Today’s post on The Horror Bookshelf comes from Alma Katsu, the author of The Hunger and The Taker trilogy. I first heard about The Hunger from Max Booth III’s “15 Most Anticipated Horror Books of 2018” list on Litreactor, and Max’s blurb had me hooked right away. I have always loved history and I’m a big fan of horror novels that either focus on a historical event, or are set in a different time period. So naturally The Hunger immediately became one of my most anticipated books of the year. The Hunger takes the grisly and devastating events of the Donner Party and adds in an element of supernatural horror. Doesn’t that sound like a killer set-up for a horror novel? Alma is stopping by The Horror Bookshelf to share the inspiration behind the evil that plagues the Donner Party in The Hunger. I will have a review of The Hunger on The Horror Bookshelf soon and after reading Alma’s guest post, I can’t wait to tear into this book! The Hunger will be available March 6.
Before I turn over the blog to Alma, I want to thank her and Emily of Glasstown Entertainment for putting this together!
“The Monster in The Hunger” by Alma Katsu, author of The Hunger and The Taker trilogy
In the late summer of 1846, a wagon train heads down a little-known route through the American West in the hope that it will shave hundreds of miles off the trek to California. Instead, it takes them through a hellish landscape that proves nearly impassable, throwing them weeks behind schedule. And just as they arrive at the last mountain pass standing between them and their destination, the worst storm of the century descends on them. Out of food and already pushed to the point of starvation, they have only one choice if they want to survive.
One horrible, unimaginable choice.
This is the story of the Donner Party. It’s such a great story that you might think it doesn’t need any embellishment. But I saw the potential to tell another story.
I added the supernatural.
It’s hard to believe this hasn’t been done already (though it very well may have. There are so many books about the Donner Party, fiction and non-fiction, that it’s impossible to be exhaustive.) But as I researched the real events, it seemed to me that the wagon party seemed cursed from the start. There were injuries, deaths: a sick old man was left to die alone in the desert. Another man, worried that he was going to be robbed, went off to bury his treasure and was never seen alive again. They were followed by bad luck and tragedy every step of the way.
And it got me thinking: what if all this bad luck wasn’t the result of natural causes? What if they were being followed by something with evil intentions?
The problem was finding a supernatural creature that could stand up to the horror of the real-life Donner Party. When you’re already facing cannibalism, what monster would have the power to scare you?
Luckily, the supernatural is everywhere, if you know where to look for it.
In my research, I looked at Native American folklore. The Donner Party was traveling through Native American lands, after all. They would hear stories of terrifying beasts from the tribes they came in contact with. One such creature is the wendigo. Originally from Algonquian folklore, some sources describe it as a spirit that’s able to take over a human body; others say it started as a man but was made into a monster by greed. In all its variations, however, it is at its heart the same: an ever-hungry creature driven to cannibalism.
I also looked at another ever-hungry creature, the werewolf. While werewolves are generally credited to European folklore, there were stories of werewolf sightings in America around the time of the Donner Party. The wendigo and the werewolf strongly influenced the supernatural element in The Hunger but that’s not exactly what you’ll find in the novel. The Hunger is about that dark side we all have inside us. Whether that monster triumphs is up to individual.
I’ll stop here because I don’t want to spoil anyone’s enjoyment of The Hunger. In the end, it will be up to the reader to decide what’s pursuing the wagon party—or if there’s something supernatural on their trail at all. It’ll be up to you, the reader, to decide what—or who—the monster is. Or if we’re all monsters.
LINKS
Purchase The Hunger: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, IndieBound or grab a copy from your favorite bookstore!
About The Hunger
Evil is invisible, and it is everywhere.
Tamsen Donner must be a witch. That is the only way to explain the series of misfortunes that have plagued the wagon train known as the Donner Party. Depleted rations, bitter quarrels, and the mysterious death of a little boy have driven the pioneers to the brink of madness. They cannot escape the feeling that someone–or something–is stalking them. Whether it was a curse from the beautiful Tamsen, the choice to follow a disastrous experimental route West, or just plain bad luck–the 90 men, women, and children of the Donner Party are at the brink of one of the deadliest and most disastrous western adventures in American history.
While the ill-fated group struggles to survive in the treacherous mountain conditions–searing heat that turns the sand into bubbling stew; snows that freeze the oxen where they stand–evil begins to grow around them, and within them. As members of the party begin to disappear, they must ask themselves “What if there is something waiting in the mountains? Something disturbing and diseased…and very hungry?”
About Alma Katsu
Before she started writing novels, Alma Katsu was both a music journalist and an analyst for the likes of CIA and RAND. She has pounded the halls of the Pentagon, been in the West Wing of the White House, and interviewed rock stars. Her novels—The Taker, The Reckoning, and The Descent (which, oddly enough, have nothing to do with music or national security)—have been published in more than a dozen languages.
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