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PLOT: When 17 year old new kid Matt Poe tries to fit in to his fresh Iowan surroundings, a salacious lust-affair with his predatory teacher throws him into a tailspin of lies, mistrust, deceit and ultimately irrevocable violence.

REVIEW: Eric Red, the brilliant brain-trust behind such genre untouchables as THE HITCHER, NEAR DARK, COHEN & TATE and more, turns his talent to the long-form medium with his debut novel DON’T STAND SO CLOSE. And boy am I glad he did! Truthfully, in terms of content, I had no idea what to was in store when I peeled the cover back, but suffice it to say the bar of expectation was high. Gratefully, I was treated to a carnally charged, wildly unforeseen and addictive page-turner about a teenager’s torrid affair with his dangerously perverted new English teacher. Equal parts humorous, sordidly sexy and ever suspenseful, DON’T STAND SO CLOSE is a must read for not just horny teens, but for aficionados of well written horror fiction as well!

Matt Poe, a 17 year old paragon of California studliness, would seem to have a lot to complain about when he and his hip teacher mother Ruth are relocated to the sticks of Iowa. Being the new kid is never easy, but for Matt, it doesn’t take too long to acclimate. Instantly drawn to Linda Hayden, the stunning sexpot of an English teacher, the kind every boy fantasizes about, Matt also takes a shine to pariah Rusty Shaw, as well as a cute as a button good-girl Grace McCormick, whose father happens to be the small-town sheriff. A triangulation of trust and ultimate mistrust is formed between the three kids, the wildcard being Ms. Hayden’s prurient and predatory nature. Her dastardly deeds cause a rift not only in Matt’s personal life, but his relationship to his new friends as well. Bodies converge, bodies fall, and Matt’s life will forever be changed.

What I loved most about DON’T STAND SO CLOSE is how unpredictable it proved to be. As a seasoned screenwriter, Red knows how to play with conventions, to craft a setup and ultimately pull the foundation out from under your feet. To keep you guessing. Here he delved headlong into the teen genre, but TWILIGHT this ain’t…in fact if it were a film, it’d be an R-rated effort steeped in blood pools, sweat stains and semen streaks. Basically, a movie I’d love to see! The subversion of the genre is exemplified by how well written the prose are and how deftly the misdirection pays off. In other words, just because it’s about high-schoolers, its level of writing isn’t necessarily catered to such a crowd. It’s smarter than that. I mean, it’s easy to think you know where the story is going because, through preconceived notions of the Y.A. novel, they’re rarely anything but by the numbers. Red says f– all that and constantly subverts expectation.

To this end, I really dug the ending of the book as well. I won’t spoil too much, but again, the resolution (if you can call it that) is anything but expected. It’s the kind of ending that would likely be changed by a–h– suits after a test-screening of the movie adaptation, to give you an idea of what I mean. It’s daring and untidy, which is perhaps why Red chose to tell the story on paper rather than screen (although if successful, I’m sure he’d be happy to adapt his own script). And by untidy I mean that as a compliment, as it strays from the pat, formulaic dross we’ve come to know with this particular material…no pretty bows atop the wrapping. It’s not tragically dour or a depressing turn off, or anything like that. That said, the unanticipated ended is consistent with many facets of the story, in specific the sultry sex scenes. Red not only has startling bouts of character seduction, he too seduces us with surprise, which keeps the tension tight and the outcomes, the finale included, steadily fresh.

The other thing that struck me in the book is how well the imagination mixed with the characterization. Coming from film, a show me not tell me medium, the visualization Red’s prose, the attention to detail, really vivify the story. Obviously with more pages to work with than a screenplay, enough time and room is taken to not only paint a well defined world, but to flesh out the characters as well. The characters aren’t one-dimensional, they have enough room to breathe, find conflict, make mistakes, redeem them, etc. Basically, it’s the best of both worlds, a visual centric script with the deep motivated arcs of a novel, which I found quite compelling. I don’t know, I usually find too much explication in a novel, so I’m glad this one towed the right balance of show and tell, if that makes any sense.

Summarily, I enjoyed the hell out of DON’T STAND SO CLOSE. It’s a visceral, tawdry, unpredictable blend of suspenseful horror and incendiary erotica. Not only will you be unable to guess what comes from one page to the next, you’ll find yourself heavily immersed in a well drawn world with deeply defined characters you’ll come to know and love, in some cases downright loathe. Mad props to Mr. Red for expanding his writing acumen to a new platform, stepping up, swinging for the fences and knocking the shite out of the park.

Don’t Stand So Close
Eric Red
Short, Scary Tales Publications
Trade Paperback, 2012, $14.95, 277pp
Review by Wayne C. Rogers

Have you ever had a crush on your junior high school teacher, or a high school teacher, or even a professor in college? This question is directed as much to the ladies as to the men. I know I did when growing up. My first crush goes as far back as the sixth grade when I had a total crush on the teacher in the next room. I couldn’t get my mind off of her. I even used to ride my bicycle past her house on occasion. Today, that would be called stalking.

In college, I had a hot obsession with my psychology professor, who also taught German. I took German so I could be close to her and ended up barely passing the course. It screwed up my GPA. Needless to say, I didn’t sign up for German 102, no matter how beautiful the blond professor was. Ah, the good old days of youth and sexual obsession. Yes, sexual obsession because that’s exactly what it was.

Well, Don’t Stand So Close by Eric Red raises it up a notch and increases the stakes as this dark novel delves into obsession, perverted sex, and murder in the first degree.

This is definitely my kind of story.

The story centers on seventeen-year-old Matt Poe, who has just moved from California to a small town in Iowa, and it’s not near Field of Dreams, either. Matt’s mother is a teacher, and this is where her new job has taken her. I come from a southern town where everybody knows you and your business. I therefore understood the culture shock Matt goes through at being the new kid on the block in a small mid-western community. Since Matt is a good-looking California teenager, it isn’t long before he makes friends with Rusty and Grace. Rusty is a strange kid, who stays by himself, but is smart with a high IQ. Grace is also smart, a cheerleader, the girlfriend of the football captain, and the daughter of the local sheriff. Matt, however, only eyes for his teacher, Linda Hayden. Naturally, she’s older, great looking, sexual in every sense of the word, and seems to have an eye for the new kid in school.

It isn’t long before Ms. Hayden offers to tutor Matt after school, and it isn’t long before one thing leads to another and the two are doing the hanky-panky. In fact, Matt quickly becomes obsessed with the teacher and the hot sex they have. Things, however, aren’t what they seem. Within a short span of time, other kids start dying in ways which seem like accidents but aren’t. Matt soon grows leery of Ms. Hayden, especially when he finds himself developing feelings for Grace in an unexpected way.

The teacher is certainly steadfast in what she wants. She refuses to let Matt go. You see Ms. Hayden has plans for Matt … plans that will destroy his life in ways he could never dream or suspect. Ms. Hayden is a sexual predator of the worse kind and Matt isn’t her first victim. What started out as a fantasy fulfilled quickly turns into a nightmare that simply won’t end.

As the old saying goes, “Be careful what you wish for. You might get it.”

Eric Red, the author, is generally known for his screenplay writing and directing. He wrote the great cult films The Hitcher (1986) and Near Dark (1987) and Blue Steel (1989), plus the revised version of The Hitcher (2007) with two other screenwriters. Though he’s also written a number of short stories in the suspense genre, Don’t Stand So Close is his first novel. My only question is what took him so long to finally write a book?

Mr. Red is clearly a very talented author who sees descriptive imagery with the eyes of a screenwriter and director. He captures everything perfectly in his novel from the personalities of the characters, the hunger a student has for his teacher, the atmosphere of small-town life, and the edge-of-your-seat suspense that keeps you wondering what will happen next. I not only hope Don’t Stand So Close won’t be Eric Red’s only novel, but that it will be turned into a feature film in the near future. Though this actress is older than I imagined Linda Hayden to be, I kept seeing her face in the role of the teacher – Lena Olin. She would be the perfect Linda Hayden.

All in all, Don’t Stand So Close was a pleasant surprise I greatly enjoyed. I’m now happy my sexual fantasy about my college professor remained a fantasy and nothing else. This novel does for high school students what the movie, Fatal Attraction, did for married men back during the late eighties. Keep the fantasy in your mind and your zipper pulled up no matter how strong the allure.

That’s how you stay sane and alive.

Review at: http://bit.ly/Qy5q24

It can be also be ordered on amazon.com or directly from the publisher at: http://bit.ly/N44EmO

Follow the link:

http://sstpublications.co.uk/dontstandsoclose/

Now available on amazon.

http://amzn.to/LllkK0

Here’s the link to the hard cover edition available for pre order now on Amazon. If you like my films, you’ll really enjoy the book.

http://amzn.to/KYUicx

Follow the link:

http://www.joblo.com/horror-movies/news/happy-halloween-first-issue-of-eric-reds-twitch-do-not-disturb

To order, follow the link:

http://www.shroudmagazine.com/shroud-magazine-issue-11-sprin112011.html