Robert Masello's 1987 dark mystical horror novel The Spirit Wood is sort of a summertime Shining with sexual overtones. I'm on page 266 out of 345 pages (about 80 pages to go), and evil appears to have won out: Diogenes, the golden retriever is missing, possibly murdered or worst; Peter Constantine's wife Meg is about to leave him to the ancient evils corrupting their recently inherited estate known as Arcadia, and she may even run off with Peter's best friend Byron; and since staying at Arcadia, Peter is having to shave (his beard) several times a day, and his ears are growing bigger (and more pointed) by the day, and he's got a newly acquired girlfriend, and an alcohol and drug habit.
Peter's mother Ellen Constantine warned her son about her father/his grandfather's corrupting influence. So when Alexander Constantine dies (i.e. is murdered by a hoofed animal on a pier at the start of the novel) and leaves nearly everything including his beloved estate Arcadia to his only grandson Peter, things maybe looking up for the struggling graduate student. A millionaire, at least on paper, Peter must sells Arcadia to pay inheritance taxes, but with what's left after taxes, he should be set for the remainder of his life. But that may not be long, since Peter has decided to spend the summer before the estate sale at Arcadia, with his wife Meg, and Peter's best friend Byron, and Byron's dog Diogenes a.k.a. Dodger. But evil forces are out to corrupt Peter in the form of: Niko, the estate's caretaker who gardens, makes his own wine, and attends to Fifi and Fritz, vicious guard dogs of the mastiff breed; Leah, Niko's daughter who does all the housework and cooking and goes on freezing-cold naked swims in the middle of the night; Angelos, who's not all there mentally, but carves wooden flutes for Peter and does all the grunt grounds-keeping work; and older rich neighbors such as the Simons and the Caswells, who earn money from publishing pornography, and who hold all night drinking and drug parties, and who were more involved with Alexander Constantine than they would like to admit.
Andrew Neiderman, one of my favorite authors, recommended Robert Masello in a front cover blurb on one of Mesello's other novels, and I'm glad he made the recommendation and I'm glad I took him up on his recommendation. Well I'm champing at the bit to wrap things up by reading those 80 remaining pages!
