To wit, what appears to be the main plot of the book (at least at first) is the story of the titular slasher flick itself: despite a long history of tragedy and violence, Camp Goose Mountain (known to locals by a decidedly more lurid nickname) is all set to reopen for the summer with a new batch of teenage counsellors, including good girl Penny, her hard-partying BFF Rhonda, and dreamboat jock Terry. Danielewski’s House of Leaves, Camp Ghoul Mountain interweaves multiple independent narratives, each one taking place within its own separate, but not entirely self-contained, reality. Taking a footnote-flooded page out of Mark Z. Indeed, for genre fans with a taste for tongue-in-cheek metafiction, this may well be the first must-read small-press horror novel of 2019. The fact that it turns out to be something more complex elevates author Jonathan Raab’s latest work beyond what might appear at first glance to be just a gimmick. If Camp Ghoul Mountain Part VI: The Official Novelization presented “only” the narrative of a nonexistent slasher movie, that itself would be a hell of a hook.
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