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A review by spenkevich
Last Days by Brian Evenson
5.0
‘How do you know the moment when you cease to be human?’
What level of horrors can a person withstand or what amount of horrors can a person deliver upon others before that barrier is breached? Violence—be it deemed vengeance or venerable—drips from every page of Evenson’s Last Days as former detective Kline questions the proximity to remaining human while navigate the waking nightmare of a cult that believes in self-amputations as access to the divine. A literary horror housed inside a noir thriller and bursting with brutality, Evenson tempers the grotesque with dark comedy while plunging Kline—and the reader—into a Kafkaequse hellscape of opaque demands and cult bureaucracy with absurdity around every corner. Last Days features prose that slashes like a sharp knife, blending uneasy horror with noir drenched in existential anxiety and sinister surrealism that make this a ferocious and grisly read that is nearly impossible to turn your eyes away from. At least while you still have them…
‘It was only later that he realized the reason they had called him, but by then it was too late for the information to do him any good.’
Chosen by the American Library Association's award for Best Horror Novel of 2009, Last Days is a non-stop wave of mutilation. No, not like the Pixies sang about, think more blood. Like big barrels of it, like enough to not only soak Carrie at prom but drown that whole stupid school. The first part, Brotherhood of Mutilation, had previously been published as a standalone novella though the inclusion of the second half brings the story to a notably intense and shocking conclusion. While the two parts each have their own arc and tone, as [a:Peter Straub|6941|Peter Straub|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1200468903p2/6941.jpg] explains in the introduction ‘when one ends, the other begins, and we are within a new fictional body, one that perfectly remembers all that took place in the body we just left.’ It is a fitting structure for a story about severance of limbs, a ritualistic practice within the cult where the number of amputations not only denotes devotion but also rank within the order. There is also a sense of rhyming to the narrative, with imagery or events similarly repeated ( Kline waking Ramse in his bed as an inverse to the beginning, for instance) as well as the duality of the two rivalcults brotherhoods.
‘A profoundly moral act in a kind of moral, biblical, old testament sense: an eye for a hand, and a bag of money thrown in.’
The idea of “schisms” is thematically central to Last Days. We have the two brotherhoods, the “mutilates” and the Pauls—named as much for the apostle (who had his own schism with himself on the road to Damascus) as for Paul Wittgenstein, the brother of philosopher [a:Ludwig Wittgenstein|7672|Ludwig Wittgenstein|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1615573835p2/7672.jpg] who commissioned piano compositions to be played with only the left hand following the amputation of his right arm due to an injury sustained in World War I—who split over theological disputes. But the introduction of Kline into their world threatens a new schism. As we learn in the first paragraph of the book (Evenson always comes hard right out of the gate), Kline has been selected (see also: forced) to investigate within the brotherhood when he makes the newspapers for having his right hand cut off by a cleaver during an undercover operation and proceeding to self-cauterize it before shooting his assailant through the eye with his non-dominant hand. A rather honorable act for a group who self-amputates, though his act of self-cauterization threatens to form a schism in the group in arguments over it being plausibly more devout. For the Pauls we see Kline being groomed as a holy figure or ‘Angel of destruction’—imagine the chants of ‘Lisan al Gaib’ from men with no right hand instead of space warriors—arriving ‘like a thief in the night. He cometh not with an olive branch but with a sword. He smiteth’ Kline, who has certainly severed some lives from their bodies by hand or gun, might just be their savior. Or a martyr...
‘But even God sometimes becomes impatient.’
The noir elements really make this a riveting read. Likely due to their shared love of noir, Last Days made me nostalgic for reading [a:Roberto Bolaño|72039|Roberto Bolaño|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1617204588p2/72039.jpg], particularly how the hilarious interplay of Gous and Ramse at the start reminded me of Mr. Raef and Mr. Etah from By Night in Chile, and the way these two characters start off denoted by their monikers that then get stripped away to reveal their true names is a bit of a fun detective element. The dialogue in the novel is deadpan, taking a hard-boiled flair akin to [a:Raymond Chandler|1377|Raymond Chandler|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1206535318p2/1377.jpg] but elevating it into satirically surreal and comically absurd levels that give off shades of [a:Samuel Beckett|1433597|Samuel Beckett|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1655570706p2/1433597.jpg]. There is a sense of profound duality everywhere:
"Would you mind putting Mlinko on?"
"Mlinko seems to be dead," said Kline.
"Appears or is?"
"Both," said Kline”
This rather humorous response directly following a viscerally violent scene, echoing early comically deadpan dialogue where ‘Aline is either dead or not dead,’ is signature to the novel and keeps things light despite the otherwise immense darkness of the tale. But it also nudges the dualities present everywhere in the novel. For instance, while there is no clear religious model for these brotherhoods beyond a general amalgamation that centers a rather gnostic belief about the dichotomy of the physical and spiritual world with a valuation towards the spiritual. Side note: Evenson was raised in the Mormon church though he left in 2000 following his resignation from Brigham Young University over their distaste for his first book, [b:Altmann's Tongue: Stories and a Novella|146772|Altmann's Tongue Stories and a Novella|Brian Evenson|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1328819204l/146772._SY75_.jpg|1221661] and this novel’s criticisms of religious fervor is likely not not influenced by that.
‘What was the truth? he wondered. How important was it to know? And once he knew, what then?’
Where Last Days excels most for me are elements of sheer absurdity that strip the detective genre down to its bare parts while also subverting it. Kline is there to investigate a crime, but what crime? A robbery? A smuggling operation? A murder? Everyone tells him a different thing, and if it is a murder, is the victim dead or still alive? He must solve the case but is not allowed to question anyone (at least not above his rank, a 1 for his removed hand though a few more amputations could give him access to low level members…) and all the information given to him is redacted. Even the crime scene is simply a replica, which is outrageously funny but also brings up, again, the idea of the immaterial world of spirit and idea outweighing physical reality:
It’s pure surreal absurdism at its finest and almost feels like an inverse of [a:Edgar Allan Poe|4624490|Edgar Allan Poe|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1454522972p2/4624490.jpg]’s detective C. Auguste Dupin. Poe’s character was the basis for the creation of the detective genre, even [a:Arthur Conan Doyle|2448|Arthur Conan Doyle|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1495008883p2/2448.jpg]’s Sherlock was inspired by him, and his narratives played out on the idea of logic, on abductive reasoning. Here it is more like absurdist reasoning, with the absurdity functioning not unlike the foggy dark alleyways of noir. And everywhere a knife or gun ready to blow a skull wide open as the author simultaneously blows your mind.
An absolute knockout of a brief novel, Last Days is Evenson at his finest. Big thanks to Hope for recommending this one. I’ve long loved Evenson’s horror short stories but this manages to rise above even those perfect gems of prose. Scathingly satirical, frightfully surreal and comically absurd in a story that is so blood-spattered and gruesome it could make even hardened readers flinch, this is a novel you’ll find yourself flipping pages long after bedtime unable to turn away.
5/5
‘How many whales do you suppose God will deign send to swallow you? When does God run out of whales?’
What level of horrors can a person withstand or what amount of horrors can a person deliver upon others before that barrier is breached? Violence—be it deemed vengeance or venerable—drips from every page of Evenson’s Last Days as former detective Kline questions the proximity to remaining human while navigate the waking nightmare of a cult that believes in self-amputations as access to the divine. A literary horror housed inside a noir thriller and bursting with brutality, Evenson tempers the grotesque with dark comedy while plunging Kline—and the reader—into a Kafkaequse hellscape of opaque demands and cult bureaucracy with absurdity around every corner. Last Days features prose that slashes like a sharp knife, blending uneasy horror with noir drenched in existential anxiety and sinister surrealism that make this a ferocious and grisly read that is nearly impossible to turn your eyes away from. At least while you still have them…
‘It was only later that he realized the reason they had called him, but by then it was too late for the information to do him any good.’
Chosen by the American Library Association's award for Best Horror Novel of 2009, Last Days is a non-stop wave of mutilation. No, not like the Pixies sang about, think more blood. Like big barrels of it, like enough to not only soak Carrie at prom but drown that whole stupid school. The first part, Brotherhood of Mutilation, had previously been published as a standalone novella though the inclusion of the second half brings the story to a notably intense and shocking conclusion. While the two parts each have their own arc and tone, as [a:Peter Straub|6941|Peter Straub|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1200468903p2/6941.jpg] explains in the introduction ‘when one ends, the other begins, and we are within a new fictional body, one that perfectly remembers all that took place in the body we just left.’ It is a fitting structure for a story about severance of limbs, a ritualistic practice within the cult where the number of amputations not only denotes devotion but also rank within the order. There is also a sense of rhyming to the narrative, with imagery or events similarly repeated ( Kline waking Ramse in his bed as an inverse to the beginning, for instance) as well as the duality of the two rival
‘A profoundly moral act in a kind of moral, biblical, old testament sense: an eye for a hand, and a bag of money thrown in.’
The idea of “schisms” is thematically central to Last Days. We have the two brotherhoods, the “mutilates” and the Pauls—named as much for the apostle (who had his own schism with himself on the road to Damascus) as for Paul Wittgenstein, the brother of philosopher [a:Ludwig Wittgenstein|7672|Ludwig Wittgenstein|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1615573835p2/7672.jpg] who commissioned piano compositions to be played with only the left hand following the amputation of his right arm due to an injury sustained in World War I—who split over theological disputes. But the introduction of Kline into their world threatens a new schism. As we learn in the first paragraph of the book (Evenson always comes hard right out of the gate), Kline has been selected (see also: forced) to investigate within the brotherhood when he makes the newspapers for having his right hand cut off by a cleaver during an undercover operation and proceeding to self-cauterize it before shooting his assailant through the eye with his non-dominant hand. A rather honorable act for a group who self-amputates, though his act of self-cauterization threatens to form a schism in the group in arguments over it being plausibly more devout. For the Pauls we see Kline being groomed as a holy figure or ‘Angel of destruction’—imagine the chants of ‘Lisan al Gaib’ from men with no right hand instead of space warriors—arriving ‘like a thief in the night. He cometh not with an olive branch but with a sword. He smiteth’ Kline, who has certainly severed some lives from their bodies by hand or gun, might just be their savior. Or a martyr...
‘But even God sometimes becomes impatient.’
The noir elements really make this a riveting read. Likely due to their shared love of noir, Last Days made me nostalgic for reading [a:Roberto Bolaño|72039|Roberto Bolaño|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1617204588p2/72039.jpg], particularly how the hilarious interplay of Gous and Ramse at the start reminded me of Mr. Raef and Mr. Etah from By Night in Chile, and the way these two characters start off denoted by their monikers that then get stripped away to reveal their true names is a bit of a fun detective element. The dialogue in the novel is deadpan, taking a hard-boiled flair akin to [a:Raymond Chandler|1377|Raymond Chandler|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1206535318p2/1377.jpg] but elevating it into satirically surreal and comically absurd levels that give off shades of [a:Samuel Beckett|1433597|Samuel Beckett|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1655570706p2/1433597.jpg]. There is a sense of profound duality everywhere:
"Would you mind putting Mlinko on?"
"Mlinko seems to be dead," said Kline.
"Appears or is?"
"Both," said Kline”
This rather humorous response directly following a viscerally violent scene, echoing early comically deadpan dialogue where ‘Aline is either dead or not dead,’ is signature to the novel and keeps things light despite the otherwise immense darkness of the tale. But it also nudges the dualities present everywhere in the novel. For instance, while there is no clear religious model for these brotherhoods beyond a general amalgamation that centers a rather gnostic belief about the dichotomy of the physical and spiritual world with a valuation towards the spiritual. Side note: Evenson was raised in the Mormon church though he left in 2000 following his resignation from Brigham Young University over their distaste for his first book, [b:Altmann's Tongue: Stories and a Novella|146772|Altmann's Tongue Stories and a Novella|Brian Evenson|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1328819204l/146772._SY75_.jpg|1221661] and this novel’s criticisms of religious fervor is likely not not influenced by that.
‘What was the truth? he wondered. How important was it to know? And once he knew, what then?’
Where Last Days excels most for me are elements of sheer absurdity that strip the detective genre down to its bare parts while also subverting it. Kline is there to investigate a crime, but what crime? A robbery? A smuggling operation? A murder? Everyone tells him a different thing, and if it is a murder, is the victim dead or still alive? He must solve the case but is not allowed to question anyone (at least not above his rank, a 1 for his removed hand though a few more amputations could give him access to low level members…) and all the information given to him is redacted. Even the crime scene is simply a replica, which is outrageously funny but also brings up, again, the idea of the immaterial world of spirit and idea outweighing physical reality:
‘Mr. Kline, surely you’re enough of an armchair philosopher to realize that everything is a reconstruction of something else? Reality is a desperate and evasive creature.’
It’s pure surreal absurdism at its finest and almost feels like an inverse of [a:Edgar Allan Poe|4624490|Edgar Allan Poe|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1454522972p2/4624490.jpg]’s detective C. Auguste Dupin. Poe’s character was the basis for the creation of the detective genre, even [a:Arthur Conan Doyle|2448|Arthur Conan Doyle|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1495008883p2/2448.jpg]’s Sherlock was inspired by him, and his narratives played out on the idea of logic, on abductive reasoning. Here it is more like absurdist reasoning, with the absurdity functioning not unlike the foggy dark alleyways of noir. And everywhere a knife or gun ready to blow a skull wide open as the author simultaneously blows your mind.
An absolute knockout of a brief novel, Last Days is Evenson at his finest. Big thanks to Hope for recommending this one. I’ve long loved Evenson’s horror short stories but this manages to rise above even those perfect gems of prose. Scathingly satirical, frightfully surreal and comically absurd in a story that is so blood-spattered and gruesome it could make even hardened readers flinch, this is a novel you’ll find yourself flipping pages long after bedtime unable to turn away.
5/5
‘How many whales do you suppose God will deign send to swallow you? When does God run out of whales?’