It falls on Megan, a young Korean-American girl, to stop the virus’ transmission, beginning with her own infection, and put an end to the hate and violence it spreads through its infected victims. When the soul dies, hate lives, and it’s not pretty.
Literary horror may be the modern genre of choice, but author M.J. Winn’s DEAD SOUL MARY is Gothic through and through. It brings to mind 19th Century Gothic in that its cast of characters is immense, and the horror is subtler, secondary to the characters themselves. It is also reminiscent of contemporary writer Chuck Palahniuk in that it pushes the boundaries of what is socially acceptable – there is no political correctness in DEAD SOUL MARY. And even though some readers might find that unpalatable, the novel’s powerful kick to the “tell it like it is” solar plexus is a big part of what makes the story so formidable. It is a rich, dense novel that speaks to the social ills of how violence perpetuates violence and how easily hatred spreads when left unchecked. The horror lies not in the shock value of jarring scares but in the insidious creep of emotional degradation on a soul-deep level. Winn precisely crafts his characters in such a way that the reader can’t help but be emotionally invested in the journey they take, which makes the horror all the more appalling. Each character’s story is deftly intertwined with the story at large in unanticipated ways, and discovering how everything fits together isn’t joyful exactly, but an experience nonetheless.
DEAD SOUL MARY might not appeal to readers who enjoy the “blood and guts” kind of horror, but for those who love the grand tradition of literary Gothic, it’s a shoe-in.
Reviewed by K.J. Pierce for IndieReader