Michael McDowell
Blackwater

Among the most interesting names in the literary world of 2023, Michael McDowell's name may sound new to many ears, except perhaps for some avid film enthusiasts who will recognize him as one of the screenwriters of a classic movie like "Beetlejuice." Even fewer will know about his career as a horror writer, which never truly gained recognition outside his homeland, but was indeed quite prolific, although cut short by a premature death from AIDS at the dawn of the new millennium.
Among his most notable works is the "Blackwater" saga, which was recently rediscovered thanks to the great commercial success its six-volume publication achieved in France at the beginning of 2022, and brought to Italy a year later by Neri Pozza. Sensing its potential success in our country as well, they decided to reproduce the same format (which was expressly desired by the author at the time of the first publication), but embellished it with wonderful embossed covers. And while it's true that the covers, commissioned to artist Pedro Oyarbide, would be worth the purchase on their own, given how detailed and rich in symbolism they are, it's undeniable that the pages within also possess their own particular charm.

This is, in fact, a family saga rooted in Southern Gothic Horror, presenting the reader with the story of a family from Perdido, Alabama, over a timespan of about five decades. The catalyst for all the events is the arrival in town of the mysterious Elinor Dammert, a beautiful woman about whose past no one knows anything and who slowly but inexorably insinuates herself into the heart of the wealthy Caskey family, openly clashing with the matriarch Mary-Love, who sees her as a potential threat to the stability of the Caskey family itself, as well as to the power she exercises over all her relatives and the rest of the town. An additional element of interest, at least at the beginning of the story, is the circumstances under which Elinor finds herself in Perdido: Oscar, the young scion of the aforementioned family, finds her perfectly unharmed in a hotel room that, following a flood that submerged the entire town with the waters of the Perdido and Blackwater rivers, should have been completely flooded, yet she seems utterly unperturbed by the matter.
Although the initial focus is on this mystery, the supernatural element, vaguely Lovecraftian and indissolubly linked to the two rivers, serves mainly as a backdrop for much of the saga, which instead centers on the evolution of the characters and the intricate network of relationships that binds them over the decades. This leaves more questions than answers about Elinor's true nature, which is explored without ever delving deeply into detail. Simultaneously, it gives both her and the whole corollary of apparitions, prophecies, and violent deaths a certain allure and incisiveness: thus, horror and mysticism remain ever in the background, yet when they do take the spotlight, they always have very tangible consequences on the characters and the unfolding of events. Events, moreover, that are largely orchestrated by the women of the Caskey family, which is precisely where the key to the success of this saga lies: thanks to an essential but effective and precise prose, like a surgeon's scalpel, McDowell manages to outline fascinating and multifaceted female characters (and in some cases surprisingly queer), who evolve gradually and reveal their nature through actions that are as enterprising as they are, when necessary, of unspeakable cruelty and ruthlessness. They are the real driving force of the stories, and it's always them who determine the fate not only of the Caskeys but of the entire town of Perdido, which, although remaining in the background, becomes in turn a silent and omnipresent protagonist. Along with the sunny atmosphere pierced by sudden horrific intrusions, it creates a particular and highly recognizable imagery.

All of this is enough, in the end, to render "Blackwater" a small gem in its genre, capable of enchanting the reader up to a finale that represents a satisfying circle-closing and an almost moving farewell to characters to whom, with all their contradictions, one inevitably becomes attached. All this without ever inventing anything truly new and probably disappointing those who would expect more pages dedicated to the mysteries of Perdido and who would want more than just a few sporadic but well-managed increases in tension and some elegantly bloody scenes. Nonetheless, there remains the satisfaction of seeing the work of an author of such enjoyable reading translated in our latitudes, whose catalog, hopefully, will be rediscovered in its entirety, because, if these are the premises, there will be plenty of material to be intriguingly entangled with.