Creature by John Saul

The small mountain town of Silverdale Colorado is perfect. A company town with perfect weather, perfect neighborly citizens, and the perfect high school with a perfect football team. It is to this perfect town, run by the corporate tech giant, Tarrentech, that the family of 16-year-old Mark Tanner moves; a promotion for his father and a chance to start again for Mark. Little does he know that such perfection comes at a cost. Due to a childhood sickness, Mark is now a short, skinny kid who avoids sports in favor of more scholarly pursuits but when faced with continual bullying from school, friends, and even his own dad, it becomes harder and harder to resist what the town, and the high school sports clinic has to offer.

I’ve tried two John Saul novels before and thought them “OK” but not particularly brag-worthy. But several of my reading friends have been urging me not to give up on him and so I dug this one out of my vast home library of unread books and gave him another try. Happily, I can report that this one surprised me quite nicely, keeping me engaged throughout with good narrative story-building. The character of Mark, especially, was well done and I think I will remember him for a long time to come. It’s not fine literature by any means but that's not what I was looking for when I picked it up to read.

Published in 1989, the plot of this novel makes full use of the dangers and fears of anabolic steroid abuse, vitamin enhancing therapies, etc. of the time. The novel takes things to extremes, of course, in order to create a truly horrifying story but just as in most good horror, it is the nature of humans and how we treat each other that is the real horror occurring.