Steel Ghosts

Michael Paine

Michael Paine is quite the enigma. He wrote three novels in the late eighties and early nineties (only one of which, Owl Light, I've been able to track down; a fine book it is, too), then dropped out of sight for almost fifteen years. Earlier this year, Paine showed up on bookshelves again with Steel Ghosts. And let me tell you, folks, it's been well worth the wait.

Steel Ghosts centers around Steadbridge, Pennsylvania, a dead steel town that just hasn't realized its demise. Its factory, Number Five, shut down ten years before, and there was a mass exodus of populace. The town now has a skeleton crew keeping it alive, and their main form of entertainment is drinking away their relief checks. Tom Kruvener, who grew up in Steadbridge, mentions offhand in a meeting at Overbrook, the firm he works for, that Number Five would probably make a great tax write-off if they bought it, demolished it, and put up a movie studio there. Despite having sworn to never set foot in Steadbridge again, he finds himself heading back to scout locations for a Z-grade horror flick (titled, amusingly, The Colors of Hell -- the name of one of Paine's older novels) at the behest of his superiors.

Steel Ghosts is your classic haunted-house tale, but it's far more than that, as well. Tom and his old friends Ruth and Bill spend a lot of time mulling over the old saw "you can't go home again," and Paine adds another layer to the discussion by not only having the town, but Tom's old friends, change remarkably in his absence as well. It's almost as if he's penned a coming-of-age tale where the actual coming-of-age took place offscreen, and the characters are musing on how and why it all happened. There's also a subtext about the death of the Pennsylvania steel industry.

All this, of course, plays second fiddle (as it well should) to the simple ghost story that overlies it all, and it is at the simple ghost story that Paine excels. Steel Ghosts is the kind of horror novel that you'll go back to years later because you still remember a random piece of scenery and feel the sudden need to re-read the book. I have little doubt that the second (and third, and fourth) time I read this, it'll be just as good. Welcome back, Mr. Paine, we have missed you.