Review: "The Troop," by Nick Cutter

Nick Cutter's The Troop is the hybrid child of King and Golding. If Golding was still alive, I might have thought he and King had collaborated under a pseudonym to write this. The Troop brings together themes of boyhood, mental illness, the child/adult dichotomy, and morality among others. This novel is more creepy and gory than it is scary. Cutter examines what happens when a group of boys are left alone on an island (there is an adult Scoutmaster with them initially) and what happens to the group dynamic as their struggle to survive becomes more difficult. Toss in the mix a bio-engineered nightmare and you've got a psychological drama on your hands. What Nick Cutter gets right are the ways in which the boys interact - namely that at the heart of it, the boys are more likely to stick together than turn on one another. However, there is always that primal instinct, even in young boys, who when pressured will do just about anything to stay alive. The complexity of human morality is opened up and dissected (if you've read the book, that's a little pun for ya!). Cutter also looks at the youthful mind. We see little snippets of the pasts for each boy. Perhaps Shelley is the most troubled of them, we find out. Interestingly enough, I myself knew a boy who was troubled in similar ways to Shelley, which brought about a chilling nostalgia in my own reading experience. I was left wondering what became of that boy in my own childhood - eerily enough, that boy's name was Nick... What I enjoyed most was the way Cutter shows the dichotomy of children and adults and their completely different reactions to stimuli. He gets it right. Initially, when we learn that something very bad is going on, the Scoutmaster (adult) seems utterly clueless and woefully unprepared to deal with what is happening. In my opinion, adults are conditioned over the years to becoming more frightened than children, which often is to their own detriment. It is the children (all the boys) who are level headed, who bring a rationality to the situation. They have fewer experiences and therefore fewer conditioned obstacles in their way. It's no surprise, then, that the children outlast the Scoutmaster. The boys have a better grasp on the reality of the situation. They seem to know what is going on without truly knowing any evidence, and they resign to staying as level headed as possible under the circumstances. This book drew many similarities to various works by other authors. Probably the one that stood out most was its similarity to William Golding's The Lord of the Flies. Because, just like in Flies you are left with that stinging thought at the end: the adults come to the rescue in the end, but who will rescue the adults? The "horror" element of this novel shows itself in the creepier aspects of the tale, namely the form in which the bio-engineered nightmare appears throughout the novel. In this sense, the novel reminded me of the Stephen King novel, Dreamcatcher. Both involve a group of friends caught up in an unknown terror, surrounded by the military as the terror is contained. It is scary in that it shines light on the very real probability that this could/does happen. And of course, this book examines young boys, so there were shades of many of King's books, such as IT. For me, the saddest scene in the book involves the turtle. I won't tell you what happens, because I don't want to spoil it for you if you haven't read the book. Suffice it to say that there were tears shed. This is was separates first-rate fiction from second-rate fiction - the ability to play with a wide range of the readers' emotions. Cutter is a good writer, as well. His language felt very King-esque. There were, at times, far too many similes employed in the text. If I had one criticism, that would be it. It wasn't overbearing, but there were pages where simile followed simile and it became a bit distracting. The dialogue is very well done. In all, a good reading experience. I enjoyed this Cutter novel more than The Deep and I look forward to reading his latest novel Little Heaven. So, I'd recommend this book!