Fiction Reviews
The Nameless
(1981/2024) Ramsey Campbell, Flame Tree Press, £9.95 / Can$19.95 / US$16.95, pbk, 247pp, ISBN 978-1-787-58767-0
As a tale of abduction, and a mother’s grief over her missing child, this is riveting reading. It is also a realistic look at mysterious religious cults (I know because I spent four and a half years in one myself in the 1980’s when this novel is set). Where it falls down is in the supernatural elements that seem intrusive and un-necessary add ons.
After a prologue, in which an American murderer meets a mysterious visitor before being executed for his crimes, the action shifts to London. Here, Barbara Waugh faces a nightmare all too real to many parents. Her four year-old daughter, Angela has been abducted.
Years after the investigations find nothing, Barbara receives phone calls from someone claiming to be Angela. The trail of clues leads to discovery of a cult that shuns publicity and has no official name (becoming the Nameless of the book’s title and there genuinely are nameless anonymous cults in society along with many that actively pursue public attention).
There are a few long sequences in which allies of Barbara’s visit properties linked to the cult or try to get recruited into it, only to get killed off. This builds up characters and plot-lines that are simply cut off abruptly without really going anywhere. It almost happens a third time when a third contact gets close to the sect but this time the story is allowed to progress onwards. Early on in the book, a self-appointed psychic investigator drops indications that later prove quite accurate, giving the impression that the psychic ought to be revisited as an ally (or betrayer), but she is simply never mentioned again.
Other characters have what seem to be important arcs that fizzle out too. Barbara reaches out to a traumatized ex-member of the cult who seems destined to do more later and briefly tries to, but this too goes nowhere.
London (and briefly Glasgow) are used extensively rather than Campbell’s frequently used stamping ground in his native Liverpool.
Even when paranormal activity kicks in, the story centres much more on mystery and tension than any true horror and it is all the better for that, though even the paranormal incidents are far from frightening.
Much that seems important, or foreshadowing, simply goes nowhere. Worse, the front cover gives clues to a plot twist element of the story too.
Many books and films about cults depict Satanists in cloaks and masks, sacrificing virgins on altars. Here, the anonymous, ever moving group, who are very hard to trace or get evidence about is much more credible. This is spoilt when Barbara ultimately only gets on their trail when media reports pop up to conveniently expose some of their activities late on in the work, rather than having her own investigations paying dividends.
Much of the story hinges on whether or not Angela Waugh is alive, dead, brainwashed, or trying to escape the clutches of the cult, and though emotionally concerned by those fears, Barbara seems less bothered by them as it looks as if she might finally get answers and closure. The finale goes more for spectacle than for the personal emotional reactions and feelings of the main protagonist as the strengths of the story fade away and it all fizzles out rather underwhelmingly.
Arthur Chappell
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