Jerome Starkey has anger issues. His girlfriend thinks it’s because his mom died in a car accident before he got to know her. His best buddy thinks it’s because the popular kids can’t cut him a break. The bully thinks it’s because he’s such a loser. His dad thinks it’s because he’s a teenager. His step-mom thinks it’s because he doesn't respect her. His aunt… Well, she’s a New Ager with some straaange ideas. When his anger erupts, one night, causing the destruction of a simple dreamcatcher, Jerome begins to learn the truth. He’s got an angry side, all right, but it's a gift from a surrogate father Jerome never knew he had — Freddy Kreuger.
Krueger, you see, is nearly god-like in the Dreamlands, but he also suffers a god’s weakness. His power only lasts as long as people remember him. So he’s invested in a protégé. Krueger wants Jerome to be his instrument in the waking world, an acolyte to sacrifice fresh blood on the altar of a Dream King.
This novel, the third in Black Flame’s Nightmare on Elm Street series has some large shoes to fill. The previous novel (Christa Faust’s Dreamspawn) abandoned the film franchise’s cheesier aspects and constructed something new and interesting from the mythos.
Luckily for readers, Protégé is willing and able to perform the task. The characters are well drawn, the imagery is top notch and the emotional content is clearly executed. Stylistically, Protégé is as far from Dreamspawn as you can get. Where the previous novel’s prose was sanded to precision, this time we get lush descriptions and phantasmagorically realized dream sequences.
Waggoner is an excellent evoker of nightmarish terror, and his style is eminently readable. He uses the full emotional palate in this novel. This is where we find the novel’s most obvious trouble. The book tries to incorporate humor, and the result is uneven.
As the filmic franchise progressed through various sequels and spinoffs, Freddy Krueger increasingly became a parody, a jokester who would snap off one-liners before he came in for the kill. This is the character we find in Protégé. Not so much the mysterious murderer but the bantering butcher.
While I'm quite aware that humor can often intensify emotional situations, one must ask whether humor has been used effectively in Protégé. It's not an easy question to answer, as the issue is so damned subjective.
Overall, Freddy’s funnies did not work for me. A few of them are choice (a multi-headed dream creation composed of some of the novel’s rudest characters provides some grisly yet funny moments), but these are by no means the rule. Freddy’s jokes don’t bear enough barbs. They don’t contribute to the mood or atmosphere. Instead, they allow the reader an outlet, by interrupting the darkness with unnecessary breathing room.
This personal dislike aside, the book is still a good read. More than that, it asks interesting questions about anger and responsibility and attempts to offer truthful answers. What more can a novel do?
A Nightmare on Elm Street: Protégé by Tim Waggoner
416 pages
Black Flame
Released September 2005
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