The Body

The tension in The Body by Bethany C. Morrow came more from the weight of expectation of perfection put upon Mavis by her church, which she left years ago, her parents, and herself than anything else, but that made the horror feel all the more real even while Mavis, and therefore the reader, could not always distinguish reality from delusion.

Mavis survives a car crash after a driver runs a red light, and this is the beginning of a series of misfortunes that befall her and her marriage – assuming we can rely on her narration, but as events turn to the apparently supernatural, this is not necessarily a valid assumption.

The Body has themes of religious trauma and deep-seated misogyny through the unreliable narration created by a triggering event, but it reads like a bit of a fever dream. Through Mavis’ eyes, we don’t know what’s real, the timeline is confusing, who’s cheating on whom, who’s digging in the yard, who are the creepy figures she sees? Or is any of it even happening?

For the most part, it doesn’t matter. Morrow’s language draws the reader in, and it matters less what is happening and more about how it’s being said and what it’s saying about Mavis’ psyche. I listened to this on audiobook (ALC from NetGalley and Macmillan Audio), and Nesta Cooper’s lyrical narration surely contributed to my enjoyment of the ride that was The Body.