Shogghoth

The Haar was the first book I read coming into the new year. It was an indie horror title that I heard about from some online circle I was a part of. What struck me first was the cover done by artist Trevor Henderson. It evoked the dark, horrible theme so well, with the harsh reds suggesting danger and panic, but the deep blue of the single eye helps to soften the creature into something both beautiful and curious.

This cover more than anything helped to match the book’s quality of writing by following the common trope of a terrible monster who holds a soft spot for the less fortunate of society. People who have been left behind or who are no longer in their prime are unable to stand up for themselves. This leads into the discussion of our main character Muriel, who is an elderly woman in Scotland. She has a kind heart and has lived a long, healthy, fortunate life in a secluded home down by the bay. She used to live with her late husband Billy, who disappeared one day on a fishing trip and never returned.

This is where Muriel’s woes arise as she has felt empty since her husband’s passing, and even her grandkids do not fill that void in her heart, no matter how much she cherishes them.

The conflict arises when a wealthy American billionaire begins to forcefully remove they members of the small rural Irish town either through buying them off or using shadier methods to obtain their land rights to build a golf course. This is where the dicotomy of old versus new is found as instead of getting to live out her days in peace Muriel is harassed phyically harmed and has her life threatened by Grant and his croneys.

In most horror stories you always root for the victims as it is a human trait to empathize with someone else’s suffering. The twist with the Haar is that the monsters are human and follow on a trend of billionaire rage which, as a human who sees the news and witnesses the death of the planet expedited by greed, it’s cathartic to watch as someone’s best laid plans fail to come to fruition. Most people who don’t have much to their name or have less than sheer wealth will hold resentment towards a person whose greed seeps beyond the barriers of their world and into their everyday life. It feels like an invasion where one is unprepared, with no weapons and munitions, as cash is the only metric with which someone can stop this level of change.

The Haar is cathartic by bringing in a supernatural deep-sea creature who is unkillable and able to take the form of any person in order to prevent this change from affecting this helpless old woman who only wants to keep what happiness she has had. It is more akin to a fantasy of staying the tide of change as even the Haar helps to fix Muriel’s broken heart by imitating her late husband Billy, basically reversing the change which had made her elder years so hollow.

In regards to the writing of the story the prose is what makes it stands still as the writing of the brutal dismemberments of all those ill people who harm Muriel and the wonderful descriptions of the landscape and ite fleeting beauty is what I remember most reading the story. It was wonderfully written and reading about how the authors dedication of the book to his grandmother who Muriel was based off of was touching and sweet. It feels like a human story who is focused on someone who loves the now and wants to see a world where we hold on a bit longer to those we love.