Sorrowmouth by Simon Avery
Publisher – Black Shuck Books
Published – Out Now
Price – £7.99 paperback £1.49 ebook via https://blackshuckbooks.co.uk/sorrowmouth/
For a long time Sorrowmouth existed as three or four separate ideas in different notebooks until one day, in a flash of divine inspiration, I recognised the common ground they shared with each other. A man trekking from one roadside memorial to another, in pursuit of grief; Beachy Head and its long dark history of suicide; William Blake and his angelic visions on Peckham Rye; Blake again with The Ghost of a Flea; a monstrous companion, bound by life’s cruelty…
As I wrote I discovered these disparate elements were really about me getting to some deeper truth about myself, and about all the people I’ve known in my life, about the struggles we all have that no one save for loved ones see – alcoholism, dependence, self doubt, grief, mental illness. Sorrowmouth is about the mystery hiding at the heart of all things, making connections in the depths of sorrow, and what you have to sacrifice for a moment of vertigo.”
One of the things I’ve enjoyed most about blogging is rediscovering Horror and for me it is one of the most interesting of the genres as despite its reputation for gore and shock I think great horror at its best explores being human but often the subjects that others will shy away from. In Simon Avery’s compelling novella Sorrowmouth we have a tale exploring the processing of our personal demons in a powerful and disturbing yet ultimately hopeful tale.
Underhill is a quiet man who has worked in the same hospital for a very long time. Quiet, lives in a camper van and is often found at the little shrines and memorials that dot roads around the town and area he lives. He finds those grieving and his invisible companion Sorrowmouth will feed on the grief and sadness. It has been like this for decades. A chance encounter with Kate a younger woman who survived jumping off Beachy Head makes Underhill revisit his life and that she too can see Sorrowmouth and has a creature of her own raised many questions for the future.
This is a fascinating bittersweet horror tale. We initially see Underhill as a sinister figure going back with the drunk mother of a traffic accident victim to allow Sorrowmouth to feed off her emotions. Yet Avery makes the whole process ultimately desperately saddening rather than too horrific. We Underhill has a very closed life even Varley; the man he is currently ina relationship with is struggling with his own pain and grief that Underhill is more a constant crutch rather than a secret monster.
The true horror for me was discovering Underhill’s past. We see him as a child being constantly cruelly punished by his domineering and often drunk father. A toxicity that also impacts Underhill’s mother to extremely results. There is a suggestion that Underhill has a gift for seeing what is not there but his father’s influence darkens that and a chance encounter with William Blake’s picture of The Flea opens the door for Sorrowmouth to latch onto him.
The tale explores how grief and pain can become our personal demons constantly hovering around us and sapping away the rest of our lives. It feels as if Underhill and Kate are very much the servants of these invisible powers and the key question is can we ever escape them. From the mother who is falling into alcoholism; Varlet hiding all his pain to the two characters with invisible monsters behind them it’s quite a sobering tale. Avery explored it with a quiet tone that makes everything feel ever darker…and yet it does ask can people ever move on? I dislike tales that make mental health easy to address but this tale is very much about taking a day at a time and starting to let go. It doesn’t feel neatly wrapped up in a bow which for me makes it a very successful tale.
Sorrowmouth deals with hard subjects such as abuse, death, grief and suicide but it also has coloured the dangers of these experiences unchecked and how moving forward may be possible at last. It’s a dark yet hopeful tale and strongly recommended!
