Blackwater 1: The Flood by Michael McDowell
Blackwater 2: The Levee by Michael McDowell
Blackwater 3: The House by Michael McDowell

(Penguin, 2024)

Reviewed by Dave M. Roberts

This is the first three of a series of six books, originally published in 1983 all within the space of a few months. Penguin are repeating this exercise publishing the six books, each one a few weeks after the last. With glowing reviews from the likes of Stephen King, Peter Straub and Poppy Z. Brite, it comes with a hefty reputation amongst Horror aficionados.

Firmly entrenched in the Southern Gothic mode, the story opens in 1919 as a devastating flood is starting to subside in the small rural town of Perdido. The titular Blackwater River has flooded out the entire town, and as it retreats the first people making a reconnaissance of the damage to the town find Elinor, an apparent survivor in one of the hotel rooms. It is made subtly clear right at the beginning that there is more to Elinor than meets the eye. It’s not giving anything away to suggest that Elinor is in some way a spirit of the river, and clearly has some significant control over it. It would be no great surprise if the later books revealed that it was Elinor, or at least some aspect of her, that was behind the flood.

Perdido is a small mill town, and effectively run by a handful of mill owning families. In particular, the Caskeys, on whom the story focuses, and Elinor marries into early in the first book. At the head of this family is the indomitable Marie-Love, who through a combination of a forceful personality and highly developed manipulative skills, pretty much runs the family. The focus of the first three books can be seen as a long and slow battle for dominance between Elinor and Marie-Love as the newcomer becomes more and more closely embedded in both the town and the Caskey family. Much of the story reads more like a family saga, rather than a horror novel—with all the power struggles and petty jealousies that this implies. This allows moments of truly horrifying power. The underlying knowledge of just what Elinor could be capable of, give the family scenes an additional dimension, which when paired off against the lengths that Marie-Love is willing to go to in order to exercise her control over the family, means that there is a constant air of menace which infects even the most banal of interactions.

These conflicts are passed down the generations, as the children of Elinor are split, being brought up separately by the two women. One has been given up to Marie-Love in order that Elinor could extricate her husband from living with his mother. As the generations grow, the interactions and relationships between the various family members become ever more complex, and the inherited loyalties do not always play out as would be expected. The childrens’ fears and anxiety have a very real power when you understand that there is something more than a child’s vivid imagination that underlies them. The usual childhood fears cannot be written off as easily as one would perhaps hope for.

While published as three separate novels, they can be seen more properly as constituting the first half of a much larger novel. I was left, in spite of the shocking and climactic events at the end of the third book, with the distinct feeling that the story is only halfway through. This was something I knew from the beginning, and although each book represents a distinct chapter in the overall story, it still felt unfinished. I look forward to finishing the series, although I fear that for Perdido the worst is yet to come.

Review from BSFA Review 25 - Download your copy here.