Mourning, Murder, Frenzy, Madness
Follow Me Into the Dark by Felicia C. Sullivan
Feminist Press, 2017
Reviewed by Christina Hornett
Felicia C. Sullivan’s Follow Me Into the Dark is about the maddening bonds of family. In thinking about the bonds of family, what often comes to mind is the dutiful parent, close sibling relationships (or rivalries), images of nurturing and affection, and the challenge of overcoming grief together. However, Sullivan subverts these expectations with something raw, internal, and dangerous. Lines such as “What kind of family is a family you can’t go home to?” bring the reader into a world that is deceptive, cold, calculating, yet titillating. It punches you in the gut with every turn of the page. It’s near masochistic.
The story begins with the protagonist Kate, a young baker whose mother is dying of cancer. Readers are pulled into their bizarre and complex mother-daughter relationship. Kate’s father is having an affair with the intelligent and seductive Gillian, whose brother Jonah is a peculiar oddball and quite possibly a serial killer named “Doll Collector”. The web of these characters’ interactions, their macabre dance of mourning, murder, frenzy, and madness will leave the reader breathless, unable to turn the page yet still desiring more. Despite the madness, the murder, and dare I say, the mayhem…at the core of this novel is what one does to create and retain a semblance of family. It’s about how the abused becomes the abuser. This is not unchartered literary territory of course; however, to see it done this well—is a revelation.
Sullivan’s short and blunt prose is jarring in the most beautiful way possible. As a reader, you enter a world in which you find yourself living among the remains of destruction. Whispers in darkness. A voyeur. It feels wrong but pleasurable. Readers get caught in a web of intrigue, suspense, and unknowing. The path of truth is only lit when the reader feels confident they are going in the right direction, only to realize, through Sullivan’s unveiling, that what they thought to be true is in fact false. It is a continual unraveling of who is the predator and who is the prey.
“We’re told, ‘You’re smart for a woman, you’re mouthy for a woman, you’re brazen for a woman.’ They tell us we’re dangerous and emotional, prone to hysterics like landmines, and I wonder, if this is true, why aren’t they afraid?”
Sullivan joins, perhaps unknowingly, the female gothic tradition. The cause of terror in Sullivan’s novel is not from the supernatural, but rather the female mind, familial horrors, and the loss of control. While working within themes of feminism, patriarchal control, and mental illness, Sullivan’s commentary is never overt. Haunting prose and intelligent twists haunt and thrill, while her lyrical prose simultaneously adds an elegance and beauty to every scene and character. Sullivan does not apologize for the derangement of the characters, because this is a reality that could be happening right next door. It makes for both a seductive and demented novel of pure genius. It is a jolting and invigorating ride.
“Things had to be done. In the end, we do what we have to. We do what we must.”
CHRISTINA HORNETT is an MA graduate student at Western Washington University in Bellingham, WA.
Featured image by Clem Onojeghuo