Day 21 of Blogtober, and let’s look at another book I’ve had on my shelf forever and was only recently motivated to go back and read!

Obviously, I’m a big fan of Ramsey Campbell’s work, and I endeavor to read his books as soon as they come out. But he is incredibly prolific, and I often miss books when they first appear, and sometimes I end up picking one up but end up distracted by other things and don’t get back to reading it till long after.

Such is the case with Campbell’s The Kind Folk, which was first published in 2012, and was his follow up to the 2011 novel Ghosts Know, which has become one of my favorites of his.

First of all, check out that cover: this is the PS Publishing hardbound edition of the book, which came out in 2012. The image is remarkably freaky and unsettling, and the distorted hand gestures are the sort of thing that only Campbell could imagine. (They play a significant role in the novel itself, as a symbol of the titular Kind Folk; it is a sign that actual humans cannot do.) The PS Publishing edition contains no book description, leaving one to figure out for oneself what exactly the story is about, and that’s for the best — learning what is going on is part of the fun.

With that in mind, I’ll give a very brief summary of the book, leaving out as much detail as I can. Luke Arnold has a life that only seems to be getting better, as he is a successful stand-up and impressions comedian, his wife is a musician whose songs are getting national attention, and they have a child on the way. But he agrees to go on the Jack Britton’s television show, one of those domestic conflict talk shows, to settle an outstanding suspicion of Luke’s father: is Luke’s uncle Terence in fact Luke’s real father? Terence has always shown an extreme interest in Luke’s upbringing, which made Luke’s father Maurice suspicious. In front of a live audience and television cameras, Britton reveals the results of DNA testing: Terence isn’t Luke’s father. But neither is Maurice.

This leads Luke to investigate his true parentage, which guides him towards ancient secrets and beings that have long had an interest, and a resentment, towards humanity. The deeper Luke digs, the more those beings make themselves known to him, and he soon realizes that not only is his life at risk, but also that of his unborn child. Can he find a way to make a deal with the Kind Folk before he loses everything?

The Kind Folk is an interesting departure for Campbell stylistically in a number of ways. One major way is that the supernatural threat is not inspired by cosmic, unfathomable horror, but by the folklore of Great Britain. Campbell takes traditional stories and gives them a much darker spin and interpretation.

One other thing that struck me as a departure in the novel is the status of the protagonist. In many of Campbell’s novels (like Ghosts Know), the main character rapidly watches their life fall apart as the threats against them escalate, and their professional and personal relationships shatter. In The Kind Folk, Luke and his wife Sophie maintain a decent connection through most of the book, and their careers remain largely intact. The danger to them is almost entirely external. I don’t have anything particularly profound to say about this, but it stood out to me as a departure from a lot of Campbell’s novels.

Another difference is the reaction of the protagonist. In most of Campbell’s stories, the main character does everything he or she can to avoid the horrors that await them — understandably, once you get a taste of the type of horrors that Campbell can imagine. In The Kind Folk, however, Luke starts actively seeking out the Kind Folk, even provoking them, in order to draw them out to stop them from hurting his unborn child. It makes for a very interesting change of pace for a horror novel, and a noticeably different tone from a lot of Campbell’s other books.

The Kind Folk was released in a new edition by Tor Books in 2016, but the cover is quite lacking in comparison with the original edition:

I do wonder if Tor Books told Campbell, “look, that artwork by Erika Steiskal is a little too freaky; it’s gonna scare people away!”

I greatly enjoyed reading The Kind Folk, and was really engaged in the story and learning what would happen to Luke, Sophie, and their child. I wouldn’t count it among my favorite of his books, but it is an interesting change of pace from the author and is overall a fascinating and creepy novel.