Scarecrow Gods

It’s rare to find a first novel with the depth, clarity, and complexity Weston Ochse’s Scarecrow Gods. The author seems to have dragged his characters form his own Land of Inside Out, kicking and screaming. Crazy men who speak in palindromes, anagrams, and metaphors while running to escape their past. An Alexian monk without faith who can’t help getting fired from each new task, but still wants to do combat with demons. Boys being boys and the horrors of lands far away and days gone to dust dredged up to hound and confront everyone involved.

There is some pretty graphic description in the pages of Scarecrow Gods, but it’s necessary. To evoke the emotions the reader will need to care about the likes of Maxon Phinxs is a difficult proposal. They don’t call him “The Maggot Man” for nothing. Maxon has his own problems to deal with, starting with a fear of crosses and horrible memories of being tortured in Vietnam, and ending with … well, you’ll see.

This is a fast-paced novel. The characters are detailed and complicated, but you don’t get drowned in the world of one before you are drawn into the next, and then back.

When Maxon meets Danny, a young boy whose family is being torn apart by rumors of incest and the loss of his sister, the pace quickens. In the west, John the New Baptist has formed his cult. Brother Simon has confronted demons. Billy Bones has babbled his way into the desert to clothe the Scarecrow Gods in finery.

There are hints of the metaphysical, the spiritual, and the just plain weird woven together in the pages of Scarecrow Gods with such subtlety that you believe you’ve heard such things before, and might have believed them at some point, or planned to study them in the future. Was it Carlos Castanedas, or the priest you knew as a boy? Maybe it was Tom Cruise on some talk show, but probably not. You find yourself staring at grains of rice until your head throbs. You wonder what it would be like to fly as a crow, or run as a dog and everything becomes an issue of faith.

The novel is not without its rough spots, but they are easily overcome by the intensity of the plot. If this elegant, creative novel is the harbinger of what is to come, we’ll be seeing a lot more of Weston Ochse in the future, and in ever widening circles. This novel is highly recommended.

This book was originally published in limited and deluxe HC by Delirium books, but thankfully for readers everywhere, it will be released again later this year as a trade paperback, also from delirium. I will link from the cover art, as always, when the book is ready for pre-order.

–DNW