Douglas Smith's Memories of the Dead Man

"You ask me of the Dead Man. What kind of man was he?

Good question. But not the right one.

Some call him a murderer, a cold-blooded killer--or worse. Some call him a hero. Jase and I made it through those days only by his hand in our lives, so you'd think I'd know where I stand on that one.

But even after thirty years, I'm still not sure."

Thus begins Mary's recounting of the years she and her son Jase spent with Bishop, a man of legend known to most people as the last Dead Man.

For ten years Mary has struggled to protect her young son in a post-apocalyptic world. A deadly plague which decimated the human population and claimed the lives of Mary's daughter and husband has reverted North America to a lawless wild west in which the only rule is doing what one needs to do to survive. When Mary and Jase's survival is threatened by a band of thugs from an Alberta shantytown, Mary must forge a hasty alliance with Bishop in order to ensure she and her son live through the night. When Mary's split-second decision turns into a three year long sojourn together, Mary witnesses the bonds of family forming between Bishop and herself and her son. But Bishop has a dark side, and while Mary welcomes his protection and his companionship, she knows that his violent past is very much still a part of him. And she knows her duty to her son extends beyond protecting his physical well-being.

Memories of the Dead Man is a story about desperate people living in desperate, violent times, and it is unflinching--though never gratuitous--in its depiction of that violence. Horror glossed over denies the reader its full impact and horror described in too fine detail creates a numbness which mutes the experience in its own way, but Memories of the Dead Man suffers from neither of these ailments. Rather, in this story, Douglas Smith demonstrates that he knows exactly how far to go to push the reader to the stomach-turning, insides-crawling, muscles-clenching edge of true horror. Then, after putting readers and characters alike through this ordeal, he asks us to consider our responses to horrific events--not in the sense of immediate, gut reactions, but on a much deeper and nuanced level which speaks to how our responses affect our own humanity. The result is dark, powerful, uncomfortable and true.

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