{"id":12708,"date":"2022-03-14T09:52:37","date_gmt":"2022-03-14T15:52:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theprairiesbookreview.com\/?p=12708"},"modified":"2022-04-01T12:19:25","modified_gmt":"2022-04-01T18:19:25","slug":"pool-man-a-nightmare-in-riverton-novel-by-dan-mcdowell","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theprairiesbookreview.com\/?p=12708","title":{"rendered":"Pool Man (A Nightmare in Riverton Novel) by Dan McDowell"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A gripping, philosophical horror thriller\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Survival, grief, familial conflict, and the quest for self-identity are given a dark and fantastical treatment in McDowell\u2019s latest thriller, the third in the A Nightmare in Riverton. 1991. Greg Preakle, who is known as the \u201cPool Man,\u201d has always worked at the swimming pool at The Oak Hollow Hotel, years before it came under the hotel\u2019s management. When a body is found floating in the pool, the new management decides to shut it down, robbing Greg of his job and livelihood. Desperate to make ends meet, he accepts the obnoxious John Fatts\u2019s job offer at Riverton high, unaware of the strange turn of the fate, which will unravel long-buried secrets of the past, upturning his earlier notions about family and friendship. McDowell delivers a moving and engaging portrait of the complexities of familial love and takes readers to the boundaries between innocence and immortality and self-preservation and sacrifice. The narrative, which alternates between the past and the present timelines, uncovers Greg\u2019s backstory, uniting it with the strange happenings in his present. McDowell deftly handles the complications of the intertwined storylines: Greg\u2019s emerging peril in the present, the devastatingly tragic past marked by sad memories and trauma of death, and another thread of what actually links Greg\u2019s present to his past. Well-developed, authentic characters abound, but it\u2019s Greg who shines all the way through. Sensitive and curious, he is shaped by his family conflicts and tragedies\u2014his father\u2019s impossible expectations, his brother\u2019s tragic fate, and his mother\u2019s inability to get over Denny\u2019s untimely death\u2014the insidiousness of all of which the story fully explores. A slowly unwinding tale about life, death, secrets, and betrayals, the story seems pretty straightforward at first. But as the narrative progresses forward, readers will find themselves questioning what is fact and what is fiction and rooting for cheering Greg as he journeys in the new, strange world of Riverton High. McDowell\u2019s rich landscape incorporates dark fiction\u2019s traditional tropes (the grisly TV show games, John\u2019s strange addictions, the secrets lurking on the school grounds among others impart an air of grimness to the story) while providing him with room to create a poignant story emphasizing the intricacies of familial bonds, mental illness, expectations, life purpose, grief, pain, regret, and redemption. Suspenseful, and at times chilling, this dark thriller with a touch of otherworldly will keep readers on the edges of their seats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pool Man<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

(A Nightmare in Riverton Novel)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dan McDowell<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Author website<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Coming soon<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A gripping, philosophical horror thriller\u2026 Survival, grief, familial conflict, and the quest for self-identity are given a dark and fantastical treatment in McDowell\u2019s latest thriller, the third in the A Nightmare in Riverton. 1991. Greg Preakle, who is known as the \u201cPool Man,\u201d has always worked at the swimming pool at The Oak Hollow Hotel, years before it came under the hotel\u2019s management. When a body is found floating in the pool, the new management […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":145610851,"featured_media":12711,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_seo_schema_type":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_wpcom_ai_launchpad_first_post":false,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"{title}\n\n{excerpt}\n\n{url}","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[],"tags":[38100332,24777292,7223,726,91,3328,178,1252,1136176,54306025,1473,1008073,856121,309,349],"class_list":["post-12708","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-amreading","tag-amwriting","tag-author","tag-authors","tag-blogging","tag-book-reviews","tag-books","tag-horror","tag-indie-books","tag-indieauthor","tag-reading","tag-review-blog","tag-review-website","tag-reviews","tag-writing"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pajKJn-3iY","amp_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/theprairiesbookreview.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/pool-man.png?fit=1950%2C2850&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theprairiesbookreview.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12708","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theprairiesbookreview.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theprairiesbookreview.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theprairiesbookreview.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/145610851"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theprairiesbookreview.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12708"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/theprairiesbookreview.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12708\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12915,"href":"https:\/\/theprairiesbookreview.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12708\/revisions\/12915"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theprairiesbookreview.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/12711"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theprairiesbookreview.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12708"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theprairiesbookreview.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12708"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theprairiesbookreview.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12708"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}