How to Foray into the Macabre When You Hate Horror
How do you define the macabre? Is it that unsettling feeling when the hairs on the back of your neck stand on end? Or perhaps it's the image that lingers in your mind's eye, even after you close your eyes.
For me, those descriptions have never appealed. Ask me to sit through a horror movie, heart in throat as the killer creeps closer to the naive young ingenue, and I'll gladly leave the theater early to find the nearest rom-com. Yet, when tasked with finding a juicy horror novel for October's TSBC Spooky Reading Party, I pressed onward in hopes that images might disturb me less than words.
My pick was The Night Eaters Volume 1: She Eats the Night by Marjorie Liu, a 208-page plunge into the twisted world of a Hong Kong–American family grappling with a dark, haunting family secret. From the first few pages, I found myself cautiously following the direction of the story. The stoic nature of the family matriarch Ipo, coupled with the gray, haunting panels, left me more confused than unsettled. The novel transports us back in time to Hong Kong in the late 1950s, where the mother somewhat inexplicably fights masked men. If you're confused so far... well, so was I.
Fast-forward a few chapters: the parents' two adult children, Milly and Billy, are navigating the weight of parental expectations while living next door to an eerie, gnarled, and seemingly empty home. Enter the supernatural, bloody gore I had been bracing myself for. The visuals bring the horror to life, coloring the terror with siblings race inside that house. Yet, as gripping as the art was, I often found myself lost in the narrative.
Spoiler in coded language: the title is very aptly named.
As someone who doesn't enjoy indulging in the macabre,
She Eats the Night was a mild (and unsettling) foray into the dark and twisted. If my scattered summary intrigues you, I'd recommend giving it a try.
You're in for a treat: The Night Eaters is a horror trilogy, so maybe the plot will become clearer over the next two novels.