Beware of The Roo...

Reviewing The Roo by Alan Baxter

Let's get this blog started with something rather playful, namely the wonderfully silly and gory creature feature The Roo by Australian author Alan Baxter. It doesn't take the math patrol to see that this one is no literary masterpiece that belongs on every school's reading list, neither is it intellectually exacting horror that will broaden your horizons... But who cares?

The Roo is thoroughly silly, pure splatter fun with the brilliant premise of a kangaroo running riot in the Australian outback, murdering humans in inventive ways an actual kangaroo would never even be able to think of... mainly because they are herbivores and generally gentle creatures. And that's a good thing, because you'd never want to be slapped to death with the dismembered arms of your dead wife or be ripped in two halves by the claw of a hopping roo... Which by the way, in the foreword Baxter suggests you google before reading. I did and I can confirm that a kangaroo foot is not a nice sight.

In said foreword, entitled "A Killer Kangaroo Story? Are You Serious, Baxter?" the writer also tells the story of how The Roo came to be, and of course it was because of a joke on twitter. And it is a joke within the joke that everybody in on this joke is a character in this book. So if you read a sentence like

'Someone is violently attacking people in this town,' Kealan Burke said.

and subsequently think "Wait a minute, but my favorite horror author is called Kealan Burke too", it most probably is the very same person and that's not due to lack of inventiveness on Alan Baxter's part. I personally was flummoxed to discover one of my favorite reviewers, Sadie Hartmann, is a character in this book.

Come to think of it, it's not very fair of me to claim this book doesn't broaden your horizons, especially taking into consideration that there is a whole glossary in the back for those readers who haven't yet had the pleasure of being introduced to the more cruder side of Australian English. When you are done reading this book, you will be able to effortlessly insert sassy sayings into your everyday speech such as "a few sangers short of a picnic", "rough as a mile of country road" or the less charming "as useless as tits on a bull".

Despite all its playfulness, The Roo increasingly emphasizes and ends on a dead serious note (excuse my pun). Dispersed between frequent Winchester-moments* there are some serious social commentaries on Australia's dying farm business, alcoholism as well as particularly and blatantly domestic violence connected to the mystery of the murderous kangaroo.

And unveiling that mystery, dear horror reader, is what you need to do, if my review ever caught your attention. As I said, it has a silly premise, has a group of horror authors trying to fight a monster and I'm pretty sure no animals were harmed during the making of this book either, so hope you enjoy it!

*For those who haven't yet watched the 2004 horror comedy "Shaun of the Dead", a Winchester-moment is basically a moment in a horror story where the characters meet and wait in a pub (i.e. the Winchester), either to prepare to face the monster/danger, or sit the whole thing out or only plot to do so. A typical Winchester-sentence from The Roo would be: 'Get to the pub!' Pat yelled from the ute tray. 'Meet at the pub!'. Interestingly enough, a big part of The Roo is set in a pub. So much so that Shaun and Ed's plan could be easily transferred to this story: "take ute, drive over to the neighbors in excruciating heat, take care of the 7 feet tall "fucken" roo, save neighbor, go to the pub, have a nice cold pint and wait for all this to blow over." Unfortunately the characters in neither "Shaun" nor "Roo" get to peacefully sit the situation out. But then again, we wouldn't be interested in their stories if they had, would we?