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stephen_arvidson's review
4.0
“Scully, I think that the good people of Dudley have been eating…a lot more than chicken” – Mulder (p.100).
Our Town, which is a young-adult novelization of The X-Files episode of same name, is set in Dudley Arkansas—home of the far-famed Chaco Chicken processing plant—where FBI Agents Mulder and Scully have arrived to investigate the disappearance of a federal poultry inspector. The case takes a dark turn when another poultry worker is shot dead after becoming violently psychotic, giving Mulder a hunch that the good townsfolk of Dudley really are what they eat.
Despite being written for a juvenile audience, Our Town is surprisingly creepy and very entertaining. The story possesses some Twin Peaks-esque undercurrents as the FBI explores the dark secrets of a small town. Both the local sheriff and the chicken magnate are fascinating characters that help shape the reader’s impressions of this small hamlet and its traditional (or rotisserie-style) values. Given the dark nature of the story’s local populace, Our Town could be read as a subversive twist on the nostalgia of the American small town. After all, most Americans live in larger cities or suburbs and they observe small towns only in passing; this makes it easy to flirt with the idea of small-town life and turn the assumption of small-town community on its head. Our Town isn’t the only X-Files installment to do such a thing (see “Red Museum,” “Humbug,” and “Roadrunners”), but it’s definitely the best example of this theme.
The plot combines a multitude of interesting strands—a rare degenerative brain disease (“Paging Dr. House!”), some very real chicken processing methods, some less than real ones, beheadings, cannibalism, and eternal youth. The story clever extends these ideas to illustrate the consequences of meddling with nature—in typical X-Files fashion, of course—by having the sinister townsfolk contract the same fatal hereditary disease as a direct result of their cannibalistic practices.
Despite some noticeable plot-holes, Our Town is nevertheless a wonderfully stomach-churning romp.
Our Town, which is a young-adult novelization of The X-Files episode of same name, is set in Dudley Arkansas—home of the far-famed Chaco Chicken processing plant—where FBI Agents Mulder and Scully have arrived to investigate the disappearance of a federal poultry inspector. The case takes a dark turn when another poultry worker is shot dead after becoming violently psychotic, giving Mulder a hunch that the good townsfolk of Dudley really are what they eat.
Despite being written for a juvenile audience, Our Town is surprisingly creepy and very entertaining. The story possesses some Twin Peaks-esque undercurrents as the FBI explores the dark secrets of a small town. Both the local sheriff and the chicken magnate are fascinating characters that help shape the reader’s impressions of this small hamlet and its traditional (or rotisserie-style) values. Given the dark nature of the story’s local populace, Our Town could be read as a subversive twist on the nostalgia of the American small town. After all, most Americans live in larger cities or suburbs and they observe small towns only in passing; this makes it easy to flirt with the idea of small-town life and turn the assumption of small-town community on its head. Our Town isn’t the only X-Files installment to do such a thing (see “Red Museum,” “Humbug,” and “Roadrunners”), but it’s definitely the best example of this theme.
The plot combines a multitude of interesting strands—a rare degenerative brain disease (“Paging Dr. House!”), some very real chicken processing methods, some less than real ones, beheadings, cannibalism, and eternal youth. The story clever extends these ideas to illustrate the consequences of meddling with nature—in typical X-Files fashion, of course—by having the sinister townsfolk contract the same fatal hereditary disease as a direct result of their cannibalistic practices.
Despite some noticeable plot-holes, Our Town is nevertheless a wonderfully stomach-churning romp.
wyrmbergmalcolm's review
3.0
A direct novelisation of the TV episode of the same name, this book competently chronicles the events from the show. Nothing more, nothing less.
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