As wonderful as Belcher’s fight scenes are to read, this was a real change up, and was rather refreshing. I especially love the paragraph that starts with the line about Occam’s Razor. I found genuine enjoyment that isn’t always so present in the book.

      My final thoughts on this book are that of confusion. It isn’t an outright terrible book, but I wasn’t always fully engaged with it. I think if I’d have spent money on this book, I’d be disappointed, but as a library find it wasn’t half bad. Maybe give it a go, if you can find it in the library, but I wouldn’t spend money on it.