The horror of conspiracy theories
Grady Hendrix is known for his unconventional approach to the genre novel, specifically horror, because his output is mainly such books. He tries to talk about society and interpersonal relations in them. He is interested in the influence of capitalism or corporations on our everyday life and souls. This is one of the reasons why he gets good reviews in the USA, and interviews with him are largely related to collecting materials for prose and views on life. Although even reflecting on the latter does not explain everything to the Polish reader …
If you’ve watched the last seasons of the X-Files , you know that the real threat to America is not aliens, but vaccines, cellular networks, and big corporations or the government. The world brought to life by Hendrix is based on a similar premise. Mental health and free will are deprived of others by selling artists who drive crowds with commercial crap, Amazon for a partnership with Amnesty International, and an undefined “they” who control brains with radio waves and neurlinguistic programming. This is what both positive and negative heroes believe. We have sold our souls , although the main character has yet to find out. I have no idea if this is an expression of the author’s views or just a great basis for telling who the titular souls were sold to …
Wrath, Goddess, sing
The main character of We SELL Souls used to play in a pretty good metal band. They released several albums with the guys, traveled thousands of kilometers of concert tours, performed in dark cellars and on small stages. This was what freedom, happiness and real life were for them. Now Kris is just a receptionist in a poor hotel, she goes to therapy and everyone tells her that she shouldn’t be nervous.
Anger is one of the most important concepts in this book, an impulse to fight for yourself. When ancient heroes fell into him, their achievements were praised by the Muses and Homer. Today we have, for example, action movies and cyberpunk or Ilion Simmons. When a woman is angry, she is usually considered a hysterical woman, so instead of an epic poem, she receives pills from the environment. Kris had agreed to counting to ten and taking deep breaths for several years, but the sight of posters announcing the farewell tour of the man who took everything from her makes her grab the fingerboard again and go into battle.
Screaming metal
In We Sold Souls there will be a lot about being angry, despairing, betrayed, and finally – scared to death. It is a kind of a novel of the road, the stops of which are marked by former members of the Kris band and their last album, Troglodyta . The book does not contain many elements of a classic horror film, perhaps because Hendrix, when asked what he fears the most, answers once that it is poverty, at other times – the maddened crowd. And it is these two phenomena that will be the source of the horror in this horror movie, although there will also be classic monsters along the way. By the way, in one of the later chapters, you will find a neat paean in honor of blues and metal, i.e. music that expresses dreams of freedom and rebellion.
We Selled Souls is a book that is disturbing in many ways. First, it assumes that the conspiracy theories are true. Secondly, it shows in a captivating way that you have to fight for yourself, to get out of the inconvenient but socially acceptable everyday life. Thirdly – it has a grotesque, slightly disgusting and not fully integrated theme of terrible creatures. Vesper has released a book that in my opinion has the potential to raise a lot of questions in the reader, and even general astonishment and uncertainty. Grady Hendrix seems to be an intriguing writer who plays with conventions. I’ve already looked for his other books to see what this game is really about.
