Synopsis:
To save her daughter’s soul, a grieving mother must battle a sinister pastor who feeds off the cremains of the dead and haunts a lake community.
“This is goddamn wonderful. It’s both beautiful and horrible.”
—Julie Hutchings, author of The Harpy
“A beautiful, seismic novel.”
—Clay McLeod Chapman, author of Wake Up and Open Your Eyes
When Jewel Jordan dies from cancer, her father’s wish is to scatter the ashes inside their beloved Torch Lake. But after the grieving mother hears her daughter’s voice coming from inside the urn, how can she let the ashes go?
Especially after a mysterious pastor begs her to keep them and promises to reunite her with her daughter’s spirit. Who should she listen to?
Even creatures from the lake whisper to her at night, pleading for the remains of her daughter. Who can she trust?
Nobody knows the truth and the bargain she made that led to her daughter’s death. Now she has to fight to save her child’s soul, and Torch Lake holds the answers. But the lake is cold, the truth is deep, and you have to earn the right to hear such secrets, for the lake speaks most honestly to those willing to drown.
“Deep, disturbing, and beautifully rendered.”
—Christa Carmen, Bram Stoker Award winning author of The Daughters of Block Island
“An epic tale of pain, love, grief, and regret.”
—Laurel Hightower, author of Crossroads
“Matthews is the reigning king of modern psychological horror.”
—Kealan Patrick Burke, Bram Stoker Award-winning author of Kin
“Matthews is a damn good writer, and make no mistake, he will hurt you.”
—Jack Ketchum, Bram Stoker Award winning author of The Girl Next Door
Review:
Mark Matthews is a son of a bitch. I say this endearingly, of course, in much the same way our dearly departed Jack Ketchum promised readers that Matthews will hurt them. It’s not a condemnation as much as it is an expectation.
To Those Willing To Drown is a grief-laden elegy to Torch Lake, one of many northern lower-Michigan vacation hotspots, whose folkloric roots run deep, back to the beliefs of the indigenous peoples that once populated the region long before it became home to summer camps and multi-million dollar lakeside getaways and resorts. The lake, like so many other northern areas of the lower peninsula, are a summer destination for families handed down between generations. Maybe it’s just a fact of growing up surrounded by the Great Lakes, but the water calls to us, beckoning us near, to Traverse City, Mackinaw, Petoskey, Charlevoix, and, of course, Torch Lake. Once you’ve been there, you can’t help but go back. These lakes are in our blood, in our souls, and they demand from us.
Matthews is a native Michigander. He gets it. As a fellow Michigander, I get it, too, and To Those Willing To Drown speaks of this most eloquently. Heartbreakingly so.
Sharon worked one summer as a Torch Lake camp counselor, where she met, befriended, and eventually fell in love with Kai. She rescued a drowning boy and made a promise, but by then it was too late. As with Kai, the lake was in her and it drew her back repeatedly, until it and Kai became home. They married and had a daughter, and together they learned that life is pain. The lake demanded its due. Their daughter, Jewel, died and a promise was kept.
Sharon wasn’t the only one to make a promise to the specters of Torch Lake. Lamia, a Civil War surgeon well-versed in the art of amputation, betrays his promise – and his family – and is cursed. He cannot step foot in the lake, and he cannot die. He must inject the ashes of the recently deceased into his body, forced to feed the souls of the dead that now haunt his human vessel.
Their stories intersect eventually, of course, as Sharon and Lamia are woefully drawn together across time by older, more primordial forces. Along the way, Matthews dives headlong into the folklore of the region, as shared through late-night camp stories around the fire and the customs and practices of those who believe and who know the secrets of the lake’s dead.
Matthews may be best known for his works of addiction horror, like Mlik-Blood and a trio of celebrated anthologies, among others, and he brings similar themes and topics to this book, as well. Lamia has an almost vampiric hunger for the ashes of the deceased, moving through society across the centuries under the guise of a pastor to enthrall and seduce grieving families into allowing him access to feed his grisly addiction. An omnipresent grief blankets each of the characters here, driving their decisions and pushing them toward their destinies. A thick pall of sadness permeates the story nearly from its opening chapters and only grows thicker as things progress, to the point that I had to set the book aside on several occasions and force myself away from the darkness.
It’s no fluke that Matthews garnered praise from Jack Ketchum himself, and at times it feels like he must have read the late author’s The Girl Next Door and took it as both a mission statement and a lesson on how to inflict upon readers the maximum amount of emotional turmoil. If John F.D. Taff, who has appeared in all three of Matthews’ addiction horror anthologies, is horror’s King of Pain, then surely Matthews himself is its prince.
To Those Willing To Drown is an unremittingly bleak and challenging read, with its focus on child death, bodily dismemberments, and drug addiction, but one that is never less than satisfying and wholly engaging. Matthews pushes both his characters and his readers to their absolute limits, and then shoves them over the edge, into Torch Lake’s deepest depths.
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