Curse the Names

By Robert Arellano

One of Deckled Edge Books's "5 Books With Diverse Perspectives You Can Read Today"

"In this unsettling mix of noir and paranormal obsession . . . Arellano displays a sly, Hitchcockian touch."
--Publishers Weekly

"Arellano pulls off the not-inconsiderable feat of making the disintegration of his hero more compelling than the end of the world as we know it."
--Kirkus Reviews

". . . [N]othing in New Mexico has ever been more secret than Los Alamos, the Atomic City, where a diverse group of geniuses built the first atomic bombs and changed the face of the world forever. That’s the setting and premise for this excellent novel by Cuban-American Robert Arellano. Disaster is about to happen and one man can avert it . . . maybe."
--Globe and Mail (Canada)

"Arellano's taut prose [is] a trip into the mind of a man on the edge of delirium, piecing together a puzzle at the expense of his marriage and his sanity."
--AARP

"Arellano writes with pure movement and action . . . Curse the Names does exactly what Hitchcock and The Twilight Zone did so well. It takes the ordinary, the benign and relatable and turns it into a fast-paced romp with unexpected events and realizations at every turn. Don’t be surprised if you start this book and don’t look up again until you’re finished. Though its release has come at the doorstep of 2012, Arellano has definitely earned a late addition to my best books of 2011."
--Ryan W. Bradley, The Nervous Breakdown

"Readers, fasten your seat belts for this one. Arellano’s novel is a dizzying Thompsonian concoction of noir crime thriller and alternately nightmarish and comic surreal psychodrama, spiced up with a heaping handful of local northern New Mexico flavor."
--Albuquerque Journal

"The nightmare intensity to Arellano's prose gets under your skin. You won't want to turn the lights out after reading it."
--Charles Ardai, Edgar Award winner

High on a mesa in the mountains of New Mexico, a small town hides a dreadful secret. On a morning very soon there will be an accident that triggers a terrible chain reaction, and the world we know will be wiped out.

James Oberhelm, a reporter at Los Alamos National Laboratory, already sees the devastation, like the skin torn off a moment that is yet to be. He believes he can prevent an apocalypse, but first James must escape the devices of a sensuous young blood tech, a lecherous old hippie, a predator in a waking nightmare, and a forsaken adobe house high away in the Sangre de Cristo mountains whose dark history entwines them all.

A massive bomb is ticking beneath the sands of the Southwest, and time is running out to send a warning. James has to find a way to pass along the message--even if it ruins him.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Akashic Books
• Release date: Dec 27, 2011
• ISBN: 9781617751097

Robert Arellano

Robert Arellano is the award-winning author of six previous novels including Curse the Names, Fast Eddie, King of the Bees, and Don Dimaio of La Plata. His nonfiction title Friki: Rock and Rebellion in the Cuban Revolution, will be released in 2018. He lives in Oregon. Havana Libre is the standalone sequel to his Edgar-nominated Havana Lunar.

Reviews for Curse the Names

[ajbraithwaite_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I don't know if 'pre-Apocalyptic' is a genre yet, but that's where this book seems to sit. I thought it was brilliant: a disturbing and dark tale of a man's disintegration in the hot summer glare of Los Alamos.

[lpg3d · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

"Your name is on that wall, man. That's all there is to it. You go there, you start having fucked-up nightmares, and then bad shit starts happening to you and everyone around you." Curse the Names by Robert Arellano is an excellent thriller/mystery about an ordinary guy who just might be able to prevent a catastrophe. Too bad he'll have to lose everything he cares about in the process. This is a very hard book to put down once you get started. Excellent creepy atmosphere, and a great mystery wrapped up in a thrilling race to prevent disaster.

[mikemillertime · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

"Curse the Names" is both an interesting read: at points an ambitious novel with a variety of complex themes and ideas, yet also an easygoing and lackadaisical narrative that leisurely meanders through a menagerie of loosely connected ideas and plot points. With an unsympathetic narrator trying to find his way amongst a broken marriage, drug addiction and nightmarish visions of nuclear disaster, the story is an existential noir/thriller quality reminiscent of Don Delilo. Though the story gets a little lost along the way creating a distinct environment in this southwestern New Mexican setting, the book climaxes nicely when it unites its disparate ideas.

[robtcm · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

A great story idea..... and I found it easy to read, however, it felt incomplete. I do not pretend to be a book critic, and I am not going to waste your time or mine talking about the story in depth or character development, etc. Quite simply, I was expecting something more from this book and the teasers on the cover, but alas it failed. I did finish it as it was fairly short.

[ct4bergeron · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

It was an interesting book, but it left me unsatisfied. The pace is good, the storyline has potential, but it is missing a lot of context or informations. Can't really put my finger on it, but I did feel lost at some point, the story taking me in different direction without actually telling me why. It left a lot of questions and I felt like I was missing the point.

[copefiend2 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Interesting little book which would seem right at home in the bizarre book section at your local head shop. The story and premise start out intriguing but they both fail to fully deliver. I think there is a great story here but it just didn't quite do it for me. The pacing was engaging and I certainly was able to visalize the character and scenes. I think the author almost delivered on this one and could have knocked this one out of the park with a few tweaks to the storyline. Would I recommened this one? Probably not. I will however be looking forward to the next book by this author because I think he has tremendous imagination and potential.

[crazybatcow · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A lot of reviews have given this book 3 stars because, if I understand correctly, it features a man having a meltdown (in more ways than one). Or maybe it's rated a 3 because they were expecting a police procedural when they got instead a dark psychological thriller with a hint of the supernatural (along the lines of what Stephen King might write as a "thriller"). Yes, there is drug use (pot, btw... when I saw all these references to drugs, I was thinking they meant "real drugs" not just marijuana). And the main character is an ass for sure... but... really, is he that much different than a lot of middle aged men in a loveless relationship and a meaningless job? No, I don't think so.I found it to be a very engaging story, albeit dark and a bit depressing... and I give it a nice 4 stars.

[lazybee_1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I tried to finish this book since it was an Early Reviewer book, but it wasn't easy. The main character is completely unlikeable and the plot is not engaging. I definitely wouldn't recommend it.

[aethercowboy · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Curse the names is a short psychological thriller based around Los Alamos' past as a glowing city. By glowing, I mean radioactive. Upon reading the blurbs from the book, you might think it to be an interesting book full of colorful characters, but what it all boils down to are characters that are introduced once, only to have minimal "screen time" afterwards. The protagonist, otherwise, finds himself with several chemical addictions, and a life that's slowly falling apart once he start to pick at the seams to find out the deeper aspects of his home town.Since the book is short, it's not too much of a waste of time to read. However, it does contain significant profanity, drug and alcohol use, and some grim descriptions of insane folk. I'd recommend avoiding it.

[darcyo_12 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

An unhappily married writer for employee publication at Los Alamos National Laboratory is lured to a cabin in the woods and is stood up by the young woman he expected to find there. Instead, he is pulled into something evil that emanates from the cabin causing him to lose his wife, job and if the ending can be guessed, his life.I thought the premise was a little far-fetched. The story was entertaining. I would recommend it for guys especially and anyone who is interested in Los Alamos.

[tyllwin · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This book reminds me almost of a Jonathan Carroll novel, albeit with a much less likeable narrator, and a less acute point. We meet James Oberhelm as he's trying to cheat on his wife by hooking up with a girl half his age. In doing so, he goes into a house with an odd history, and when he comes out, not only his comfortable life, but reality itself, start falling apart. It's not set in stone what's happening to Oberhelm: it may be environmental toxins, delusions from drug and alcohol addictions, a nervous breakdown, a curse, visions from God, hallucinations from blood sepsis, or any combination. But as things fall to pieces he begins to have nightmares about a nuclear accident that would make Fukushima look like a papercut. It's a short book, which works for its benefit. Not that the writing is bad, just that you don't enjoy Oberhelm's company, and if it had been much longer, I might have started smiling at the ills that befell him. Still, I think that at base, it's an unsatisfying book: beyond "things fall apart," I can't personally tease a theme or broader narrative out of it, and don't feel there was much of a resolution to it on either a plot or a thematic level. (Disclosure: Review copy was provided to me free as a part of LTER)

[drneutron_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Frankly, this is an odd little book. It's not at all what I expected - a nuclear thriller with maybe some supernatural elements thrown in. Instead, Arellano tells the story of a meltdown, that while may or may not be nuclear, is certainly of the personal kind. James Oberhelm is a writer with a cushy, meaningless job at Los Alamos National Laboratory who, in a chance opportunity to cheat on his wife, stumbles across a very strange house back in the mountains. That encounter shakes him out of his routine of heavy drinking and recreational drug use to a state of complete loss. Everything about his life falls apart. And there may be a disaster looming at the laboratory...I was hoping for a better book. The initial idea is a good one, and the ending certainly leaves us with that sense of unreality that I expected. But I just couldn't bring myself to care about Oberhelm and his problems. He's an unlikeable person - which is fine if the story shows some humanity about the character - that never gets beyond the jerk stage. Unfortunately, I can only unenthusiastically recommend this one.

[klarsenmd · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I received this book as part of LT's early reviewer program. When I first read the book description on the website and again on the book cover, I thought this was going to be a fantastic apocalyptic read. The plot set-up was really interesting and this could have been wonderfully executed. The actual book however, fell short of the mark. I found the idea of a journalist tied to Los Alamos to be very intriguing. The problem was this particular character, James Oberhelm, was so unlikeable and lacking in any real depth, that I found I couldn't care about him to save my life. The plot felt far too contrived at important times, and the ending was not only poorly written, but confusing and a little pointless. I found the short 188 pages at once too short (more back story and character development might have saved it for me) and at the same time just long enough ( I couldn't take another drunken pill popping description). There were a few grammatical errors and typos but I chalk this up to the ARC copy. It's the type of book that leaves the reader questioning the reality of the narrator's tale, which I assume was the intention. All in all a bit of a disappointment from what could have been a fantastic story.

[btuckertx · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Curse the Names, by Robert Arellano, began in a dense fog of anticipation and dread. I couldn't wait for the end to see what happens. Unfortunately, by the time I got halfway through the book, I really wanted to be done with it. The book was entertaining enough, but I kept thinking it would have made a great bit for one of Rod Serling's Twilight Zone anthologies. Pretty tautly written, terrific plot basis - the accumulation of radioactive waste at Los Alamos might be reaching critical mass - it just seemed to have too many moving parts for the plot, and very little character development. OK, virtually no character development.I should have guessed from the type size that this book had been stretched into a short novel. Arellano's editor should have insisted on condensing it into a short story for a later collection, or fleshing out the characters and tightening the plot into something that would fly as a full-blown novel.

[joybee_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

An entertaining read. A man's decent into madness and drug/alcohol abuse as his life is falling apart. James Oberhelm is a successful journalist who takes a writing job for 'The Lad', a government run nuclear testing facility in New Mexico. The work is easy, and the benefits are good, but strange things begin to happen on James's 40th birthday. Is he going crazy or is there some kind of conspiracy to ruin his life.

[enemyanniemae · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I received this book courtesy of LibraryThing Early Reviewers program and Akashic Books was kind enough to send a replacement copy when the original did not arrive. *thank you!*James Oberhelm has it all, the cushy job writing human interest stories about the scientists working for the Los Alamos National Laboratory. He keeps his own hours and plays golf whenever he pleases. He drives a fully restored Alfa Romeo Spider. Life is good and he is bored by it. When he decides to take a chance that the goth phlebotomist who drew his blood for testing was looking to hook up with him when she offhandedly invites him to meet her and her friends at an abandoned cabin in the woods, strange things begin happening. This book may be small (only 200 pages) but it packs a wallop! The sense of unease and foreboding is palpable as Oberhelm's life begins to unravel. This little story is very Hitchcockian in its ability to transform a story about a fellow looking for a little adventure into a psychotic jigsaw puzzle. Robert Orellano combines the best features of several genres (thriller, paranormal and horror) into a neat little package.This is definitely recommended reading.

[rdhawk6886 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Jim and Hunter Thompson meet the X Files. The book's strength is the narrator's authentic voice. In today's market, too many "dark" or "noir" books feature the "flawed" protagonist who is deeply depressed, yet finds the time to work out, get laid, and come out on top in a Rambo style gun fight. Here, the narrator seemed to be believably on the edge. The setting (New Mexico) and some of the other characters (goth med tech) were unique. However, the narrative was lacking. I felt like there were several unique circumstances which were introduced but nothing really arose from those circumstances. I don't mind a vague narrative, but in that instance, I think there needs to be a relationship that you care about involved. Here, there were other characters, with whom the protagonist interacted, but there were no relationships which drove the narrative. I was rooting for something to happen to this interesting and authentic narrator.

[cmwilson101 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Curse the Names by Robert Arellano is a spooky, unsettling, and ultimately disturbing story set in Los Alamos. It takes place in one short month, and revolves around James Oberhelm, who is rich, successful, and employed in a mindless job of writing glamor pieces about retired Los Alamos National Laboratory employees. James is bored, in his fancy suburban house with his equally-successful, but cold wife, and decides to take up a casual offer made by a stranger to attend a party at an abandoned house. This decision is the first step in the unraveling of his life. The house fascinates and repels him, and he ultimately comes to believe that somehow it has cursed him, because after he visits the house he begins losing everything, including, (perhaps?), his mind. He is plagued by visions of death by a radioactive incident at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, and embarks on a journalistic quest to discover the truth behind the house, the Lab, and his own sanity. Curse the Names by Robert Arellano is a unique story. It is not tidily wrapped up at the end, which leaves the reader unsettled (hence, my "disturbing" comment earlier). I felt that the ending was appropriately unclear, a bit like Jame's own mind. A thought-provoking, interesting, and nightmarish story, which I greatly enjoyed.

[luna68_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This is a very strange book. I thought I knew what it would be about (an apocalyptic-type event at Los Alamos), and I spent a good portion of the book still believing that is what it was leading up to. However, in the end, it was more of a character book. The book did not have a satisfying ending, and was very disconcerting almost from the start. Ultimately, I think the whole story and the way it was written was a reflection of the mind of the main character. If he were more likeable, I may have enjoyed the book more. Although, the way it was written, it did keep me glued to find out what would happen. It was just a bit of a let down when I got there.

[elric17_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This is a very well written work, but the story was not sure how to describe it, but different, not what was expected, but an enjoyable read despite that. Personally, I am always unfulfilled when the book doesn't end with a nice ribbon around it at the end.

[thetwods · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A classic unreliable narrator novel, Curse the Names sucks the reader in with hypnotic, rapid-fire prose, steadily building a sense of impending doom.James Oberhelm is a journalist for an in-house magazine at Los Alamos, the nation's nuclear research facility in the mountains and deserts of New Mexico. Unhappy in his marriage, he decides to try to pick up a girl. Boy, will he regret that mistake.Lured to an abandoned, dilapidated house in the desolate Sangre de Christo mountains...something happens. What that is remains for the reader to decipher. The pages of his past articles are pasted to the walls of a locked room he breaks into. Soon, his life begins to unravel. Is he the victim of a curse? A set-up? Is any of this real? Is he losing his mind? After all, his father did time in a mental hospital. Are his visions of a coming nuclear catastrophe an omen of the future or the schizophrenic detritus of mind fried on oxycodone, alcohol and pot?In any case, the sense of an insidious threat to James and the populace around him grows. A noose seems to tighten as we race to the conclusion. A conclusion that refuses to offer any simple answers. Someone get this novel to David Lynch's attention - the same foreboding feeling of pending annhiliation - personal, psychological, physical - I experienced in watching Lost Highway is at play here. I cannot wait to read more by Robert Arellano.

[marcush_42 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

This book made me think of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas but with nuclear waste. James Oberhelm is dissatisfied with his life, so he drinks, smokes pot, and pops pills. As a journalist for a nuclear research lab, James' life is pretty dull, so it makes sense that he needs to spice it up a bit. He gets more than he bargains for when he "chases some tail" to an old abandoned house in the woods and begins to uncover the secrets behind the buried nuclear waste in the desert.The book has some tense moments where you might wonder if it's going to turn into a zombie, post-apocaylptic novel, an occult thriller, or remain a rambling commentary on drug usage. Unfortunately, it remains the latter. There's a lot of potential for this to be super creepy: an old house, bones buried in the wall, evil hexes on people, yet it just continues to grind away at James' drug usage. I was pretty unsatisfied by the end of it.

[zmagic69 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I have not read any other books from this author, but I must say the book sucks you in immediately. That being said I am not sure what I think of the book. It is a very strange story without much of an ending. I don't know if it is about a man losing his mind and seeing apocalyptic visions, a man who has come back from the past or something else entirely.

[barbharper · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This book has an intriguing premise. In the mountains of New Mexico, a potential disaster involving stored nuclear waste is giving journalist James Oberhelm nightmares. James is not a very sympathetic protagonist, hoever, given his paranoia and penchant for alcohol and drugs. He relates the plot in the first person and as his life spirals downward the reader must question how reliable a narrator he is. I found the ending frustrating since it lacked a resolution. There are strong supernatural elements that are never explained, and everything could be interpreted as the result of a mental breakdown, or maybe not.

[darcia_10 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This is a short, kind of strange book. I didn't think the description matched the story all that well. The small town isn't hiding a secret. The secret belongs to the main character. Most of what goes on is in his head. Or maybe it's not. We never really find out.The only character we get to know is the main character, and he's not likable. He's an arrogant drunk who might be crazy and pops a seemingly endless supply of Oxycodone while always high on marijuana. The plot moves along quickly, but drags us down random paths and leaves us hanging to figure out the scenery. That being said, there is something oddly compelling about the prose. I'm just not sure what that something is.

[blackjackny · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

An odd little book, almost a novella. The protagonist keeps having strange, apocalyptic visions, but it is never determined if these are caused by drugs and alcohol, radiation, or an evil house. The resolution was a little weak also, however I did enjoy the stylish prose.

[lupoman_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

My first time reading this author. The story is weird but written very well. The main protagonist will stay in my mind's eye for a long time; he's a piece of work. I like the way the story unfolds while I impatiently turn the pages to find out what's going to happen next.I highly recommend this book to anyone that love a good read.

[pixiedark · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

"Curse the Names" is a fast-paced exciting read that will keep you guessing through out the book. "Curse the Names" by Robert Arellano is about James Oberhelm a reporter at Los Alamos National Laboratory. James believes that he sees visions of an oncoming apocalypse. An apocalypse caused by the place and people he works for. James Oberhelm's life unravels when he wrestles with the decision to "tell them what you see. " Are his visions and what is happening to him real, or a result of his alcohol and drug-induced madness? Are the people he meets, a goth blood tech, an old hippie real? Is the house with the curse real? Or is James Oberhelm just going insane like his father did before him?

[anniemod · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Welcome to LA. Not the one in California - the one in New Mexico. Los Alamos - the city where the Lab is conducting the nuclear research of the USA. James Oberhelm is a middle aged journalist that had decided to replace the free voice and worthy articles for the calm life of a journalist for the Surge, the magazine for the Lab's employees. And everything is going just fine until a girl sends him to a house... and weird things start happening.An old house, a curse (more presumed than spelled out), a sequence of unhappy events and nightmares. These are the organic parts of this story. There is a ghost (or is he just someone's imagination?), a man that does not seem to exist, a dead animal, a divorce, the possible death of a lot of people and a link to the past that could not exist. Even at the end of the novel, it is not entirely clear what kicked the whole chain in motion - who started it all and why. At least not if you are looking for a logical explanation. Anyone is free to make their own interpretation and in the world of the surreal anything is possible. It is a short novel and this helped a bit to like it - I like supernatural stories but most of the surreal ones are leaving me cold. You can read this one in a lot of ways - as an obsession with a house, as a ghost story or as a curse story. And probably in 20 other different ways. Overall - pretty interesting and quite readable - even if it was not exactly my cup of tea.

[robbflynn_1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

This book was read as part of the LibraryThing Early Reviewers group.Curse the Names is an odd little book. The situation is fairly straight-forward: James Oberhelm is a journalist employed by the Los Alamos National Laboratory whose 10 year marriage has turned stale. He’s bored with his job, bored with his wife, and bored with his life. In a somewhat terrified hope of an extra-marital hookup, he decides to meet a stranger at an old abandoned house. That’s when things go all weird… both with the story and the effect it had on me.Part paranormal thriller, part psychological thriller, and part conspiracy theory thriller, Arellano does a good job at weaving a very tight storyline into only 188 pages. I especially like (and admire) his ability to wring the most out of very few words. I do think there were a few scenes that would have benefited from expansion (primarily with description) given their ultimate importance in the book, but that would have had ill-effects on the quick pacing necessary for this kind of novel.What kept me going through most of it was that it was told in the past-tense. I assumed I was going to get some kind of resolution to… something. But with 30 pages remaining, Arellano shifts to first person present, and all hope of any kind of resolution quickly fades away as the narrative shifts to one buried in the psychosis of the protagonist. While I don’t need everything handed to me wrapped in a neat little bow, I do need something that lets me know the last 158 pages is actually going to mean something. Instead, I was left wondering not just about the story lines and potential causes of all this disaster that has fallen upon poor, hapless, drunken James, but, because the story itself has shifted into the present tense, I found myself questioning even the few things I “knew” to be true from earlier in the book. The shift in tense was quite subtle and extremely well done (especially the specific point at which it occurs), but ultimately I think it lessened the overall impact by casting everything that happened into doubt and eliminating any kind of satisfactory resolution.Most important, though, and from which everything else stems, I found James’ drug and booze habits forced and cliche. Rich, bored, and unhappy, a once-brilliant writer turns addict and his life falls apart in a psychotropic haze. His apathy makes him an unlikeable narrator, and his drug-addled decisions and observations make him unreliable narrator. I found his characterization, and everyone else’s, to be rather shallow and steadfast with little growth or development of any kind. While it’s a perfectly valid choice to remain steadfast and keep making the same mistakes time and again, it becomes stale and predictable, which is my overall impression of not just James, but the novel as a whole.At the end of the day, Curse the Names felt incomplete to me… incomplete storylines, incomplete character development, incomplete settings.As a humorous side-note (to me, anyway), I’ve never seen anyone “scavenge” as much change from “the cracks” of car seats as James Oberhelm. I bet I couldn’t come up with even a 10th of what he did, and I’ve owned my junker for nearly a decade.