The Doll Who Ate His Mother by Ramsey Campbell

Strong had the ability to exert his will over others, and used it to control and degrade anyone who came under his influence. ‘Sometimes, in its evolution, the Universe bears a mind that will grasp and wield its unity such a mind is mine.’ The ultimate source for the evil that’s in Christopher Kelly is the influence of John Strong, a man who believed that: It’s about the very human means by which monsters are not only made, but kept monstrous.

And although Kelly does some undeniably monstrous things, this is not, ultimately, a book about how a human being can be a monster. This being Campbell, the characters are drawn with too much subtlety to fit neatly into the usual horror categories of victims, heroes, and, even, monsters. I think the deliberately lurid title of Ramsey Campbell’s first novel (published in 1976 in the US, 1977 in the UK), is a sort of goad, a backhanded hint that you should look beyond the obviously sensationalistic aspects of the story. Hall recruits Clare and two other people who’ve suffered from Kelly’s crimes to hunt down this monster and bring him to justice. He believes the man who caused the accident and made off with Rob’s arm is a local boy he knew from school, Christopher Kelly, whom he once saw bite into a bully’s arm and refuse to let go, and whom he believes responsible for another local crime, in which a man entered an old woman’s house and ate her dog, causing her to die from a heart-attack.

The accident severs Rob’s arm, killing him, but when the emergency services arrive, they can’t find either the man who caused the accident or Rob’s arm… A few months later, Clare is contacted by Edmund Hall, author of such non-fiction crime books as Secrets of the Psychopaths, The Homicidal Heart, Love Has Many Weapons and Sinister Sirens. The Doll Who Ate His Mother, Millington Books HB, 1977ĭriving her brother Rob home one night, Clare Frayn is forced to swerve into a lamppost when a man suddenly appears in the road in front of her.

The Doll Who Ate His Mother by Ramsey Campbell