Home » Posts tagged "historical fiction" (Page 3)

Book Review: The Hunger by Alma Katsu

The Hunger by Alma Katsu

G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 2018

ISBN-13: 978-0735212510

Available: Hardcover, paperback, Kindle edition, audiobook

 

The release of Alma Katsu’s new historical horror novel brings with it comparisons to The Terror by Dan Simmons, even including both of them in social media ads. Do not be fooled. Yes, both authors bring impeccable research to fine stories and put you right there in the moment with ease, and both examine the human condition and how people can easily be turned to embrace their shadow selves, the monsters within the person.

However, there are a couple of major differences. First, The Hunger will not take the entire summer to read. At nearly a thousand pages, The Terror, while amazing, could be used as a weapon to literally knock someone out. Katsu’s story trims the fat, leaving a lean but thoroughly detailed and realistic story that doesn’t skimp on the details of the western mountains or pioneer life. Instead, she focuses on the relationships and the rot that crisis can reveal.

Many readers will be at least partially familiar with the story of the unfortunate Donner Party, a caravan of travelers who attempted to traverse the Sierra Nevada mountains, but were ill-prepared for the journey.

In a story where the ending is already written and most of the facts are substantiated, Katsu keeps the reader’s attention with compelling characters, and takes her time in building the burn. She introduces the many characters and allows them to maneuver through the plot, growing and festering in readers’ minds as they turn the pages. Her weaving together of the players in this horrific chunk of history creates a bloody tapestry that will intrigue the reader.

The most vividly drawn characters are Charles Stanton, a bachelor with the dark secret; Tamsen Donner, wife of George, who strongly believes in the supernatural and witchcraft;  James Reed, another party leader with a dark path; and Tamsen’s youngest daughter, who can hear the dead speak to her. Toss in some other players, and the stew simmers to a rich boil that threatens to destroy the group even before the true tragedy hits.

Katsu inserts the supernatural, or at least the vibe of it, which elevates the novel from pure historical fiction to historical horror, but she keeps the story lean. Reading it, one can almost feel the desolation of the mountains and the desperation their journey. By the time the climax unfolds, Katsu delivers on the promise hinted at in the beginning– a bit of a twist,  but just enough to create wonder Recommended reading for any thriller or history fan.

 

Reviewed by David Simms

Editor’s note: The Hunger is a nominee for the 2018 Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in a Novel.

 

Posted on March 1, 2019 by , Reply

Book Review: Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders

Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders

Random House, 2017

ISBN-13: 978-0812985405

Available: Hardcover, paperback, Kindle edition, audiobook, audio CD

 

Lincoln in the Bardo can be described as an American ghost story, but there is much more to it than ghosts in a graveyard. It’s not a book to zip through once and put down with the confidence that you have completely absorbed what it has to offer. Trying to describe it, and review it, has been difficult, but it is worth it. George Saunders won the Man Booker prize for literary fiction for this novel, but don’t let that influence whether you try it for yourself.

At the center of the story is the death of Abraham Lincoln’s son, Willie, and Lincoln’s grieving alone at night in the cemetery where Willie was laid to rest, although “laid to rest” isn’t really the best description for its residents. I didn’t know this, but a “bardo” is a Buddhist term for a kind of in-between or transitional state. The cemetery’s residents, who tell the majority of the story, are stuck in that transitional state, no longer alive but unable and unwilling to move on or even recognize that they are dead. When Willie arrives in the bardo, the other residents, based on their previous experience, expect that he will quickly move on, but when Lincoln returns to grieve, he promises to visit again, and Willie stays to make sure he is there when his father returns. Of course, as a ghost, he is unable to physically interact with his environment or with living people, and it isn’t as easy as it might seem for him to stay, especially without the help of the other ghosts of the cemetery. In fact, if he doesn’t move on, he may be taken by damned souls.

The narrative structure of the book is challenging. It alternates between sections that take place in the cemetery, with a variety of ghosts attempting to move the story forward, or include their own story, or push their way in, interrupting each other and editorializing on events and each other, and collections of multiple historical eyewitness accounts of the same events, mostly descriptions and opinions of the night Willie died and of Lincoln himself.

The parts in the cemetery can be very confusing, as the speakers (and there are many) are only named after they have spoken, so it’s not always clear who is telling the story. The reader certainly does get to see the democracy of death in America, though–  cemeteries include all kinds of people, from the repellent and hateful to decent and caring(and sometimes all of it in one person), but in this time, at the beginning of the Civil War, African-Americans are buried outside the fence and their ghosts have to rush the fence and fight off hateful racists to get in. Once they are in, many of them do speak up, and they remain some of the most powerful and lasting voices in the story.

The alternating sections of compiled contemporary eyewitness accounts are probably what was most fascinating to me. Many of them contradict each other: some are sympathetic, complimentary, or admiring, while others condemn him in the strongest terms. To see history, and Lincoln, through so many different eyes, is fascinating, and connects with Lincoln’s interior dialogue and terrible grief for both his own son, and for all of the sons he will be sending onto bloody battlefields, as imagined by Saunders. Even if the cemetery story is too much for you, I recommend at least looking through the book to see these accounts. About two-thirds of the way through you will find absolutely scathing comments and letters as bad as anything you can find about our president on the Internet.

While Lincoln in the Bardo can be read as a novel of historical fiction, or a portrait of grief, it can be funny, foul, and sometimes gross (I was not expecting a poop joke four pages in). There are many moments of tenderness, and, despite the grief, horror, denial, and anger that emerge in the cemetery, it is also hopeful for those in the bardo, and for freedom in America.

If you like your narratives to be straightforward, this is probably not the book for you. But if you are willing to try out this unusual narrative structure, and do some rereading for better understanding, this is a ghost story you won’t soon forget.

Contains: racial slurs, suicide, references to rape and child molestation.

Posted on November 27, 2018 by , Reply

Musings: Fear the Reaper by David Simms


Fear the Reaper by David Simms

Macabre Ink, 2018

ISBN-13: 978-1948929790

Available: Paperback, Kindle edition

Fear the Reaper was released in June, and it is frighteningly timely. I read it just after finishing coursework in special education, which included the effects of eugenics on public education, and right at the time that the family separation of immigrants seeking asylum started to receive intense media attention. I have heard many people say “this isn’t the American way”.  This is a historical novel grounded solidly in fact, and it hits home that this isn’t the first time the American way has included dehumanizing and forcibly separating “inferior” or “weak” populations.

It’s 1933, and psychologist Sam Taylor, designer of a test that can separate the “feebleminded” from the general population, has been hired to evaluate patients at a sanitarium in rural Virginia that has a solid commitment to practicing eugenics. Eugenics is a philosophy that grew from the conviction that only healthy, able, intelligent, heterosexual, attractive white people should be allowed to contribute to human genetic evolution. Many people not fitting that description, including homosexuals, foreigners, the disabled, mentally ill, and cognitively impaired, and African-Americans, were sterilized(or worse) so they wouldn’t be able to pass on their genes.

The superintendent of the sanitarium, Joseph Dejarnette, was a real person, the sanitarium in the book is very similar to the one he ran, and many of the scenes in the book are based on primary sources. While there is a mild supernatural aspect to this, it’s not the ghost haunting the main character that is horrific– it’s the things people do to each other, or are complicit in. And it’s not that it’s only one person– Dejarnette is just a representative of an entire movement, well-funded by corporate donors, committed to “improving” and “purifying” the human race, that is systematically eliminating anyone who gets in the way. Even knowing a little about the eugenics movement, as I was reading this, I thought “is all of this really real?” It is so outrageous and appalling in places that it’s easy to think that the author got carried away by his topic– it is fiction, after all– but having spoken to him, I can tell you that yes, people really believed and acted this way, dehumanizing the patients and practicing brutal treatments on them.

If you are looking to have your faith in humanity revitalized, this is probably not your best choice. It is a terrifying, eye-opening look at the eugenics movement, and how people become complicit in reinforcing and participating in evil. Simms does an effective job with character development; even brief interactions with minor characters make you feel you know them well enough that when they are caught in the events that occur it’s even more heartbreaking and awful. The ghost didn’t contribute much to the story, nor did the romance (the protagonist is not a likable guy), but the overall sweep of the story carried me past that. It’s an excellent piece of fiction documenting a rarely mentioned part of our history that will creep in, and stay in your mind, long after you finish it.

Editor’s note: David Simms is a personal friend and reviewer for Monster Librarian.

Posted on July 20, 2018 by , Reply
First « 12345 » Last