And by poised I mean as a Tiger would poise, coiled in hiding, just before it leapt onto you in surprise. As unlikely as you can imagine for a first novel, his writing is poised and confident. In the age of TeeVee, Brett McBean writes in a very visual style and he admits to it. THE LAST MOTEL, nearly a story collection in chapter form, a la Bradbury, has each motel room pursuing its own self contained dynamic, independent of the others until the very force of the various characters and their conflicts cause them to touch, then collide into each other. Three different hotel rooms, and each one with their secrets.įour different sets of people who have done bad things, are about to converge with someone who is truly bad: the essence of evil.īrett McBean eschews a linear plot line for a novel of characterization.

Wayne knows how people are and what they see. Morrie and Judy fell into their own personal hell when, confronted with strangers, they didn't see two lost people trying to find a house, they saw intruders.Īs for Wayne, well, lets just say that Wayne is the kind of person who depends on people looking at him and thinking they are seeing something else. They thought they were just stealing a car and going on a joyride. Madge's first guests for the evening, Al and Eddy, found a nice car with an unlocked door. In THE LAST MOTEL, Brett McBean, sets up a tale where everyone's actions are dictated, and will be dictated, not by what they are seeing, but what they think they are seeing. You rely on your experience with people instead of dealing with who you are really seeing. The problem with experience is the preconceptions that come with it. Madge, the owner, has seen it all and then some. Then there are the people in Brett McBean's THE LAST MOTEL, who converge in the backwoods of Australia at an out of the way, nondescript, tiny motel.

As for the bad people? Good things are usually happening to them when they are happening to good people. It doesn't make sense, but most truly bad people are stupid or crazy or both. As if good people should be punished for their faults, while the bad person deserves to be the adjudicator. Which makes it all the odder that people who go out of their way to do bad things, even enjoy doing bad things, rationalize their actions against good people. Hell, everyone has secrets if they've lived any kind of life at all. They did something bad to deserve what they are getting. The truth about good people? They often think they've done something bad. Horror writer, Brett McBean has wrote such a story, and believe me when I say, this one is a skin crawler. Why do good things happen to bad people and bad things happen to good people?Īnd what happens when bad people happen to each other?

The Last Motel by Brett McBean