The Church of Dead Girls: The Worship of Dark Desires

The Church of Dead Girls by Stephen Dobyns is a suspenseful book. The horror present in the text is both literary in nature as well as plain disturbing. I found myself repelled by the violent acts human being committed in the story, but I could not put the novel down. Dobyns does a masterful job of introducing various characters with shady traits, which makes the suspicion of whom the murderer is quite difficult to pinpoint until we start getting closer to the end. Every character in the book is flawed, but sometimes we are unsure of how deep those flaws run until more exposition takes place. There's a wonderful quote present in the text that describes the novels' characters perfectly:

"Just as we are only aware of the surface parts of one another’s minds, so are we only aware of the surface parts of one another’s behavior. We see the polite part, the public part, and we can only speculate on what exists underneath. But usually if the surface part is conventional and well-mannered, we assume the rest to be also. Although what does that mean? How can we assume that a person’s secret self is equally conventional and well-mannered? If the inoffensiveness of one’s public self is created by fear, then it would seem possible that one’s private self could be anything at all." -Dobyns, The Church of Dead Girls

This quote is so central to the events that occur. We are introduced to everyone's surface personality before their layers are peeled back and "what exists underneath" is revealed. In this novel what lurks beneath the superficial is quite dark for the most part. The narrator was of interest to me because for awhile I strongly felt he was withholding something from the audience, but I didn't feel it was threatening. I trusted him. Then we find out his secret is that he is gay, and given what horribly happens to Jaime in the novel, we can see why the narrator was not keen to divulge that information to everyone in town.

Other characters possess much darker secrets than a hidden sexuality however. Dobyns handles those secrets so well. We are absorbed in these characters and their unraveling lives. I constantly wanted to know more about how twisted Aaron might have been, more about Chihani and his purpose, more about the cops, citizens, IIR members...As events unfolded and the girls went missing, it became difficult to know whom to point the finger at. Dobyns shows that confusion by the unnecessary violence that chaotically happens throughout the story- Chihani's death for example. His interview with Franklin earlier in the book proved to be a bit prophetic:

"'Does one need a knowledge of the world, asked Franklin, to have a happy life? 'Not necessarily, but if one wants to raise oneself above the cows and the sheep, one needs knowledge. You will argue that cows and sheep have contented lives. I would argue that their ignorance leads to their slaughter. Actions have consequences. Ignorance about the nature of those actions does not free a person from responsibility for the consequences.'" -Dobyns The Church of Dead Girls

Chihani may have been brilliant at analyzing Marxism (I'd love to get into that even more, but maybe

for a future literary paper rather than going on and on in this blog post), but he was ignorant in his own way about how much his words and actions would piss off the people of this town. Other incidents caused by mob mentality were seen with Barry getting beaten up, Paul Leimbach almost dying plus the destruction of his house, and many more things. I thought our narrator was going to get beaten up as well by the Friends group who were just crazed in their obsessive need to point the blame at someone.

Another thing I found quite interesting about this novel was the ending. Donald Malloy has been found out and all of his perverse, dark secrets revealed. His psychopathy went deep and gave me goosebumps. He was a creepy fucker and it really did disturb me...but I think what stuck with me even more for some reason was the narrator's closing remarks about his own struggles. He stole Malloy's hand as a reminder of what could happen if he himself gave into his potential darkness. Would the narrator really end up like Malloy? The narrator does say, "How that sweetness must have sung to him and how insistent it must have grown as it led him to take more chances. Is it possible that voice exists in all of us but in most it is quiet? When I help a tenth grader with his biology assignment and I feel the heat of his body beside mine, the heat of his cheek, don’t I hear a sweetness calling to me? Of course, I do nothing. I move away or send the boy back to his desk, but sometimes I have fantasies. In my dreams I do things that I shouldn’t. But I am a good man. I have a respected position. I would never do anything wicked. But isn’t my fear one of the reasons I live alone? What do you do with your fear? And do you dream?"

This passage is disturbing because it blends together descriptions of the sickening Malloy with the narrator himself, and then it addresses "you" the audience as well. Does it suggest there's a wickedness in all of us? Perhaps it does, and I don't find it hard to imagine we all possess a sort of darkness within us. I suppose it just depends what we choose to do with that darkness if we act upon it all.

"If you could look to the bottom of a human being, what desires would you find?" -Dobyns, The Church of Dead Girls