Castles Burning -ebook

This is a Literary Work of Magical REalism

Castles Burning is a forty-four-page literary work of magical realism. Written in first person, this tale, if true, would be considered a memoir of Wil Warner, the son of Tom and Kat Warner. While there are some slightly horrific items in this story, it is mostly a story centered on family dysfunction. I would not classify it within the genre of horror myself. Mostly this is tale of an adult son coming to terms with the past and making the final cut of any ties still binding him to his mother. The final thing Kat Warner had to entice a reunion with her son was his father’s remains and the story begins as she lures Wil back to her prominent estate in hopes that he can collect his father’s ashes.

Though I had expected to be reading a work of horror, I knew almost immediately that I was reading a literary piece. There is difference in style, rhythm, and word choice than one would find in most mainstream novels where the literary leans more toward the poetic, and where word choice and sentence structures are as important, sometimes even more important, than the plot or point of telling the story. If I can liken the mainstream novel writer to classic rock, the literary writer would probably liken themselves to opera. These are, generally speaking, different camps of consumers. I would not have purchased this book had I known it was a literary work of fiction. I am story driven and, while the words flowed beautifully, there is not enough of a story here for my tastes. This book is for fans of the more literary works of fiction who will find Keith McCoy to be a very talented writer indeed.

Castles Burning

In Castles Burning (Champagne, 2014) by Keith Wayne McCoy, a son is confronted with horrors he thought he’d escaped when he left home years before. Wil Warner returns home when he receives an imperious summons from his mother.

As a child, he had been manipulated by and pulled between both his parents. His mother, a narcissistic woman obsessed with possessions and maintaining the family’s prominent position at the top of local society, believes that everything and everyone has a price. To prove her point, she bought her husband, Wil’s father. Wil learned early from his father, a handsome man who had worked for the family, that the price of being bought was obedience to the whims of the one who pays the bills, his wife and Wil’s mother.

When his mother tried to exert the same control over Wil after he returned from college for a visit with his girlfriend, he rejected her attempts to control him and walked out of her life—until the summons arrived. Wil arrives home to realize that he must deal with his mother who has fallen into the depths of mental illness.

McCoy’s Castles Burning is a great read that examines how mental illness affects individuals and families, especially when the mental illness leads to horrific acts that defy belief. Castles Burning also addresses Wil Warner’s personal growth as he must deal with the mother who dominated him in his youth with her selfishness and meanness, which devolved into insanity.