Synopsis:
Pitched as: black metal Wizard of Oz.
Death comes to those who live.
The Longing is here: a ruthless psychological pandemic that only ever ends one way. Most find relief in a bullet or a blade. Kaya Sinh chose fire.
With Kaya gone, her friend Adam has only the support group they’d attended to keep him going. He’s at his lowest when a priest named Hayle Carnoth appears at group one night, claiming to have discovered a cure for the Longing. Thinking it a crude effort by the priest to seek members for his dwindling congregation, Adam drives him off.
But he keeps coming back.
With the Longing closing in, Adam agrees to let Father Carnoth share what he’s discovered. They visit a nearby cathedral, where something has appeared inside the steeple.
Review:
Hello again dear reader or listener, I hope you’re able to do things that bring you comfort during these interesting times we’re having. For my part that means lots of reading of the most transporting books I can find. Chris Panatier’s upcoming Daytide was one such read, bringing forth catharsis and bit of a mind fuck in equal measure! It definitely was nothing like I expected even from the very intriguing blurb.
With a thank you to the author for the eARC, I promise my incoming ramblings to be honest, as always.
Daytide overall is a book that doesn’t so much defy genre as genre definition. What my sleep deprived brain landed on eventually was a flavor of Portal Horror Fantasy. Or maybe Horror Portal Fantasy. Or Portal Fantasy Horror… I still can’t actually decide!
(Don’t be genre nerds, kids, this is the kind of conundrum you’ll get yourself into and it will be entirely your own thing cause almost nobody else will care about this level of minutiae).
In short I would define it as:
There.
But silliness aside now, Panatier has presented us with yet another multilayered narrative, mixing the grotesque, the entertaining, and the poignant, to deliver a story that will force you to think. Be it about the nature of faith and religion, aspects of depression, hope, or even the inherent biases that exist within each of us due to our given communities. The allegories or metaphors abound for those who seek them, some of the commentary is tongue in cheek, while other times the author is very unequivocal about what he means, which I personally find quite glorious. Through some beautiful, if at times dense, but most definitely nearing the psychedelic, world building, Panatier toes the line between imaginative and untethered. Incidentally, I’d say it’s akin to what it feels like to be in a church surrounded by thick incense while being at least a little tipsy from previous alcohol consumption – no, I am not speaking from personal experience why do you ask?
See the thing is, the author takes a concept that a lot of people associate with purity, safety, and softness, i.e. angels, and reminds you that his roots are very much Catholic instead. By making them punk as can be and, in fact, closer to the warriors of the Christian God that they actually are known as by those who grew up in or practice specific iterations of Christianity, Panatier follows the Guillermo del Toro school of allowing your art to be heavily informed/inspired by a religion whose pastors and priests have strayed so far into the sins they so self-righteously decry that their hypocrisy keeps breeding (potentially) lapsed artists who need at least some of that mythology and ideology to make a modicum of sense. I’m not even going to get into the whole angle of how certain types of priesthood nurture/promote (white) savior complexes, topic that the author cuts at with a sharpness that is elegant to say the least. We simply do not have the time, alas.
The imagery throughout the story is just always on point, even if that monstrosity of a sentence that I just subjected you to doesn’t ring true or mean much to you, dear reader. And again, that’s not even touching on the glory that is having one of the protagonists being an absolute chaotic menace who loves Bowie. Hadriel, you have a special place in my heart forever more. Indeed, with his multiple and varied protagonists and colorful secondaries, the author laughs in the face of anyone who thinks they can determine the villains from the heroes based on sterile black and white mentalities. In fact, we see exactly the kind of extremism that type of thought can lead to. I damn near resented how much I could understand some character choices from an intellectual standpoint, because in my heart I wanted to simply and purely be able to hate them for making the shitty decisions that lead them inexorably toward progressively deeper villainy. And yet I couldn’t. The existential crisis in trying to reconcile what you feel with what you try to be objective about will probably not leave you until the very last act either. But isn’t that the crux of the thing? How often do we try to be mature/sensible in the face of senseless and uninformed cruelty that is rationalized through something so completely opposite to who we are that we feel ourselves tear inside because we realize reason has no place in the given moment? I digress.
This is my third book by this author and his superb character work is what will keep drawing me to his words, at least one of the things anyway. Truly, Panatier flies expertly from moments of levity or softness into utter sadness and introspection, from visceral horror, into fist pumping badass action. With pop-culture Easter eggs aplenty to boot! My fellow reviewer George Dunn called it an existential delirium of a book and he couldn’t be more right (check out his full review here as it is a thing of beauty – I lowkey hate him and his magnificent eloquence actually).
Daytide by Chris Panatier is a thought provoking, turpentine induced, rapture of a novel that carries you into a dark world filled with hope against all odds, tender yet bittersweet full circle moments, and unexpected beauty in spite of the grotesque and macabre. It will land February 26th curtesy of Rapture Publishing, you can preorder it here, and if anything I’ve said has piqued your curiosity in the least, you don’t want to miss it.
Until next time,
Eleni A.E.
P.S: Now I want a del Toro adaptation of this book… damn.
P.P.S: By chance, I was listening to the Sinners soundtrack while writing this review and while I’ll grant you the overall vibes of this book are more Metal than Blues music, some of the thematic overlap was delicious.
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