Don’t let your job consume your life. That’s a good reminder we all could probably use, but for the protagonist of Carter Keane’s debut horror novella, Morsel, it’s a dire warning that should be taken very literally. The gorgeous cover first drew me to this book, which came out a few weeks ago, but it was the suspenseful narration style and creepy folk horror atmosphere that had me devouring it over the course of a weekend.
Lou cannot afford to lose this job. Their ill mother is depending on them, after having spent decades working herself to death to give Lou a better life. The pressure is getting to Lou, as is the effort it takes to try to fit in with their overbearing coworkers with a cultish devotion to self-betterment. When the boss offers Lou a scouting gig, Lou knows it’s their last chance to prove their worth to the company. All Lou has to do is drive out to a remote Ohio property in the middle of the Appalachian woods and take some photographs. Lou brings along their beloved dog Ripley and tries to make a fun outing out of the trip, but it quickly becomes clear that something is off about this place: The gate to the property is littered with strange symbols that look like something out of The Blair Witch Project, the forest brims with dead and diseased animals, and someone has sabotaged Lou’s truck. Life under capitalism has chewed Lou up and spit them out but now something far more dangerous threatens to swallow them whole. Lou will have to learn to bite back if they and their dog are going to get out of these woods alive.
Morsel makes great use of its narrative format to create suspense. The majority of the story is told in first-person narration from the perspective of Lou, who turns out—like many Gothic protagonists—to be an unreliable narrator. Lou is hiding a significant secret from both themself and the reader, which is slowly hinted at through inconsistencies and vague allusions in their narrative. Woven throughout are excerpts of past text message conversations between Lou and their mother that shed light on their relationship. Also interspersed with the narrative are transcript clippings from a true crime podcast called Lovely Dark and Deep: Missing in the Woods Podcast. From these bits of dialogue between podcast hosts Terry and Naomi, the reader is given some very important information that Lou doesn’t have: someone has gone missing from these specific woods before, and the images found on his abandoned camera suggest an uncanny resemblance to Lou’s current experiences. These different narrative elements allow the book to blend the immediacy and discordant self-deception of a first-person narrator with a wider perspective that hints at bad news in both Lou’s future and their past.
This book is also an interesting example of folk horror. Hopefully without spoiling too much, I can say that it contains many of the subgenre’s most common tropes, including an eldritch entity, a cult of worshippers, human sacrifice, and a rural setting immersed in the natural world. The cult, however, is not some ancient holdover from a pre-Christian community. Instead it is a cult with a very modern, capitalist philosophy of “effective altruism,” toxic positivity, and self-improvement within the corporate environment. The rural and naturalistic aesthetics of their rituals are artificially constructed to add dramatic flair and an air of authenticity. At the end of the day, this isn’t a horror story about the ancient past but rather one that exposes the horrors in present-day practices and philosophies that seek to disguise exploitation as serving the greater good.
If you’re a fan of both folk horror aesthetics and unionizing your workplace, definitely check out Morsel! This was an impressive debut, and I’m looking forward to seeing what’s next for Carter Keane. You can find Morsel on shelves now at your favorite local retailer, or order it online and support The Gothic Library in the process using this Bookshop.org affiliate link. Once you’ve read it, let me know your thoughts in the comments!