If the subject of modern horror is damnation, then the city is its Dantean Eighth Circle. Though damnation's locus is chiefly urban, its origins are less distinct. On this subject, the Barkers and Schows equivocate, wanting neither to be identified as Christian nor to avoid Christianity's rictus style. But in his fourth and newest horror novel,Wetbones, John Shirley attempts to answer that question directly. Despair, he maintains, is the result of man's essential weakness.
Despair is a kind of addiction.
His breath, like his attachment to her, floats above the body, vanishing into insignificance. Prentice is the survivor of addiction, Amy is its casualty. He feels helpless because he is under addiction's grip. And the horror comes from what addiction does to lover and beloved. His body shrivels to impotence as hers is corrupted, eaten away.