Review of THE MURMURS by Michael J. Malone

 3.5 Stars

This book is being marketed as a gothic thriller and supernatural mystery; I almost didn’t read the book because of these descriptors.  I did read it, however, and did enjoy it.  But, for reasons I will discuss later, I would not describe it as really gothic or supernatural.  

Annie Jackson discovers she has inherited a curse which has plagued the lives of several generations of women in her matrilineal lineage.  She can identify people who will soon die:  graphic, debilitating visions accompanied by otherworldly murmuring voices show and tell her how that person will meet his/her demise.  With her twin brother Lewis, she sets out to probe her past in order to “understand who she was and how this curse might impact on her ability to have any kind of normal existence.”  Her quest is complicated by the fact that she has lost all memories from before the car accident which resulted in her being injured and her mother Eleanor killed.  Nonetheless, Annie is eventually drawn back to her childhood village in the Scottish highlands where, in the past, women like her were put to death as witches. 

I felt a sense of dread from the beginning.  The reader learns how cruelly women who were seen as different were treated in the past.  Even when Annie was a child, a fundamental pastor prayed over her as if she were demonically possessed, so there is a lot of trepidation concerning Annie’s future.  She shares these fears, wondering if she will go mad and end up institutionalized like other female relatives.  Encounters with Edward Trainer, a convicted murderer, and the reappearance of people from her past just add to the sense of foreboding. 

There is a dual timeline (past and present) and multiple points of view.  Besides Annie and Lewis’s perspectives, the reader is also occasionally given those of Eleanor and Edward.  Interspersed are portions of a memoir written by Moira McLean in 1818 in which she explains the origins of the curse of the murmurs. 

I liked the relationship between the twins.  Though there is genuine love between the two, Annie and Lewis are foil characters in many ways.  Annie is confused and frightened much of the time but Lewis, who is usually calmer than the oft agitated Annie, serves as a steadying influence.  He is loyal and supportive so though Annie often doesn’t know whom she can trust, she knows she can rely on and trust her brother.  A flaw they share is a blindness to people’s true natures:  they are both deceived by others because they choose to see and believe what serves their needs rather than examine people’s motives more closely. 

What also stands out for me is the hypocrisy of religious figures who hide their true natures behind charm or charisma.  Pastor Mosley, whom Eleanor regarded with awe and reverence, is actually narrow-minded, selfish, and manipulative.  He is ever vigilant against signs of demonic possession, but he should have looked inwards for signs of evil.  Another church leader is implicated in a series of crimes.  (I found these rather unbelievable since motivation is unclear.)  In the present, there’s an internet church whose leader seems more interested in fame and financial gain than people’s spiritual well-being.  I guess the message is that evil exists in all time periods and often in those who preach against the wickedness of others. 

I’ve read others’ reviews and come across words and phrases like spooky and scary and creepy being used because of the novel’s supernatural elements.  I found the wickedness demonstrated by humans much more frightening than any that can be attributed to the supernatural.  Were magic words used to curse descendants of a certain family?  I believe betrayals and secrets can cause trauma across generations, especially to sensitive people.  Conversations with others and even an experience of my own mean that, for me, premonitions of death may be beyond our current understanding but are not malevolent.  It’s only the vividness of Annie’s premonitions that are problematic.  Having visited places like the Dachau concentration camp, where much suffering and death occurred, I’ve had emotionally intense experiences which would probably only differ in degree from what Annie experiences.   So I take exception to connotatively loaded words like gothic and supernatural to describe the novel, except in the very general sense of mysterious and inexplicable.  (Okay, I’ve stepped off my soapbox.)

With its short chapters and continual ramping up of tension and suspense, this is a compelling read.  Though some attribute its atmosphere of dread to supernatural elements, I see the book more as a horrifying portrayal of the evil humans commit because of their pride, greed, lust, and wrath.