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Book Review: Lakewood: A Novel by Megan Giddings

cover art for Lakewood by Megan Giddings

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Lakewood  by Megan Giddings

Amistad, 2020

ISBN-13 : 978-0062913197

Available: Hardcover, audiobook, Kindle edition

 

After her grandmother dies, college student Lena discovers her disabled, neurologically impaired mother is unable to pay her bills or afford the medication she needs to manage her disability. So when she is recruited for a research study on memory for a substantial sum of money she pushes her reservations to the side, signs an NDA and paperwork stating her agreement to any procedure the study may require, drops out of school, and tells her mother and friends she has a new, well-paid job in the small town of Lakewood as an employee at a warehouse. Bizarre psychological testing, vaccines, pills, induced isolation, and hallucinations become normalized as different test subjects come and go. Realizing that something must be very wrong, Lena attempts to question observers and participants in the study and to find information online, but is blocked at every turn, until finally she discovers that unethical government experimentation on Black people has historical precedent. Despite her unsettling findings, Lena continues to participate in the study so her mother can keep her health insurance and pay the bills.

Obviously inspired by the Tuskegee experiment and other research studies that exploited Black people in the United States, as well as the Flint water crisis, Lakewood carries that legacy forward into the present, through generations of trauma. Ir is timely in its exploration of scientific racism, the drastic actions family members will take to help ill and disabled family members afford healthcare, and government gaslighting and neglect of the study participants and their own health.

Told from Lena’s point of view, this history metamorphoses into a personalized, hallucinatory, and terrifying situation that will appall, disturb, and shock the reader as the layers peel away. Highly recommended.

 

Contains: body horror, mutilation, murder, gore, violence, medical experimentation

 

Posted on January 23, 2021 by , Reply

Book Review: The Red Death by Birgitte Margen

 

The Red Death by Birgitte Märgen

Self-published, 2018

ISBN-13: 978-1729311196

Available: Paperback, Kindle edition

 

The Red Death is a thrilling tale of a deadly pandemic. The Red Death is caused by an unknown bacterium that caused an ancient pandemic before Pasteurella pestis and the Black Death, and now it has re-emerged in New York City. The Red Death causes hemorrhagic nodules in the lungs; its victims vomit blood as their lungs fill with it, and death follows within days of infection.Starting off with a few deaths, the story traces the spread and exponential growth of the epidemic.

The cast of characters includes a team of local CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) investigators in hazmat-suits, a rebuffed bacteriologist at the CDC national headquarters and a has-been paleoanthropologist in Las Vegas. What links the early victims? How is the disease spread? These are some of the questions they face.

Decades ago, the paleoanthropologist wrote about an ancient pandemic and an indigenous Amazonian tribe that was resistant to the disease.  His work was ridiculed, and he retreated into the bars in Las Vegas, but he has a sample of a rare plant that might have protected the tribe from the disease. Why won’t the CDC director authorize research on a vaccine?

Just as the number of victims increases exponentially, the action in New York City, Milwaukee, and the Amazon intensifies. Rival leaders of the Motombu tribe face off in a fight to the death, with the fate of the research team hanging in the balance. Will the leader of the breakaway cannibal faction win, dooming millions to the Red Death? Or, will the researchers’ friend triumph and lead them to the plant that could end the pandemic?

The author describes the problems CDC investigators and researchers face and their techniques. However, I think that her use of the term “vaccine” might not be appropriate. Vaccines usually contain attenuated microbes or their antigens that stimulate the recipient’s immune system, but in this book, a CDC investigator is infected and saves herself by injecting the paleoanthropologist’s decades-old plant extract. The extract might contain an antibiotic or an adjuvant to activate the immune system, but it probably doesn’t have bacterial antigens. Nevertheless, The Red Death is a worthwhile read. Recommended.

 

Reviewed by Robert D. Yee

 

 

Posted on June 19, 2019 by , Reply

Book Review: The Beauty: Volume 1 by Jeremy Haun and Jason Hurley, art by Jeremy Haun

The Beauty: Volume 1 by Jeremy Haun and Jason Hurley, art by Jeremy Haun

Image Comics, 2016

ISBN: 9781632155504

Available: print, Kindle & comixology ebook

 

The Beauty proposes a few questions. With society’s obsession with external outward beauty, what if there was a way to guarantee someone could become more attractive? What if the way to accomplish such beauty was through a sexually transmitted disease? In the world of Beauty, most of the population has taken advantage of the STD. Why not? After all, the only known side effects are increased hunger, a low-grade fever, and the benefit of being drop dead gorgeous. Detectives Vaughn and Foster discover the less than appealing side effect: the “drop dead” part is literal.  As the detectives start getting closer to solving the mystery, the danger to their lives increases. Certain parties attempt to launch a cover-up, but newly-infected Detective Foster isn’t having any of it. After a heavily publicized press conference announcement goes wrong, he’s got a shiny new target on his back.

The Beauty reads like a typical noir crime novel at times, but the story is compelling and unique. I thought there would be more of a focus on the people who voluntarily contract the disease rather than on the law enforcement angle, but it still made for a decent exploration of what happens when a disease that has been around for a few years starts exhibiting deadly consequences. I think it helps that the artwork is fantastic. This is not a story for children; violence, sex, and death are shown in detail, thanks to the magnificent art. Recommended.

Volume 1 collections issues #1-6.

Contains: blood, exploding bodies, body horror, nudity, violent content

Reviewed by Lizzy Walker

 

Posted on July 29, 2017 by , Reply
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