

MAY 27, 2013

The Resurrectionist Review





Do you remember when horror, dark fantasy, and weird fiction were almost as fringe as the occult studies themselves? Unfortunately for many fans of the grotesque and horrible, the stratospheric rise of franchises like Twilight and Harry Potter have, whatever their individual merits, stripped us of our creepers and crawlers, nightmares and madness, and returned them as a sanitized, sterile, and often vapid caricatures for their former macabre beauty. It can b



MAY 27, 2013

The Resurrectionist Review





Do you remember when horror, dark fantasy, and weird fiction were almost as fringe as the occult studies themselves? Unfortunately for many fans of the grotesque and horrible, the stratospheric rise of franchises like Twilight and Harry Potter have, whatever their individual merits, stripped us of our creepers and crawlers, nightmares and madness, and returned them as a sanitized, sterile, and often vapid caricatures for their former macabre beauty. It can be tough to find quality examples of twisted fiction in today's saturated market with its deluge of zombies, vampires, and dime-a-dozen serial killers, murderous vigilantes, and caped crusaders. But if, like me, you value true fright for the sake of its uncanny allure, if you like gazing over the edge of the abyss into the quivering, cannibalistic recesses of the human mind, I've got some horribl(ly) excellent news for you. The Ressurectionist, by E.B. Hudsperth, is a one-of-a-kind treasure. And it's damn beautiful, too.



Quirk Books is a publisher of books that are, well, quirky. I'd be hard pressed to describe The Resurrectionist so lightly, though. When I think "quirky," I think ironic, dryly humorous and maybe with a tinge of underground dissent or unexpected cuteness. I don't think "mad scientist," I don't think "taxidermy gone knives-to-the-wall crazy," and I most certainly don't think "alternate evolutionary theories, Darwin be damned!" But that's precisely what's the the book purports to be. A fascinating blend of fiction and art, The Resurrectionist sinks its hooks into your guts and doesn't let go as it examines with the unflinching scrutiny of an autopsy the strange life of Dr. Spencer Black and his increasingly deranged work. The first half of the book is that biographic novella, which weighs in at 63 pages; the second half is an equally long full-page anatomical study of some of the most famous creatures out of myth and legend. These include skeletal, muscular, and tissue-level renderings. Hudsperth’s fantastic art is worthy of its own coffee-table book, providing plenty of examples for all levels of horror geeks to learn and examine. Think of this as a Grey's Anatomy of cryptids, and you'd be on the right track.



But The Resurrectionist is not a one-trick pony. I might try to sell itself on the merits of the fascinating art in the back, but that doesn't mean the biography is allowed to skid by on easy heels. The study of Dr. Black's life is fully fleshed out and disturbingly believable. For fans of Lovecraft, Stephen King, or any quality horror writer, Dr. Black's archetype will be instantly recognizable: a misguided genius driven to psychopathy by the same enlightenment that elevated him in the first place. Characters like Richard Pickman, the musician in "The Music of Erich Zann," and of course the mad Arab himself would find kin in Spencer Black's spirit.



Chronicling the rise of Black from his childhood all the way to his life, Hudsperth’s fictional reconstruction of Black's psyche reveals all the tells of a true madman: early, gruesome exposure to death, a fascination with the impossible, and the deep sense of isolated understanding genius is supposed to bring. His father, a grave-robbing anatomist, often called a "Resurrectionist" because of the bodies he steals, teaches his sons to study closely and carefully the secrets of the human body. By his early twenties, Spencer Black proves himself to be a prodigy surgeon, his genius is fourishing to perform medical miracles that win him fame the world over. But like the many evil geniuses before him, he is impatient with the knife, unsatisfied with the imperfect work it does. He turns to darker, older secrets, to the lore of the old world in which he finds, eventually, an alternative theory to the pervading Darwinian explanation of biological evolution. From this new understanding, he reasons, all of the monsters of myth and legend came to evolve into the human race.



This belief drives him to the fringe, much the way of Dr. Taleyarkhan and others regarding Cold Fusion in the twentieth century. In his search for "evidence," Black's chronicler does little to discourage the reader from despising him. It reads like one would expect a textbook examination of a monster to read; the bias is clear and unshorn. This lends a further sense of credence to the tale, since it gives the illusion of a studied and long-held grudge against the man, similar to how we view Jack the Ripper nowadays with a macabre fascination and abhorrence. Indeed, Jack and Spencer share much and more.



What struck me most about The Resurrectionist is how well it is put together. The novella is well-written and precisely paced, to be sure, but it works its magic in the conjectured diagnosis of Spencer Black's motive. The included letters from various participants, scribbled nonsense, and circus-style advertisements for his godforsaken sideshows crank the verisimilitude to 11. And, it bears mentioning that the typeface, coloring, and internal layout scream care and attention.



It goes without saying, too, that a lot of love was poured into the anatomical portion of the book. Those strange taxidermist drawings are given both reason and justifications for existence by the unsettling tale that preludes them, which in turn requires the drawings to exist. The book could have been like any bargain-bin visual sell, one of the dozens perpetually resident in the Barnes &Noble clearance isles, but the production is as sleek and svelte as can be. I can't imagine this there; it belongs right in the art section, perhaps alongside the fantasy where normally your find art books dedicated to Tolkien and Lovecraft.



Part Frankenstein, part Gray's Anatomy, and seemingly sprung from the mind of a man like H.H. Holmes, The Resurrectionist makes it nearly impossible to tear your eyes away from the horror and spectacle it presents. I can think of a hundred people who would find this a terribly disagreeable book.... and a lot more who wouldn't be able to set it down.



The Resurrectionist exists with grim purpose and grotesque style, seeking to recapture our fascination with the politically-incorrect freak shows of yesteryear (we call it Reality TV today). For a fan of dark fantasy and horror, it represents the fusing of two distinct lines of interest into a peerless package of twisted genius.

