Review: The Sadeiest by Austrian Spencer
The Sadeiest
Is today a good day to die?
Death – a walking skeleton armed with a scythe, a rider of the apocalypse, it has always been assumed – is a man that brings the souls of the dead to wherever they are destined to go.
But what if we got that wrong? What if he were a ghost that, instead of moving your soul on silently after you had died, actually did the hard part for you?
Death has to die, again and again, to pay for his sins, and to free trapped souls before their bodies perish – only to replace those souls, to die for them.
A Death whose existence is a curse, where the other riders of the Apocalypse are not his allies, but his enemies.
Armed only with his morals, his memories and the advice of a child teacher, Williams, a Sadeiest, travels through the deaths of other people, on his way to becoming something greater. Something that will re-define the Grim Reaper.
Death just came to life, in time to fight for a child hunted by the other horsemen of the Apocalypse.
How do you want to die today?
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My Review:
It is said that the story of the twentieth century is that of psychotherapy. That is to say, the emergence of a method of dealing with the collective traumas of two world wars and all the wars that have followed since, not to say the wars that will continue, ad infinitum.
In part, this could also be the narrative of the Sadeiest. Concerned with redemption and atonement, the characters skip from one body to the next, reliving the deaths of others in their own psychotherapeutic journey for existential vindication.
The novel is experimental in form (transcending its manifestation as a graphic novel), poetic, erotic, pornographic even (in some of the accompanying images) but what links the hero/ines is their yearning for connection. I found their discoveries of themselves and the process they had to undergo heartbreaking (in the best sense), especially the children.
One particular character inhabits Auschwitz; a final destination that a book like this could hardly ignore. In my opinion it was the most evocative because we have so much prior knowledge but it fits well within the stylistic differences of the characters' stories. But be warned: this is not a story for the fainthearted nor the easily distracted. It is a story that requires your minute attention in order to get the most from it. I can't pretend that I understood every single aspect of its narrative logic or world rules but I understood enough to keep turning the virtual pages.
Author Bio:
Austrian had an unfortunate trauma aged eight, when a truck drove over him and his ‘Grifter’ bike. This made him bedridden and a captive of books for too many years. The habit persisted throughout his life (reading books, not staying in bed), to the extent that his daughter’s first painting was of him holding a book, rather than her hand. He has the picture framed in the upstairs toilet, to look at whilst feeling vulnerable.
He is the ‘glass-half-full’, an eternal optimist and believes passionately in you. You are doing exactly what you need to be doing at this moment in your life. He often thinks this, while staring at his daughter’s first painting.
Austrian does not watch horror films, though enjoys horror books. His influences include Alan Moore, Dave Sim, Neil Gaiman, Frank Miller, The family King, Iain M.Banks, from whom he wishes to learn. Be inspired.
He owes them everything, despite their beards.
The Sadeiest is Austrian’s debut novel.
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One particular character inhabits Auschwitz; a final destination that a book like this could hardly ignore. In my opinion it was the most evocative because we have so much prior knowledge but it fits well within the stylistic differences of the characters' stories.
But be warned: this is not a story for the fainthearted nor the easily
distracted. It is a story that requires your minute attention in order
to get the most from it. I can't pretend that I understood every single
aspect of its narrative logic or world rules
but I understood enough to keep turning the virtual pages.
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