A reporter receives an assignment that could break the monotony of her recent stories … investigate a rumored snake cult in the Appalachian Mountains. Set in the late 1980s, Kristi DeMeester’s Beneath is her debut novel and it is a bold introduction to this writer’s storytelling sensibilities.
When reporter Cora Mayburn is assigned to cover a story about a snake-handling cult in rural Appalachia, she is dismayed, for the world of cruel fundamentalist stricture, repression, glossolalia, and abuse is something she has long since put behind her in favor of a more tolerant urban existence. But she accepts the assignment, dredging up long-buried memories as she seeks the truth.
As Cora begins to uncover the secrets concealed by a veneer of faith and tradition, something ancient and long concealed begins to awaken. What secrets do the townsfolk know? What might the handsome young pastor be hiding? What will happen when occulted horrors writhe to the surface, when pallid and forgotten things rise to reclaim the Earth?
Will Cora–and the earth–survive? The answers–and pure terror–can only be found in one place: Beneath.
When Cora is given the assignment, she is a little apprehensive since she has an unfortunate past with her own church, but she relents and takes the assignment. Upon her arrival, Cora is unsettled. The town is very small and with insular and incestuous vibes, the Preacher is charming, but has a wandering eye for young girls. From there, the novel gets even darker, more dirty, and more bleak. Dirty in the feel of the small town and its squalor and dirty in the sense that elicit sexual activities are happening.
The darkness and dirtiness of the novel contrasts against DeMeester’s lovely prose and character building. She does well in terms of playing some of the tropes she throws into the story (creepy preacher, cult, character with a shrouded past) to their expectations as well as throwing a curve ball which serves to keep the reader on their toes. What really shows DeMeester’s skill is that she manages to build tension and drama for those elements which readers may expect or predict, making for a powerful and enthralling read. Cora is a very empathetic character you root for and the preacher is not somebody you’d even want to know. That said, DeMeester gets readers in the preacher’s head enough to see things from his point of view. While that aspect of the novel may not build up empathy for the preacher, it does shine a slightly different light on the story. The minor characters, particularly Leah and her mother Ruth McDowell have a potent impact during their short time in the spotlight of the novel. Again, DeMeester does a nice job of playing the expectations of a trope against the story she actually tells.
Then there’s the lurking power this snake cult worships. There are physical threats from this terror as well as mental threats and DeMeester finely walks the line between the two elements, allowing for the harried mental state of our characters, particularly Cora and Michael, to come across very powerfully throughout the back-half of the novel.
Horror saw such a boom in the 1980s, both films and prose to the point that the decade is almost a sub-genre of its own in Horror literature. Setting this novel in the mid-1980s allows for a good deal of tension to enter the story, for there are no beepers let alone cell phones which would allow easier communication between Cora and her contacts at the newspaper or anybody in the outside world.
I also have to call out the quality of the cover by Marcela Bolívar, which is beautiful and evokes the themes and hinted at imagery in the novel. Very eye-catchy, it really does pop. In other words, the fine folks at Word Horde have put together a really nice book, whose exterior and interior are wonderful complements of each other.
Beneath is an impressive debut novel from a writer with a knack for character and atmosphere. Kristi DeMeester has written and published several short stories, and this novel is a wonderful showcase for her talents. I’m looking forward to reading more from her in the future.
Recommended
© 2021 Rob H. Bedford
Published by Word Horde | April 2017
https://www.kristidemeester.com/
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