[Book Review] Run — Blake Crouch
When The World Wants You Dead, You… Run!
Blake Crouch’s re-released debut novel Run combines the very human savagery of The Purge, with the hectic horror of 28 Days Later, testing the resolve of one family against the worst elements of nature, and the capacity of human violence!
Having read his recent works, Recursion, Upgrade, and Dark Matter, I was intrigued to find a new review copy by Blake Crouch in my ARC rotation, and quickly grabbed it, thinking it was a new novel. Part of me felt bamboozled when I discovered this was a re-issue of one of his earliest novels. Changing gears, this was a good exercise in observing the path of growth of the author, by going back to the beginning!
Blake Crouch has always toyed with intriguing concepts in his sci-fi novels, but he made his start in the spookier side of the horror-thriller genre. Run is a post-apocalyptic survival horror novel following one family’s harrowing struggle to survive a world infected with homicidal mania, thereby showing the true power of the human spirit contrasted with the very worst that mankind has to offer.
Unfortunately, Run felt rough around the edges and highlighted Crouch’s earlier beginnings before he got into his own. The novel, being marketed as hectic survival horror, failed to capture the hectic aspect of the pitch, owing to the author’s uneven pacing, always maintaining more distance between our protagonists and the horrors of the world being inflicted upon them.
Crouch spends an inordinate amount of time putting the family against the forces of nature, in seemingly scenic locations from the wide open arid spaces of New Mexico to the frozen climes of Colorado, as the family miraculously makes their way through the breadth of the country in hopes of escaping the plague of violence. The backdrop made large swathes of Run feel more like a showcase of Americana, rather than being another malicious force against which the family has to test their mettle. In regards to the location, Run is found wanting.
The horror is presented to us in the form of an “unexplained” reason that has driven major portions of humanity wild with bloodlust and rage, inflicting sadistic ultraviolence on those unaffected by their condition. Crouch tries to impress upon us the visceral nature of the horrific side of humanity as our protagonists have run-ins with marauders, raiders, and all kinds of frankly, generic baddies. Perhaps, this is an artifact of us consumers being inured to these tapestries of violence, with universes like The Walking Dead and The Last of Us, both of which do significantly better jobs of creating bleak yet terrifying set pieces. By contrast, even the most harrowing parts of Run largely failed to inspire the adrenaline rush that would keep a reader invested in horror in prose.
Much of the horror also feels subdued by the fact that our leads are hyper-competent protagonists, with adamantium plot armor. Our lead protagonist, Jack is a paragon of calm-under-terror, showcasing survival and combat skills that make no sense against his own character brief. Brushing off serious bullet and blade injuries throughout the book, he also shrugs off the psychological malaise that would have made Run a much deeper read in more profound hands. His wife, Dee, a smidge less technically competent, is yet another powerful archetype of skill under fire, taking away more of the dread the reader would feel as they follow more “normal” people put in these horrific situations. Their interpersonal conflict felt incredibly hamfisted and caused more eye-rolls than added to their character dynamics. Throw in two generic children with bog-standard personalities for their character briefs, and you have a tired trope of a family in survival horror.
Crouch really throws every survival horror cliche at us, with moustache-twirling opportunists, to cult-like religious settlements, coming off more as a list of plot checkpoints that our protagonists are pulled towards, yielding a rather anemic product.
Run fails to incite horror by having uneven pacing, and unbelievably competent protagonists, set against horror set-pieces that are cliched creating very little sense of terror, either psychological or physical. Crouch proves yet again that he is among the better authors when it comes to writing a concept brief but continues to fumble while executing his own ideas.
