“The Black Hunger is a bleak, gothic masterpiece. A devastating exploration of humanity's capacity for evil." – Sunyi Dean, author of The Book Eaters
John Sackville will soon be dead. Shadows writhe in the corners of his cell as he mourns the death of his secret lover and the gnawing hunger inside him grows impossible to ignore.
He must write his last testament before it is too late.
It is a story steeped in history and myth - a journey from stone circles in Scotland, to the barren wilderness of Ukraine where otherworldly creatures stalk the night, ending in the icy peaks of Tibet and Mongolia, where an ancient evil stirs."
The Black Hunger is the type of horror that I love: an intricate slow burn story full of dread that demands patience from its reader, but rewards that patience in all the best ways. It’s been far too long since I’ve read something that felt like such a delightful and unsettling treat. This book transported me back to the kind of fever-dream books I loved as a kid-those ones that combine so much history into fiction that it almost feels real. It very much gave me some similar vibes to Elizabeth Kostova's The Historian with its attention to detail, historical depth, and richly imagined world. This is the type of story that pulls you in and keeps you there and makes you start to wonder where this fits into our own reality.
I couldn't hope to provide an accurate way to summarize this book, so please feel free to read the synopsis above provided by the publisher to get a better idea of what you're getting yourself into–although it, too, is also a big vague.
The Black Hunger is told as John Sackville's overarching narrative, but it is also the story of Dr. Samuel Abravanel and Ian Stewart, and along the way we delve into these other stories where we learn more and uncover different aspects of the story with these characters. There is also use of an epistolary format that worked really well and provided an added intimacy to the characters that made it feel like we were peering into their minds and experiences as if we were a part of them. This also added to the somewhat dread-filled atmosphere and allowed readers to slowly put together the pieces of this puzzle.
One strong point of this book (among many) lies in its characters. They were all multidimensional, each with their own set of desires, fears, motivations, and reactions. The way that Pullen managed to explore their inner minds made it easy to connect with them and I found myself completely invested in their journeys. I honestly didn't expect to be so emotionally affected by their own experiences and grief, but there were moments in the story where certain events hit me hard. The horror in The Black Hunger is not just the darkness of what happens around the characters, but is also very emotional and psychological in how it affects both characters and readers.
I also have to give credit to the structure and timeline shifts between sections and characters because of how well they ended up working. The first part of the story was so compelling that when things were switched up I was initially worried that it would disrupt the flow and I wouldn't be as engaged with the next part. However, I shouldn't have worried because I ended enjoying the next parts just as much as the first, and I felt it added a much broader and more widely encompassing scope to the story.
This book pulls on so much history and many cultural aspects that were all incredibly well-researched and felt natural within the story. There's an esoteric quality to the story that borders on being a bit dense at times, but instead of bogging down the narrative, it enhances it and adds incredible depth and complexity to the world. Pullen manages to find the perfect balance between information and intrigue, drawing you deeper without overwhelming you, and I thought he did a good job of using basic concepts of things to turn into more imaginative uses in the plot.
Pullen's prose is an incredible highlight of this book. It's lush, immersive, and easily creates an atmosphere of darkness that permeates the entire book. It's the type of writing where every sentence seems to carry weight and adds layers of meaning on top of meaning. Pullen doesn't just describe places or people, he delves deeply into them to bring them fully alive to readers. The more the story unfolds, the heavier the sense of impending doom becomes. It's the type of horror that creeps under your skin without resorting to cheap scares. I'm not sure this book will be for everyone, but I found it immensely satisfying and the tension throughout worked successfully until the very last page.
Personally, I can't think of much of anything I didn't particularly like about this book, so my sections on my complaints is going to be relatively small. The main thing that I think may put people off from this book is that it really is quite dense at times, and it's also an incredibly slow-paced story. I found the effort completely worth the wait and I was glued to the pages so it felt like a page-turner to me, but if that's not really your preferred style, then you may have more struggles with this book.
Overall, I've given The Black Hunger five stars! For me, this is a new favorite and feels very much like a classic Gothic horror in the making. The Black Hunger is everything I look for in Gothic horror: thoughtful prose, well-developed characters, detailed settings that are characters in their own right, and a creeping sense of dread that never lets up. If you love slow-burn horror that prioritizes atmosphere and depth over quick thrills, this is a book you won’t want to miss.
