Chandler MorrisonRecensioni
Autore di Dead Inside
Recensioni
Dead Inside di Chandler Morrison
There is much to be said about a book that starts off complaining about fellatio.
(SPOILERS, OBVIOUSLY)
Our main character is named… oh wait, he doesn’t have a name. No one ever refers to him by his name…and he is a bonified prick. His villain origin story is raping a drunk girl at a high school party, which led to her pregnancy and suicide after being forced to abort the baby by her boyfriend. (He doesn’t neglect to remind us that he took another go at her after her suicide.) The story starts off strong with sexual themes and grotesque imagery, the machinations of the mind of a necrophiliac. He clearly thinks very highly of himself and his acts and finds his victims through his place of employment. He works as a nighttime security guard working at a local hospital. While reasoning with the reader, he informs us that he is very intelligent and so is self-aware that his sexual proclivities are weird. However, he retorts with a line that I found interesting, “No cockroach ever desired to not be a cockroach, just because it knew it was a cockroach.”
The philosophical discussion on the self-awareness of cockroaches aside, knowing you’re a monster and desiring nothing else but to be that monster is depravity personified. He continues with our first sex scene, where he violates a recently deceased woman. Some of the wording here could be enough for you to throw up if you’ve recently ate. Descriptions like
“toenails sexily yellowed”
“pleading to be violated”
“cold dryness of her unlubricated vaginal canal”
… are enough to make your stomach curl. The sex scenes are horrifically detailed, think fifty shades of grey for necrophiliacs. During his nightly rounds, our “hero” meets another like him, someone who dabbles in the obscene. Dr. Heather Winchester, a maternity doctor who loves the taste of dead babies. He catches her in the act in his special place, the morgue. She is intrigued by him because he doesn’t freak out or report her for what he saw, so she comes to talk to him, where he ends up revealing his own secret.
Now, there is a bond forming. A cannibalistic Bonnie with her necrophiliac Clyde, so to speak. Yet, our guy is constantly fighting with himself. He intentionally treats Heather awfully because he doesn’t want to return to any sense of normalcy, which for him would be being attracted to a woman with a heartbeat.
The story doesn’t stop there, we have our friend telling a rape victim that he was going to rape their dead body (though in the story the victim Tamara liked this idea), his limits for perversity seem to be never-ending. Yet when see some out of character moments, like when he surprisingly helps a woman who was bleeding out in a car crash. This would be directly antithetical to his pessimistic attitude, in addition to the fact that he cock-blocked himself, as he realized she would have gone to his morgue if she would have died. Obviously, the story presents some complex themes amidst edgy shock value gore.
You have our protagonist’s struggle with adapting to society, his hatred for labels, and how he’s always struggled with being different. You have Helen’s struggle of childhood trauma, witnessing the death of her brother, mother, and pet ferret all in the same night. There is room in this story for empathy for these characters, that despite their grotesque acts you can feel for them. Our guy even tries to get you to think a little bit. He tells Helen that if you can’t cause harm to a dead body how is what they’re doing wrong?
I obviously do not think the author is arguing in favor of these acts, but I liked this point, nonetheless. Because when we discuss morality, a lot of default positions on it are “Well, as long as you don’t hurt anyone, you should be able to do whatever you want to do.” Now, you could argue that you’re still hurting the family/loved ones of the dead body you’re desecrating, and I think that’s a valid point to consider. However, I think our guy here pushes us into reconsidering societal expectations and how to think of a morality outside of the objective/subjective divide that we see in basic religious/political debates.
Basically, unless you want to bite the bullet and say Necrophilia/Cannibalism is okay as long as the victim is dead, you have to come up with a better argument.
But of course, with the good must also come the bad. There were a few things I didn’t like about this book. The husband of Helen reveal was too easy to predict and forced into the story, the treatment of Helen annoyed me, basically our guy abandoning her during her pregnancy, she has a miscarriage, and then commits suicide. Of course, our guy then desecrates her dead body with very violent sexual imagery (think of sex and eye sockets).
That being said, I think the humor of the last few pages and how he tied in earlier statements to the end was structured well. I also liked the real book recommendations made by the characters. If you can stomach it, I think this one is worth reading.
Do I regret it? Yes
Would I recommend you read it? Idk it's up to you. These things are subjective so just because I didn't enjoy it doesn't mean you won't.
This material is very, VERY graphic. So this book isn't for the faint at heart at all. I am sure a lot of this material was in the vein of satire but STILL.
“Dead Inside” is a bonafide six-car pileup on the freeway. It is the book your deranged friends dare you to read. Getting through this splatter punk saga of gore and viscera proves you’re hardcore. Right? If so, I’m tough as nails. Regrettably. Pass the brain bleach.
My first and maybe last read of a book by this author, I appreciate the skilled writing. The macabre wit. The disturbing imagery painstakingly rendered by someone who appears to relish taking that horrific next step. Chandler Morrison goes there, every single time. He shows up, and if I’m honest, its probably better to commit than half-ass the thing… Kudos for your bravery, guy, but…
Seriously, don’t read it. Don’t tell your friends about it. Don’t admit to having ever heard of it. It’s as close to A Serbian Film as any book I have ever read, and don’t watch that thing, either. If you want to know why I read it, it’s simple: I always take the dare. Tell me it’s the most horrific thing ever and I’m like, “How bad can it be?” Bad. That’s all I can say, and coming from me, that says something.
I bought this book because just about everyone was talking about it last year. Now that I've read it I'm not sure what to do with it. It's not a book that I will display proudly on my shelves. It's not a book I would feel comfortable donating, it's not even a book that I would want anyone to find in my belongings after I'm gone. I'm barely willing to admit that I've read it. The writing is mediocre and the plot if you could call it that is gross just for the sake of shock value. I like my horror to be scary, and this is not it. I guess I would recommend it to readers who like gross out horror. I would not recommend it for anyone who expects it to be as claimed in the synopsis "disturbingly erotic" or a "dark exploration of the nature of death"
I figured I could handle it since I've read a lot of Edward Lee, the author who holds the distinction of writing the only book that ever literally made me gag, I was right, I made it to the end without throwing up, but I prefer to get more out of a book than just not vomiting.
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