Del Rey: February 2002
Cemetery Dance (2000)
REVIEW
Booklist, Feb 1, 2002
Shirley's well-turned apocalyptic tale, redolent with the terror of inexplicable carnage, is two novels in one: a first-person account of an initial advent of demons in everyday reality, followed by the story of their later return. Ira, narrator of the first, plays a significant role in the second, and Shirley links the two episodes nearly seamlessly. Ira reports a world gone mad with demonic possession, its people clinging to normality for dear life. After discovering the horrible truth behind the invasion, a group of the spiritually "awake," the Circle, sends the demons back where they came from. Proving that people don't learn from experience, nine years later the invasion is dismissed as a mass hallucination, and a group of industrialists become bent on bringing the demons back. Shirley plays well with the old themes of universal consciousness and spiritual enlightenment as well as the darkness and light in the human psyche. His brand of horror mixes the blatant--corporeal demons--and the subtle to disclose the merely human capacity for atrocity. YA/L: Well done horror with lots of soul-searching. -- Regina Schroeder
