The Damned

The Damned, a horror novel written by Andrew Pyper, works better than the author’s previous foray in the genre: although it’s still full of problems, the book at least has a better protagonist than The Demonologist and a more efficient structure.

The story follows Danny Orchard, a man who was pronounced dead for a few minutes during a fire when he was young. This near-death experience left him with memories of his time in paradise, which he uses to write a book and become famous. Danny, however, is unable to enjoy life because the spirit of his twin sister, who did not survive the same incident, is forever haunting him.

The Damned successfully builds an oppressive, suffocating atmosphere, being narrated in the first-person by a hopeless protagonist. The main villain is Danny’s sister, who he describes as a menacing figure that used to suck the energy of everyone around her even when she was alive. Ashley Orchard is a girl whose outward appearance never mirrored her personality: she was beautiful and polite, but devoid of feelings and capable of the cruelest acts. Her presence terrified not only her brother but also her parents. Ash – her name functions as a bit of dark humor due to the way she died – is often described as “hollow” by her brother, being depicted as a psychopath capable of piercing the eye of animals just to satisfy her curiosity.

It’s established that the danger the girl posed to everyone when she was alive was already enormous, which increases the tension of the scenes in the present, making us wonder how much worse Ash is now that she’s a ghost and doesn’t have to care about physical limitations or about society’s judgment.

Ash is ever-present in the protagonist’s life: no matter where he is or who he’s with, Ash is always there besides Danny, never letting him enjoy a moment of peace. The protagonist, however, makes no attempt to confront her, passively accepting his fate.

Ash prevents Danny from making friends, having a girlfriend, and establishing any kind of social bond with another human being, threatening to hurt everyone he dares to love. Her goal is to condemn her brother to a lonely and bitter life: “You’re not supposed to be here, Danny. But as long as you are, you’ll live like you’re dead. Like me,” she says. Ash intends to suffocate her brother – sometimes even literally – acting like smoke in a fire, choking him until he’s gasping for air.

The book has a brisk pace, with a structure akin to a Dan Brown novel, filled with microchapters that rarely exceed eight pages and always end with a hook. This structure limits the potential of the novel, never leaving time for the characters to breathe, but one could say that is thematically appropriate here.

Danny’s resignation finally ends when he meets a widow named Willa and her little boy, Eddie: he finds love and the desire to start a family and take care of someone. When he realizes that he has a real chance to be happy, the protagonist grabs it and begins to confront his sister.

Danny becomes an interesting character as soon as he starts to defy Ash. His journey is marked by reflections on the importance of social interactions, which make the bulk of his change of heart:

“People are what hold you in heaven or hell or wherever you’re destined to go. People are the anchors. And it’s true of the living world, too. People are the reason for wanting to stay or not really caring if this is your time to go.”

This directly opposes him to Ash – since she couldn’t care less about people – and makes the actions of some of the supporting characters in the third act thematically relevant.

The setting of the story, meanwhile, plays an important role in building the oppressive atmosphere. The city of Detroit is described here as a decrepit ruin, a place struggling to survive, which is a perfect backdrop for the protagonist’s personal hell. Its inhabitants are painted in tragic colors: they go to work like zombies and seem to be only able to interact with each other through violence. The symbolical use of the city reaches its climax in a scene at the end, where a model of Detroid is covered with the blood of a demon.

The story also offers an interesting take on the afterlife. In The Damned, each person carries within themselves their own heaven and hell, which are made up of the best and worst days of their life. The narrative never delves deep into this idea, however, avoiding the questions it raises: what happens to a good person who has had a terrible life or died too soon?

The Damned has its fair share of problems. The construction of the suspenseful scenes, for instance, is usually flawed when it comes to the process of gradually unveiling the horror elements. The problem here is a simple one: Pyper is always trying to hide from the reader what is already obvious to them.

There’s this early scene when an old lady is talking to Danny about how the spirit of her abusive father is still haunting her, and she suddenly casts a terrified glance to the back of the room. Danny turns around, sees nothing, and is left wondering what happened, creating a silly moment of suspense regarding what frightening figure the woman was seeing. It’s one of the following alternatives:

a) her father

b) a jellicle cat

The scene then concludes with the shocking revelation: “I felt I knew something else, too. It was her father she’d seen at the back of the room.”

And this is a pattern in the book. Ash’s appearances, for example, are almost always preceded by “mysterious” indefinite pronouns, which serve as an attempt to make the reader wonder “Who is this someone, this girl, this weird person that has suddenly caught Danny’s attention?” But, since the protagonist is only haunted only by Ash, there’s just one possible answer to this question.

Finally, there’s also a lack of consistency regarding the use of some terms. The old lady’s abusive father, for example, is considered a “good man” by society. Danny reflects on the irony of the classification, realizing that similar things were said about his sister, as Ashley always seemed like a lovely girl to other people. However, when Willa describes her ex-husband as a “good man” just a few pages later, she is not being ironic, the protagonist doesn’t question the use of the term and even thinks he “knew exactly what she meant.”

The Damned shows that Andrew Pyper is becoming the Dan Brown of horror novels in his style. For better or for worse.

March 17, 2020.

Review originally published in Portuguese on August 18, 2016.