A tale about finding love through pain, and kindness through cruelty, CHERUB is quite an incredible bizarro read. The book was surprisingly deep with a heartbreaking tone of sadness. The cruelty in this book really could have been done not only sloppy but carelessly without giving any substance to the characters. Hayes, has definitely written these characters with a lot of heart or lack their of for the more horrific sorry excuses for humans.
I was super hesitant about this book. I was pretty positive I was going to be put off by the character of Cherub and even the synopsis kind of put me off. I was sure there was going to be large amounts of violent, vile rape and more than likely a dash of incest. So it begs to be answered, why would I pick this book up for review in the first place? I like to broaden my tastes when it comes to reviews. I may not like the content but I can still review a book positively based on the author’s plot and overall concept and delivery. So I decided to grab a book that I was sure i wouldn’t be able to get through but at the same time wanted to test my own boundaries. What I read in CHERUB not only shocked me but made me feel all the feels. David Hayes gives you a terrifying look at human nature at it’s absolute darkest, most vile state where you are not only disgusted but touched by the cruelty in a way where you, as on reviewer had put it, walk away seriously affected. You are not likely to forget the people in this book and the trials and tribulations they are put through.
CHERUB opens up with a very difficult very painful birth of Marie Richmond’s baby boy. Having just barely surviving the birth, Marie attempts to shelter the beast of a child from society and as he grows bigger and bigger the only thing she can think of to keep her boy safe is to confine him to shackles in the basement of their home. When Marie doesn’t make her usual stop at the market for her special occasion card which always sported a chubby winged cherub, red flags begin to rise in the small town. After complaints of a foul smell coming from her home, officers are dispatched out to the house and what they find will forever be burned into their minds.
The giant man child was found sobbing, naked and frightened with the corpse of his mother who had taken a fall. Due to no longer having a care taker, he had to resort to eating her and the pile of excrement was unsightly as it was unbearable to smell. So pathetic this creature appeared to be, that it brought the responding officer to tears. He would have wept harder for the beast had he known what laid ahead for him.
With no one to take care of him and no other name to go by than Cherub, the simpleton along with his only possessions being the cherub cards given to him by his Momma, are sent away to be looked after at Blessed Arms Sanitarium. The sanitarium is far from blessed and the mortality rate is high among it’s inhabitants. However, there is a glimmer of hope for the place when young enthusiastic Dr. Godfrey comes onto the scene with plans to turn everything around and make Blessed Arms a place where all get the care they deserve. Well sadly, this screws with nurse Angie Fletcher’s dreams of running the place under her cruel dictatorship of using the mentally disabled patients as sweatshop workers for her meth smuggling operation. She is one of the most deplorable examples of the human race and her manipulative self righteous attitude gives her the unjustified entitlement of power over Cherub once she realizes she can use him as muscle to take Dr. Godfrey down and claim her throne at Blessed Arms.
The way Angie goes about befriending Cherub, reminded me a lot of the opening in The World According to Garp, when Jenny lays with the brain damaged soldier in order to have a child. Angie’s intentions towards Cherub is to gain his trust while using that trust to destroy anyone in her path. The best way to do this is to make him believe Dr. Godfrey, and anyone else who may be in her way, is a bad bad person bent on hurting Angie and the other patients. She convinces Cherub that Godfrey has forced himself upon her and hurt her. Before she can be sure that Cherub will do as she says, she sets the janitor up for his demise when she runs in the room screaming Javier had hurt her. Cherub immediately comes to her rescue and crushes the poor man to death. Feeling satisfied that she now has the loyalty of her dimwitted patient, Angie decides to reward Cherub with a blow job that brings the most epic (albeit super gross) ejaculation from a human penis. Doing this seals the deal that Cherub will annihilate the doctor and remove him from messing up Angie’s plans. The blow job description made me cringe, but I was still happy for the big guy considering he really truly does think he is doing good things despite knowing he’s hurting people. The emotion that conflicts Cherub is sad makes you hate Angie even more.
Worse than Angie, is fucking Clint! That goddamn piece of shit is absolutely the worst! He’s there to help Angie with her meth operation and to bang all the retarded pussy he can imagine which just that is horrifically ghastly. So Clint is basically Angie’s little bitch but thinks he’s the big man on campus cause he does whatever the pleasure fuck he wants. He enrages me, more so recently, because I have been watching a lot of Willowbrook Asylum documentaries, and Hayes really honestly is not too far off on how mentally ill people are or rather were treated at a time when they were cast away and hidden from society. The treatment Clint and the other orderlys inflict on the patients there is very reminiscent of that time.
So now that the good Doctor is dead, the board has allowed her to take over the directorship of Blessed Arms and she has staffed the place with scum like Clint and basically any other second rate goonie that’ll take a paycheck and look the other way. Cherub is told to do more bad things to good people under the manipulation of Angie who just wants to be rid of those who cross her path. This brings Cherub to moments of sadness for hurting others but wanting to protect Angie, who he does genuinely feel is only trying to help him and in return, he must do the same. As long as he has his cards from Momma, Cherub will be alright, but what conscious he does have keeps him aware that something isn’t right about these killings. With the introduction of a very intriguing new patient, Cherub finds that he can find love without pain but that only lasts as long as Angie allows.
Vena, is much like Cherub in size and mentality. The poor dear has only known abuse and keeps her head down as much as possible to not draw attention to herself. But it’s her similarities and kindhearted nature that draws Cherub straight to her and they instantly become what can only be described as soul mates. Vena explains to Cherub that it is Angie who is bad, and that he can not continue to be bad, that he must do good and stand up to Angie. Well we all know at this point that Angie isn’t going to let Cherub go so easily so she has Clint kidnap the two tortured lovers and makes Cherub watch as he sexually abuses Vena and then does something that made me livid and on the verge of angry tears (read it, you have no soul if you have no reaction. So thanks Hayes, you basically evoked every emotion appropriate for this scene…good on you Hayes, well played). Cherub has not only been beaten and traumatized but he has lost his only love outside of his mother and that is a mind shattering event to have happen to even the most intelligent of people. What he lacks in intelligence, he makes up for in is unconditional simple way of loving and wanting to do good and BE good. (Ugh, I’m hating on Angie so hard right now in my head!!)
Once the initial agony and sorrow of watching his love die subsides, all that is left is a burning hatred for the staff of Blessed Arms and the other patients feel this shift in power too. What ensues is a bloody battle ground of destruction and no part of the staff is safe from Cherub’s vengeance.
His final stand off against Angie brought me to tears and I hate David Hayes for that. I was seriously invested in the character of Cherub and the books final blow to him is quite moving. I loved the character development and insight into all of their actions. Most of them are part of the staff and are just god awful humans, but Hayes does five them substance past the abuse and that to me is great writing. I have yet to be disappointed with anything David Hayes has written but I think this is the first book I’ve read that was just him and not a collaboration. I am impressed.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: DAVID HAYES:
David C. Hayes is an author, performer and filmmaker that also teaches these subjects at the university level. His films, like A Man Called Nereus, Dark Places and The Frankenstein Syndrome (and approximately 70 more) can be seen worldwide. He is the author of several novels, collections and graphic novels including Cherub, Cannibal Fat Camp, Pegged, American Guignol, Scorn and Muddled Mind: The Complete Works of Ed Wood, Jr. As a playwright, David’s full‐length and one‐act plays have been produced from coast to coast with a run Off‐Broadway for the comedy Swamp Ho and sell‐out performances in Phoenix for Dial P for Peanuts (winning a 2011 Ethingtony for Best Show). He is a voting member of The Dramatist’s Guild and the Horror Writers Association.
