The Donner Party tragedy — a horribly-gone-wrong 1846 emigration to California that ended with half the emigrants dead and the survivors having to resort to cannibalism — would hardly seem to need a ratcheting up of the horror via the addition of the supernatural. But that’s just what Alma Katsu has done in her Locus-nominated novel The Hunger. And honestly, I’m still not sure I needed the supernatural aspect because Katsu has created an entirely compelling, immersively suspenseful account of this harrowing journey just out of the more mundane character and environment.
The book opens with a prologue, which is really a looking ahead in time, as a rescue group sent out in April of 1847 to find the “last known survivor of the Donnor Party tragedy” arrives to find the site “eerily quiet . . . no sounds at all, no birdsong, no splash of waterfowl” and “the entire site smell [ing] of carrion. The rich stench of decaying flesh.” Approaching the lone cabin, they note “what looked like a human vertebra, cleaned of skin,” leaving only a brave few to step up before the door, which then “opened on its own,” ending the chapter.
From that cliff-hanger we jump back to Nebraska, June 1846 as Charles Stanton is shaving before the wagon train sets out for the day. But even this routine domestic act is laden with a sense of the ominous as Stanton first recalls a line of his grandfather’s — “A wicked man hides behind a beard, like Lucifer,” — and then cuts himself so that his razor “was streaked with blood” and on his neck appeared a “line of crimson . . . a gaping three-inch slash.” A minor cut, but emblematic he thinks of the entire “damnable journey in a nutshell. One unexpected ‘mishap’ after another.”
Stanton’s POV is one of several Katsu employs, the others including Edwin Bryant, a former newspaperman looking to learn about Native American folklore; Tamsen Donner, the beautiful wife of the wagon leader who is rumored to be both a temptress and a witch; Elitha Donner; Tamsen’s step-daughter; Mary Graves, a thoughtful, innocent young woman who becomes close to Stanton; and James Reed, George Donner’s rival to head the party. Nearly all of them have a secret of some sort (Elitha, for instance, has begun to hear voices in her head), each of which will eventually be revealed.
As Stanton cleans up from his shaving accident, Bryant tell him he and a few others are going to ride ahead, no longer willing to move at the train’s dangerously slow pace, especially this late in the season, and asks if Stanton wants to join them. Before he can answer though, news comes of a young boy gone missing, and soon after that the child’s body is found (“or what was left of him”), badly mutilated in a fashion Bryant (who has some medical training) says is too neat and orderly to have been done by wolves, not, he says, does it look like the work of Native Americans.
Things actually go downhill from that point on. Internal divisions, rivalries, and jealousies begin to divide the members of the party. Tempers explode raising the threat of violence and then violence itself. Food begins to run out. The weather worsens. Bad route decisions are made. Their promised guide never materializes. Accusations of all sorts start to fly. Respite stops, such as Fort Bridger, aren’t the havens that had been hoped for. And underlying all of that is the sense that something is stalking the party even as it becomes more and more isolated from the world and grows weaker and weaker. Though as is often the case in this sort of literary horror, the question becomes which is more deadly — the monsters outside or the monsters inside? Or are they possibly one and the same?
Katsu doles out omens and blows steadily and in increasingly intense form, ratcheting up the tension bit by bit: Elitha’s voice, an affair that may threaten the uneasy balance in the party, a shocking revelation inside an abandoned shack, bodies that appear to have been meant as sacrifices, a murder, an expulsion, a charge of witchcraft, an attempted rape, and eventually a drawn-out siege. Weaving in and out amongst all this is a restrained thread of the fantastical: Tamsen’s charms and herbal concoctions, Elitha’s voices, and the Indians legend of the “na-it” (the hunger) — a transformation that comes upon the stricken, “a bad spirit that can pass from man to man.” That last, which of course gives the book its title, is a wonderfully evocative concept, because while it comes from a Native American legend, Katsu makes it quite clear who that term really refers to. After all, one needn’t conjure up some sort of magical monster to find a creature that has an insatiable hunger to consume everything, wipes out all life in an area, destroys the ecosystem, feeds on its own, and is an implacably merciless, unthinking predator. That underlying symbolism throughout the novel adds a nice bit of depth to the scary story at the surface.
The unrelentingly claustrophobic tension of the wagon train’s journey is broken up by a series of letters from Bryant detailing his journey to track down a Native American legend akin to the Navajo skinwalker, as well as a series of flashbacks for the POV characters that explore their dark secrets and deepen their characters.
That characterization is sharp throughout, and it’s a testament to Katsu’s skill in both narrative plotting and characterization that we are suspended in fear and suspense even as, of course, we know what happens to these people. Despite that knowledge, one finds oneself desperately wishing for some way these people (some of them at least), can avoid their fate. As if, after hewing relatively tightly to the facts of the Donnor Party’s journey (and Katsu does an excellent job with the historical details of that odyssey—whether it be the settings, the methods, the landmarks, or other such elements), the author will simply drop the whole historical accuracy aspect and spin us off into some sort of happy or semi-happy ending. But of course, that doesn’t happen.
In fact, Katsu’s vivid recreation of the journey, her sharp characterization, her insightful plumbing of the depths of human nature (as well as, occasionally, showing us its heights), and her masterful control of tension meant that, for me at least, the supernatural elements were the least interesting aspects of the novel. I’m also, I confess, not a regular reader of horror fiction. Those coming to the book looking for a lot of the occult might find this a slow opening (I can see some fans complaining she spends “sooooo much time on the history . . . “). I, however, thought the book was mostly perfectly paced.
That only changed somewhat toward the end, when things sped up a bit and, perhaps not uncoincidentally, the monsters made their first really direct appearances and attacks. But then, things slowed again, and those events led to two great scenes at the end. While the last bit of the novel, therefore, is a bit disappointing, it’s only in comparison to what has come before, is relatively brief, and gets us in short order back to several strong moments. This was, so far, my favorite of the Locus-nominated novels I’ve read this past month.
(review originally appeared at fantasyliterature.com)
Enjoy fast, FREE delivery, exclusive deals and award-winning movies & TV shows with Prime
Try Prime
and start saving today with Fast, FREE Delivery
Loading your book clubs
There was a problem loading your book clubs. Please try again.
Not in a club? Learn more
Join or create book clubs
Choose books together
Track your books
Bring your club to Amazon Book Clubs, start a new book club and invite your friends to join, or find a club that’s right for you for free.
Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required. Learn more
Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.
Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.
Flip to back Flip to front
Follow the Author
Something went wrong. Please try your request again later.
Discover the latest buzz-worthy books, from mysteries and romance to humor and nonfiction. Explore more
Frequently bought together
$18.36
Get it as soon as Wednesday, Aug 16
Only 11 left in stock - order soon.
+
Total price:
To see our price, add these items to your cart.
Choose items to buy together.
What do customers buy after viewing this item?
Page 1 of 1 Start overPage 1 of 1
Popular Highlights in this book
Reed once thought that love was akin to passion, but he saw now that it was something different entirely; that it was, perhaps, a kind of faith.Highlighted by 192 Kindle readers- Hope, Tamsen realized, could be a very dangerous thing, especially when dealt to desperate hands.Highlighted by 150 Kindle readers
- “I don’t believe in monsters,” Stanton said. “Only men who behave like them.”Highlighted by 143 Kindle readers
About the author
Follow authors to get new release updates, plus improved recommendations.
Evil takes many forms in Alma Katsu’s The Hunger. While the most obvious one is whatever is hunting the people of the wagon train heading to California, evil also takes the form of panic and desperation and what those make people do.The reader is given parts of the story of the ill-fated Donner party through various narrators. Each has a background that haunts them. Their backgrounds are hinted at for the most part, but towards the end, the truth of their story is given. Along the way, the reader witnesses the breakdown of the humanity within this group. Once the possibility of starvation or death is upon them, that is when a lot of the horror begins. That underlying fear brings out the worst in some of them.While The Hunger definitely can be categorized as horror, it is also steeped in history. The tragedy of the Donner party is real, even if the events have been embellished for this book. However, you can tell that a lot of research went into the hardships that a wagon train went through to get to California. What I appreciated most was while the “hunger” most definitely applies to the fate of the Donner party, it also applies to the travelers’ desire to make better lives for themselves. The hunger is easily what drove most of them to put themselves and their family through the misery of making a trek through unknown wilderness.The Hunger was visceral and scary. Even if you knew the story of what happened to the Donner party, Katsu drafted characters that you rooted for. They were human and flawed, but ultimately, they just wanted the promise of a better life.
Images in this review
Top reviews from other countries
Kindle Customer
Its not very scary
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 4, 2023
Red Lace Reviews
The Hunger fused a sinister tone with an already disturbing story.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 4, 2020
Red Lace Reviews
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 4, 2020
The Donner Party of 1846–1847 is interesting reading, certainly bleak, but a grand test of survival which in itself is enough to make me uncomfortable. I think on some level I knew I’d enjoy The Hunger, especially with what I’d heard from the book community and fellow reviewers; a relatively lengthy and slow burning volume (anything over four hundred pages typically intimidates me), focused on the characters and their harrowing trek to California. The rather subtle elements of horror and building of atmosphere had me immediately engrossed, and I remained dedicated to the journey until its climax. I’ll admit that it took effort, a story like this usually does with its large number of characters that are all tangled in a complex web of relationships and motives. At times I forgot who was who, especially those names that were more in the background than the fore-front. That said, because of the amount of people, there was a lot of potential for conflict, and Katsu took advantage of sowing discord amongst the group of travellers, illustrating such things as paranoia and desperation.
That was my favourite thing about the entire novel: human nature, a horror in its own right. Circumstances got dark, and there was more than enough misery to go around as the wagon train splintered. It was hard not to pick up on the foreshadowing throughout, which solidified suspense in the best possible way; Reed’s concerns, as well as Elitha’s mystical insight, pointed toward an inevitable outcome that couldn’t be avoided, no matter how much I wished for otherwise. I’m aware that in order to spin this tale, historical accuracy needed to be altered, but for the sake of dramatic fiction it was handled decently well, with obvious knowledge behind the scenes. Plausible backstories were even included to shed light on the secrets that plagued the main few protagonists, and I appreciated the fleshing out of these personalities, making them seem all the more authentic as people.
The supernatural threat went the ambiguous route, not fully confirming the specifics. I’ve read several opinions of interpretation, and I guess I came away with my own ideas – sometimes this approach doesn’t work for me, and sometimes it succeeds in what it’s supposed to do, encouraging my imagination to fill in the blanks. I really took to Alma’s writing and soaking up the mood in this instance, but there was a part of me that wished for a tiny bit more. Much of the gruesome detail took place off the page, and I can think of one development in particular that altogether skipped over the grisly bits, instead going straight to the aftermath – as creepy as it was, I just considered this a disappointment and a missed opportunity to amp up the emotions. I think those that go looking for an overly descriptive take on people eating each other would be let down.
In conclusion: Despite downplaying the elements of cannibalism, The Hunger fused a sinister tone with an already disturbing story. I was invested from the beginning, fascinated with the decline of morale and mental well-being of the fractious group of pioneers. Admittedly, I had a bit of a difficult time keeping up with all the characters, but the sheer eeriness and sense of dread, as well as the expertly penned atmosphere, kept me hooked.
Notable Quote:
“Then the Lord must be mightily displeased with you, because he has led you into the valley of death. Make peace with your Lord before it is too late, because the hungry ones are coming for you.”
© Red Lace 2020
Images in this review
