We bought Henry Lewis Nixon’s 1955 novel The Caves—for which you see an Ace Books cover above with uncredited art—based upon the rear teaser blurb. It told us that the tale was about a group of people who face deadly problems after becoming trapped in an underground cavern system. That struck as unusually high concept for the 1950s, so we took the plunge. The book wastes no time, opening with the group in mid-descent. Trouble strikes immediately, then again, then again, ad infinitum. There’s hypothermia, epilepsy, a broken foot, a bottomless pit, and other obstacles. Nixon doesn’t let up, and for that he deserves credit. But while the story is interesting and propulsive, there’s one major flaw—it’s written at a level that feels young reader.
That isn’t inherently bad. The Hobbit is written at young reader level, and it’s great. But Nixon didn’t mean for The Caves to be that way. There are many adult concepts—sexual predation and PTSD among them—but his characters are so cardboard, their ruminations so shallow, their motivations so transparent, that there’s no way for them to resonate for adult readers. At least as far as we’re concerned. One character loves sex, for example. It would take a very good writer to make her obsession with getting laid—in a freezing cavern and to the detriment of her own safety—anything other than sophomoric. Even the multiple womb metaphors don’t make the book less like youth material. It’s ironic, but Nixon’s story about a fraught subterranean exploration needed to be deeper.
