Book Review: UNBURY CAROL by Josh Malerman

UNBURY CAROL by Josh Malerman  (Del Rey, April 2018) Hardcover, 367 pages.  ISBN #0399180168 / 9780399180163

 

from the Goodreads website summary . . . . .

 

     Carol Evers is a woman with a dark secret. She has died many times . . . but her many deaths are not final: They are comas, a waking slumber indistinguishable from death, each lasting days.

 

     Only two people know of Carol’s eerie condition. One is her husband, Dwight, who married Carol for her fortune, and—when she lapses into another coma—plots to seize it by proclaiming her dead and quickly burying her . . . alive. The other is her lost love, the infamous outlaw James Moxie. When word of Carol’s dreadful fate reaches him, Moxie rides the Trail again to save his beloved from an early, unnatural grave.

 

     And all the while, awake and aware, Carol fights to free herself from the crippling darkness that binds her—summoning her own fierce will to survive. As the players in this drama of life and death fight to decide her fate, Carol must in the end battle to save herself. 

 

My review on the Goodreads website . . . . .

 

     With UNBURY CAROL, Josh Malerman steps outside the horror genre that first gave him notice (award winning THE BIRD BOX) and creates a dark fantasy in a weird west setting that is threaded throughout with elements of Edgar Allan Poe.

 

     Some of the reviews I've read lament the fact that the novel is not horror and rate it as missing the mark, but perhaps they were misled in their expectations. Other reviews call the book a unique spin on the Sleeping Beauty fairy tale, but there is less to connect it to that story than there is to the works of Poe, specifically THE PREMATURE BURIAL and THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER.

 

     In fact, it's not inaccurate to summarize this book as an introduction of Poe themes to a fantasy setting. 

 

     The story is set within the borders of Harrows, The Trail and the towns that crop up along it, a small section of geography in an unspecified time and setting. Because of the use of horses for transportation, the frequent use of pistols, a town where law is enforced by a sheriff, and the mention of outlaws the reader makes an assumption that this is a western setting- - and of course a weird one. Magic of sorts is used and one villain in particular has a steampunk type of modus operandi.

 

     Carol Evers suffers from a deep waking slumber that resembles death and lasts for days. Her husband, who will inherit a vast estate upon her death, is the only person in Harrows who knows of her condition. One who did know, a male friend, is now dead and the other is a former lover who left long ago rather than deal with her special situation. He's now a legendary outlaw named James Moxie.

 

     Dwight, as you might imagine, is mean-spirited and schemes to have Carol declared dead and buried alive so that he can assume full control of the estate. Through a devious intermediary he dispatches several mercenaries to stop James Moxie, who has since learned of the plot and is rushing to get back to Harrows and rescue Carol. 

 

     Carol is by far the most interesting character in the novel. Malerman does a good job of letting the reader inside her head during her various spells and revealing her fears, concerns, determination and brave efforts to bring herself back to reality. During her coma, she dwells within a dark state where she experiences a sense of falling without a landing until she senses the increasing presence of others inhabiting the same space. The sections of the novel that feature Carol's point of view remind the most of what Poe did with his main characters in the above-mentioned two works. 

 

     James Moxie's legend is due to an incident where he won a gunfight without drawing his pistol. This is never fully explained (attributed to magic) except for a late scene involving strings. That doesn't work for me because of an earlier scene where Moxie escapes from a jail in an impromptu fashion and would never had time to thread strings throughout a sheriff's office. I prefer to leave it unexplained and chalk it up to magic. Moxie has conflicts of his own, especially as regards Carol, and his role as a responsible person.

 

     Even more interesting is the villain Smoke, who lost both legs and now walks on hollow tin supports from the knees down. These legs are filled with oil, which he can release through a clever mechanism and create devastating fires. 

 

     The chapter entitled "The Clock On The Mantel" is a clever homage to Poe's 'The Telltale Heart'.

 

     This is worth reading. Malerman has developed enough of The Trail that I wonder if he plans to return to this setting in some future stories. I'd welcome that.