Loot time
Beutezeit (English original title: Off Season Unexpurgated ) is a novel by the American author Jack Ketchum . The horror novel was first published in 1980 in the United States in relation to the original document greatly shortened version, entitled Off Season , published in 1999, Ketchum's novel again in a revised and uncensored version in Germany in a translation from 2007 Friedrich Mader published and was reissued several times in the following years. The book is about a family group of cannibals hunting people on the east coast of Maine and the group attacking six young people who rented a vacation rental in the area near Dead River.
General and formal structure
The story portrayed in loot time is entirely fictional. The German edition of Beutezeit consists of three parts, each of which is divided into several chapters. Neither the parts nor the chapters have titles, but are structured according to time. Part 1 describes the events of September 12, 1981, Part 2 of September 13, 1981 and Part 3 of September 14, 1981. The entire story takes place accordingly in this period of three days. The chapters are overwritten with times. The entire book is reproduced from the position of a narrator, who has both insight into the concrete plot as well as into the thoughts and memories of the people. With a few exceptions, the entire story takes place in the vicinity of Dead River on the coast of Maine , the legend depicted in the story is set on the offshore island of Catbird Island .
The actual story is introduced by two quotations:
“My God, my God. Do I have to die like that? "
"Sodom and Gomorrah, they run the roadhouse"
The revised book is introduced with a dedication: My thanks to Doug and the two Daves (Hinchberger and Barnett) and to Neal for their great work in reviving this book. This is complemented by thanks to the writers Robert Bloch and Stephen King , who supported Ketchum as an author. This is followed by a foreword by Douglas E. Winter , who compares the present edition, published in the United States as Off Season Unexpurgated , with the originally published version and introduces Jack Ketchum as the author. The conclusion is an afterword by Jack Ketchum, which explains how the original shortened and heavily censored version was created and why he wrote the new version based on the original version.
action
The book is about a family group of cannibals who hunt people on the east coast of Maine. At the heart of the plot is the group's attack on six young people who have rented a vacation home in the area near Dead River. The plot consists of three threads: The first thread is about the attack by the cannibals on a young teacher who survived, and the subsequent police investigation. The second strand describes the activities of the young editor Carla, who has rented a house near the village, and her friends. The third line describes the activities of the cannibal group who live in a cave on the beach and start their forays from there. In addition, there are old legends of children who disappeared on the nearby island of Catbird Island and reports of past, unresolved incidents. All three strands and the legends are brought into contact with each other at different points in the novel and come together at the end.
Legends about Catbird Island
The history of the island is described in a book that Marjorie, Carla's sister, reads about Dead River and the offshore island of Catbird Island. In 1858 the coast of Maine and the island were hit by a strong storm that inundated the island with the exception of the Barnet Light. The family of the lighthouse keeper Daniel Cook stayed in the tower and stayed there for about ten days. After that, Cook and his son wanted to take the boat to the coast to fetch new provisions, but never arrived. His wife remained alone in the tower with their two daughters until almost a month later another boat docked and only the youngest daughter Libby was found alive. The mother had died the day before and the older sister Agnes was missing on the island.
In 1865, six years after the incident, the seven-year-old son of the lighthouse keeper Lowell S. Dow disappeared and was never found again; it was believed to have been washed into the sea. 27 years after that incident, Barnet Light was completely abandoned. In the area there was a legend that Agnes Cook survived on the island and got lost in the caves of the cliffs. She is said to have kidnapped the little boy six years later to find comfort in her loneliness. Both are said to live as ghosts on the island and at the abandoned lighthouse and serve as bogeymen with which the mothers of the area threaten their children.
Police investigation
The book begins on the night of September 12th with a group of feral children chasing a woman who can only escape by jumping off the cliff into the sea. In the afternoon of the day she was half frozen to death and was found eaten by lobsters in the sea, shortly afterwards her parked vehicle was discovered. Sheriff George Peters and his deputy Sam Shearing are put in charge of the case and begin the investigation, but they cannot interrogate the woman until the next evening. She tells them about the wild children and they draw parallels to several disappeared fishermen and young people and an observation of an old shell collector and drunkard who had already told them six months earlier about a group of neglected people on the beach. He is questioned again and tells them again about the group, also naming the specific stretch of beach where he had observed them. Peters and Shearing decide to search the area and find out if there actually is a group of people who are attacking and kidnapping others.
Carla and her friends
The editor Carla from New York has rented a holiday home in the Dead River area near the beach to relax and to work on a book in peace. She arrives at the house on the morning of September 12th and begins to set up and tidy up the apartment there, as she will be her sister Marjorie and her boyfriend Dan, her ex-boyfriend Nick and his new friend Laura and her current partner Jim for the next evening invited. Later in the early evening, when she was bringing wood for the fireplace into the apartment, she saw a man in a red shirt on the edge of the property, to whom she was waving and who was also looking and waving at her. After that, she goes back to the house to take a shower and prepare for sleep.
The following day, your guests set off from New York to Dead River and only really get to know each other on the journey. At a stop just before their target, Jim shows Nick a revolver, a .44 Magnum , that he took with him to practice some target practice in Maine. They arrive at the holiday home in the early evening and spend the evening eating, talking and playing cards before they split up into their rooms. While Dan and Marjorie as well as Jim and Carla are still having sex, Nick becomes jealous and blocks Laura, so they both go to sleep.
The life of the cannibals
The story of the cannibals also begins with the hunt for the woman who leaps from the cliff. She was hunted by the children of the group who were later punished by the adults for failing. After the robbery, the children search the woman's car and pick up a few things that they could use. The leader of the group, a young man wearing a red shirt, sees Carla on the veranda of her holiday home in the late afternoon and waves to her, later in the evening he watches her from the outside through the window as she goes to sleep prepared. The next evening, two women from the group observed the young people playing cards and told their leader and others in the cave that there are now six people in the house instead of just the woman.
The leader of the group remembers life on the island and also of his parents, who had given him a name but which he had forgotten; however, he remembers that his mother's name was Agnes and that his father used to go to the lighthouse at night. They had taught him and the other children to fish and hunt; later, however, they also hunted people to avoid starvation and took pleasure in the meat. After some men had searched the island with guns, the group fled to the mainland and looked for a new shelter. The cannibal group has since lived in a spacious cave in the cliffs on the beach, which can only be reached via a narrow and hidden entrance. You have set up there and created several storage areas for clothing, skins, bones and other items. In a room they prepare their supplies and use their hunted prey to make sausages and smoked meat, and the leftovers are used to make soups. When the two women return, another pregnant woman is processing the meat, pulp and fat of a young woman into sausages, while a young man lies in a cage hanging from the ceiling and has to watch his girlfriend being cut up . The leader and his brothers, a huge bald giant and a wiry little man, meanwhile, were preparing to attack the house in order to get more booty. In addition to the men and women, the group includes seven children, and the oldest girl is also pregnant.
The raid and the finale
The story escalates in the attack by the cannibal group on the young people in the holiday home. The attack begins after the cannibals surround the house and watch the people in the house for a while. They first attack Dan and Carla, who are in the middle of a sexual act; they tear Dan off Carla and cut his throat in the process, then they pull the screaming Carla through the smashed window outside to the fire and hang her upside down on a rope on a tree. Woken up by the screams, Nick storms into the room first and is knocked out, later Dan and Marjorie follow and come across Jim's body. Carla is slit open and gutted and then pushed onto a spit and roasted over a fire, later the cannibals get individual parts from her and eat them. During the next fight, which the young people wage out of the house, they can get the Magnum out of the car, but Dan is killed and chopped up and partly eaten raw. Nick and Marjorie manage to save themselves in the attic after killing some of the attackers, such as the younger wife and two children and shooting the giant brother of the leader. Laura remains paralyzed in the house and is dragged along by the cannibals. When the attackers work their way to the attic, the two try to escape through a narrow window, but Marjorie is surrounded after her jump and only Nick can escape to the roof unseen. He stays there until the horde leaves with the two women, and after a while he pursues them to save the women. He manages to see the leader who is looking for him on the beach and to follow him.
In the cave, Marjorie and Laura are locked in the cage with the young man. After observing two of the older children having sex, the leader's younger brother wants to rape one of the two women and takes Laura out of the cage. However, she immediately starts screaming. To force her to stop, he beats her and finally ties her up with duct tape, which at first makes her calm, but then struggles even more. He rams his knife into her back, then he takes a hatchet and cuts off her arms and legs - still alive - and cuts out her tongue. When Laura is dead, he also takes Marjorie out of the cage and wants to torture and rape her as well. She doesn't defend herself at first and he hits her face and body. Then she hits him in the face with her fist full of anger and strength, whereupon the people around laugh at the man. He pulls out his knife and cuts her forehead first, then opens her shirt and stabs the knife superficially in her stomach and cuts into her breasts. With the knife he forces her to put his penis in her mouth and "she did it to him as was expected of her - like a lover." When he gets an orgasm , she bites his penis full of force and tears him off, she spits out the stub. When he starts screaming, the leader comes running into the cave and attacks Marjorie. She collapses and the children attack her. Nick, who had followed the leader, shoots the leader in the chest, and the children flee to the back of the cave. The tall man Nick had already shot off the hand in the house comes up to him, using a human arm as a club, and Nick shoots him too. Then he is attacked by the children and women who bite into him and bring him to his knees. After he kills a particularly stubborn boy with the revolver, the other attackers withdraw and flee.
Shortly after the cannibals and Nick leave, the police who started their search for the group arrive at the house and come across the remains of the fight and the charred body of Carla over the fire, as well as the bodies of the cannibals. They order reinforcements and take up the pursuit when they arrive. When they are near the beach, they hear the screams and gunshots from the cave and push forward. They reach the cave after Nick shot the two men and was able to free himself from the other attackers. Already on the way into the cave they encounter the children and women who want to escape led by the pregnant woman and are attacked by them. Woman Shearing slits open the throat with a knife, one of the smaller girls jumps at the throat of a second policeman and tears it open with her teeth. Surprised by the attack, the police shoot all attackers and rush into the cave, where they also shoot all potential attackers - including the boy from the cage and Nick. Marjorie is the only survivor from the robbery and is eventually taken away by an ambulance.
Background and continuation
Origin and background
Off Season was the first novel by the American author Jack Ketchum and it was published in a significantly shortened and heavily censored version compared to the original manuscript. Jack Ketchum attributes this to the negotiating conditions with the original publisher Ballantine Books and the local publisher Marc Jaffe, who only wanted to publish the book under the condition of massive reworking. Ketchum agreed to this revision, but afterwards assessed it as too far-reaching. He threw the original manuscript in the trash so that it was no longer available for later revision. According to Ketchum, above all scenes that were viewed as particularly cruel or inhumane were removed, including descriptions of the preparation of human flesh (“In the Ballantine edition, you don't hear anything about what she will do tomorrow with the rest of her first, nameless sacrifice when she's done with the sausages. You won't learn anything about how to dehydrate human flesh. ”) and some details of the torture. The ending was also changed so that the main male character Nick is not shot by the sheriff at the end, as in the manuscript and in the later revised version, but survives seriously injured; contrary to Ketchum's ideas, a happy ending was expected, while for him the death of the man was decisive in the end. He was inspired for the book by the film The Night of the Living Dead by George A. Romero , other influences included Mountain Man by Vardis Fisher and recipes from survival guides that Ketchum had rewritten.
After Ketchum agreed to the cuts and the alternative ending, the book was published by Ballantine, although it was only advertised very little and quickly discontinued after criticism in the press. For a new edition in 1999, Ketchum reconstructed the original version, which he no longer had, and changed only a few details in order to publish a version that was suitable for him.
continuation
1991 appeared under the title Offspring , published in German as Beutegier , a continuation of the story. She describes how Sheriff George Peters is called in to the police investigation after eleven years of retirement when corpses reappear. Another sequel appeared in 2011 together with Lucky McKee under the title The Woman , published in German as Beuterausch . The book is about the last survivor of a cannibal tribe who, wounded, falls under the control of the tyrannical father Cleek and is supposed to be tamed by him.
reception
In Germany, the book was published by Heyne Verlag in October 2007 and was published five times by 2013, whereby it is marketed under the Heyne Hardcore label. The translation comes from the translator Friedrich Mader , who has also translated books by Stephen King , Meg Gardiner , Dan Simmons and numerous other American writers, among others . The book is advertised by the publisher with the following rating: “Jack Ketchum's brilliant debut novel has long been considered a classic of horror literature. His revealing look at the foundations of our society is a shocking comment on the question of where humanity and civilization end and the rule of unbridled brutality begins. ”This is complemented by a quote from Publishers Weekly :“ Ketchum's incredible power of speech and his deep and emotional insights give this novel its disturbing effect, which will haunt the reader for a long time. "
Also quoted on the back of the book are Robert Bloch ("One of the most terrifying books I have ever read.") And Stephen King ("America's most terrifying author").
expenditure
- Off Season , Ballantine Books, 1980
-
Off Season Unexpurgated , Overlook Connection Press, 1999
- German Beutezeit , Heyne Verlag, Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-453-67507-0
supporting documents
- ↑ Jack Ketchum: Beutezeit , 5th edition 2013; Cover sheet; P. 17 (unnumbered).
- ↑ Jack Ketchum: Beutezeit , 5th edition 2013; Cover sheet.
- ^ Douglas E. Winter: Foreword , In Jack Ketchum: Beutezeit , 5th edition 2013; Pp. 7-16.
- ↑ a b c Jack Ketchum: Afterword , In Jack Ketchum: Beutezeit , 5th edition 2013; Pp. 277-285.
- ↑ a b Jack Ketchum: Beutezeit , 5th edition 2013; Pp. 62-65.
- ↑ Greed for prey ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. at Heyne Hardcore; Retrieved October 18, 2015.
- ↑ Loot ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. at Heyne Hardcore; Retrieved October 18, 2015.
- ^ Profile Friedrich Mader at Heyne Hardcore; Retrieved October 18, 2015.
- ↑ a b prey hunt ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. at Heyne Hardcore; Retrieved October 18, 2015.
