By Jim Mcleod 
Imposter Syndrome by Mark Allan Gunnells
Slashic Horror Press; 282 Pages; Available to buy September 15
A Horror Book Review by Damascus Mincemeyer
We all harbour doubts. Those niggling voices in our head that tell us we’re not as smart or attractive or popular as we’d like to think we are. That we are, somehow, imposters in our own lives. In psychiatry, the term ‘imposter syndrome’ describes individuals who experience chronic, often crippling, self-doubt. Sufferers develop a delusion that their accomplishments—particularly their professional ones—aren’t as accomplished as they believe them to be, despite all evidence to the contrary. These people feel that, no matter how skilled or talented they are, the recognition they’ve already rightly earned isn’t warranted, and fear others may expose them for the frauds they believe themselves to be.
As it so often does, the horror genre excels at exploiting such inner anxieties by manifesting them into external reality. There’s a long history in both genre literature and film of otherworldly imposters that trades on our collective paranoia that those we love most dearly might not recognize us, from the pod people doppelgängers of Invasion of the Body Snatchers and the replicating extraterrestrial menace of John Carpenter’s The Thing, to the pen-name-come-to-life terror of Stephen King’s The Dark Half. It’s a familiar, deep-rooted dread, and one that lies at the heart of author Mark Allan Gunnells’ upcoming (available September 15) Slashic Horror Press novel, Imposter Syndrome.
Maverick ‘Rick’ Justice is the middle-aged son of internationally renown bestselling author Bentley Justice, whose Senior & Junior Adventures paranormal Young Adult novels have achieved unprecedented success and earned a slavishly devoted fanbase. When Bentley dies unexpectedly of a heart attack with a partially finished manuscript for a new installment of the father-and-son supernatural series on his computer, Rick, a teacher and former writer of mass-market horror fiction under the pseudonym Rick Henry, is tapped by Doubleday in the spring of 2020 to finish the book despite the fact that Bentley once very publicly proclaimed disdain for his son’s writing.
Living in his late father’s small suburban house just as the burgeoning Covid pandemic locks the world down, Rick’s life quickly begins to spiral out of control once he settles in to write the book. Troubled by the specter of his own failed writing career and overwhelmed by the daunting prospect of upholding Bentley’s literary legacy, Rick gives in to his self-destructive tendencies and allows his previously-restrained alcoholism to reemerge unchecked.
Unhappy with the lackluster plot left behind in Bentley’s notes, Rick plans to rewrite the book’s narrative to reflect his own gay lifestyle that his father frowned upon. While his editor approves of the proposed changes, Rick discovers that someone—or something—seems dead set against the book’s new direction and has unleashed its wrath upon him, deleting the newly-written chapters from his computer, dumping Rick’s HIV medication into the trash, destroying copies of his old horror novels.
Rick initially thinks the occurrences are the result of an intruder, but after he sees Bentley’s shadowy shape lurking in the bedroom, he comes to believe his father’s disgruntled spirit has returned to prevent him from completing the novel. But are the happenings truly a haunting, or symptoms of Rick’s increasingly fragile mental state?
As he has with his previous horror works 324 Abercorn, 2B, Before He Wakes and Lucid, Gunnells never shies away from challenging his audience’s expectations regarding character, setting, and plot. Imposter Syndrome abounds with themes concerning identity, responsibility, self-acceptance and, ultimately, forgiveness, and the author’s penchant for crafting realistic, complex, yet deeply flawed figures is as on-point as ever.
This complexity is seen most notably in the novel’s protagonist; Rick makes for a sympathetic lead, and in flashbacks we see just how the harsh familial relationship with Bentley continually corroded his self-worth, but he uses the trauma of his father’s emotional and mental abuse as an excuse for his own sometimes selfish, cowardly, lazy behavior, placing blame on Bentley for his life’s repeated downturns rather than on himself.
In a clever turn, Gunnells makes Bentley a strong secondary character even though he died before the novel’s onset, and metafictional parallels can be seen between the characters of Bentley’s Senior & Junior series and his own condescending treatment of Rick throughout the years. But even here Gunnells asserts that people aren’t one-note stereotypes; Bentley may be an awful example of a cold, neglectful parent, but glimmers of a caring attitude towards Rick exist that elevate what could have been a cliché into someone more thoroughly three-dimensional.
Gunnells has long proven himself an unrivaled maestro when it comes to fostering dread, and that talent carries through in Imposter Syndrome. While it could be argued that placing the narrative so firmly in the Covid pandemic lockdown may be too close within recent historical context for comfort, like Stephen King did with Jack Torrance in The Shining, Gunnells masterfully uses Rick’s isolation to heighten the ever-growing tension. By keeping the story confined to one tiny location, a stifling claustrophobia sets in, and as the paranormal activity ramps up, Rick’s desperation to ward off his father’s malevolent presence becomes fervently palpable.
With a heady, page-turning climax that leaves no doubt as to the nature of Rick’s haunting, Imposter Syndrome closes on a pleasingly ambiguous note that brings the novel’s events full circle and proves Gunnells’ point that nobody, regardless of their actions, is beyond redemption. Coupled with its deep-rooted character study and slow-burning mystery, this is one book sure to keep readers guessing until the very end, and it’s for that reason that I’m compelled to grant it the full 5 (Out of 5) on my Fang Scale. One thing’s for sure: Gunnells is certainly no imposter when it comes to creating frightful horror novels.
Imposter Syndrome by Mark Allan Gunnells
Maverick Justice is haunted…metaphorically.
Haunted by the memory of a famous father who never believed in him.
Haunted by the failed writing career he left in his past.
Haunted by crippling self-doubt.
When he is handed the opportunity to finish his late father’s final manuscript, he believes he may be able to get his life back on track. Instead, isolated alone during the height of the COVID pandemic, he finds himself being literally haunted by the ghost of his father who doesn’t seem to want him to finish the book.
Can he thwart the spirit’s wishes and push through to a brighter future, or will he succumb to the dark forces enveloping him?
Horror Book Reviews on Ginger Nuts of Horror
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