The Fervor by Alma Katsu
Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction, the horror of the real world is so awful that it makes a perfect set-up a work of the macabre. This is the backbone of the work that Alma Katsu has built a career around. The Donner Party in The Hunger, The Titanic in The Deep. So after an excellent turn writing a hyper-realistic spy novel in Red Widow Katsu returns to the historical horror novel with the deeply personal novel The Fervor.
There are many red stains on the brutal history of America’s 20th century as the country struggled to move toward civil rights. The mistreatment and racism towards people of Asian descent in America is sadly still a problem but, in the years, when we were at war with the country of Japan the fears of Japanese spies and insurgents was an excuse for the American government to round up Japanese families and relocate them to camps around the west.
The most famous Japanese American to endure this was probably Star Trek’s George Takei who has put the issue on the map more than once. Katsu’s Grandmother lived through this experience and now when the victims begin to age out from being able to share their experiences it is important to tell their stories.
Yes, telling the very real history is important, but I also think telling fictional stories inspired by these dark days does go a long way toward shining a light on these times. The novel is based on real events, and if you know a little bit of the history that adds a neat level to the whole thing but it is not required. The story follows a few threads that are eventually woven together.
Archie Mitchell is a minister in Oregon, Meiko Briggs who was born in Japan, and her daughter, Aiko, are in an internment camp in Idaho, and Fran Gurstwold is a reporter whose story starts in Nebraska. The events seem unrelated but of course, they come together. Aiko is the connection to the supernatural events as from the beginning she is sensitive and sees things. Fran is trying to prove herself as a reporter at a time when sexism kept women from serious journalism and Mitchell is trying to get people not to judge the Japanese.
Inspired by real-life horrors of the internment camps and the real historical event of the Japanese balloon that attacked central Oregon. Look it up, it is a crazy story. Katsu very wisely blurs the lines between the horrors of history and her invention. Ghosts and madness-inducing diseases that rip through the camp make for nightmare fuel. I didn’t find much of the supernatural aspects as unsettling as the racism and intolerance but that was certainly the point.
“…she’s not spying for the Japanese…”
“It doesn’t have to be that. It could be anything. One Japanese in America could do one bad thing and all Japanese are going to be judged. She was right enough there, he had to concede. “ and then they’ll be looking at you. At us.”
“It is precisely because I am a religious leader that I should sponsor them. Set a good example.”
Aiko one of the main characters is a Japanese woman whose husband enlisted and left, now she and her child end up at the camp. The horrors come to life when the disease ripping through the camp is blamed on them. When a reporter tries to get to the truth it exposes the raw nerve of the hatred and intolerance at the heart of the existence of the camps.
“I thought you were one of us but you’re helping this Jap lover, you’re a race traitor.”
Arguments like this happen throughout this novel as Katsu does unflinching work to expose the nightmare that was American-style concentration camps. That horror should haunt us, and that is the real horror of The Fervor.
One of the creepiest moments comes when Meiko thought dead travels across several states and it appears she walked. A spirit is driven by forces that were not available to her in life.
“She looked so real that, for the first time he doubted what he knew to be true. It’s not a ghost, it’s a real girl.”
There are a few really good and creepy moments. The Fervor is not breaking any crazy new ground, but it doesn’t have to. The job of this novel is to tell an entertaining story that shines a light on a dark moment in our history. For that The Fervor might be Katsu’s most important historical novel. It has a personal feel to it. It is not the supernatural elements that will make your skin crawl, those are light on purpose. The skin-crawling part comes from the history it reflects.
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