Ancient Horror History Unearthed: The Amulet by A.R. Morlan

I had never heard anything about this book or its author, prior to a stop in what is one of the best used bookstores in the Northeast, The Book Barn. I saw this book and its follow-up, Dark Journey, for just a dollar each.

Of course, I grabbed them both, mostly on account of Dark Journey's amazing cover art and this, on account of the fact it precedes that book.

Upon undertaking my standard research procedure, I found there were very limited pieces of information on both the books and the author. But what I found was both tragic and fascinating. My preemptive decision was made to do a bit of a retrospective on A.R. Morlan, after reading both books.

My post-emptive decision was to not. At least not in one large article. I'll get to my reasons shortly.

First, the author. Morlan passed away in 2016, taking her own life. Her life history is somewhat detailed online through bits and pieces, but the gist is that Morlan had a very troubled life, struggling with..well, a lot of things...from the symptoms of Asperger's, to a traumatic childhood, incredibly stressed relationships with family and poverty. This led up to a series of troubles with the law, ultimately culminating in her taking her own life. Rest in Peace, Morlan.

It seems she lived a life in seclusion, with many cats and her mother, who vanished a few years before Morlan's death.

The mirroring of Morlan's real life and the story told in The Amulet is almost baffling. The book may as well be an autobiography with supernatural additions. The main character is essentially the author, according to what information can be found about her.

The Amulet tells a very detailed account of a relatively story, with our main character, Anna, being the youngest in a bloodline of a small town's urban legend family. Legend has it, Anna's great-grandfather chopped up her great- grandmother and the corpse of her great-great-grandmother went missing...besides one of it's arms. This legend has trickled down through the years, effecting all of the family, leading the current members to become quirky, shut-ins, as they're all taunted by the locals and society curses them to a life of poverty and underemployment.

Essentially, Anna is offered somewhat of an out from her family's shadow and suddenly, bizarre murders start to occur. Who is to blame? Anna is dying to find out, but it's quite obviously right under her nose, and has plenty to do with titular family hand-me-down piece of jewelry.

The Amulet is truly fascinating, at first. You'd be hard pressed to have read something similarly told. While the story itself is pretty by-the-numbers, the writing of it unlike anything I've read.

The level of intricacies dedicated to what could have been written half as well is incredible. You feel like you're in Ewerton, the town the story takes place and these characters are so vividly familiar...it's truly small-town America.

You can feel the passion that Morlan has for the story through and through. Almost obsessively written, Morlan went on record stating she had been diagnosed with Asperger's. As a mental health professional, by day, I can certainly see her fitting the diagnostic criteria.

Side note, as of the most recent diagnostic statistics manual, Asperger's no longer exists and is folded in to the Autism Spectrum. Morlan's life story and writing seems to demonstrate the previous criteria quite well (difficulty with peer group and socializing, agonizing attention to detail, obsessions...in this case with cats).

That being said, fascination and articulate, vivid detail doesn't necessarily lend itself to entertainment. There are long stretches of this book that are slower than watching paint dry. It seems to be more concerned with itself  being more of a piece of literature than a piece of horror fiction. Written to be art, less entertainment.

Back to the cats. The book features many cats, with countless pages dedicated to them, characters becoming them, mating with them, being befriended by them. Out of control obsession with felines.

In real life, Morlan's body was found in a home with dozens of cats, living and dead. Pretty tragic and darkly reflecting to the reality of her factual life in written fiction.

As I said, my plan was to read both this and Dark Journey, her only other published novel, back to back and do a retrospective article on Morlan.

But after reading this, I've gotta take a break from her. Not because it's particularly bad, but because I need something a bit more...written for consumption. You need patience, deep thought and concentration to follow Morlan...and given the level of tragedy and real-life similarities it's a bit heavy to engage in this kind of stuff, especially given the benefit of horror fiction for me; I want escapism from my work as a therapist. Not to be submerged in the writing of what often feels like a client that I couldn't help.

So yeah, a bit personal of a reason why Dark Journey will come further down my to-be-read pile.

I'm giving this a 3.5. Fantastic writing, slow and simple story given a overly complex treatment.

Make my next read a bit less bizarre and tragic, please. Perhaps some killer mountain mutants or tentacled demons?