The Closure of a Circle - Reviewing "Mary" by Nat Cassidy

The real curse of womanhood, […] is that we never get to forget we have a body.

On the verge of her 50th birthday, Mary has many problems: hot flashes, irregular menstruation, mood changes and ...ummm, hallucinations and voices in her head? Her GP thinks this is all normal for her age and dismisses her symptoms as by-effects of her impending menopause. But on top of it all she loses her dream job at a bookstore because it needs "fresh" faces, her rent gets a hefty and unaffordable raise and her allegedly dying aunt demands she come back to her hometown and take care of her, and that's just too much.

When she leaves New York City for the desert town Arroyo, Arizona, she finds that not only do her hallucinations and the voice increase in intensity, she also starts auto-writing a book during phases of unconsciousness. That's a lot to take already but what does it all have to do with the almost religious obsession of the townsfolk with the desert and its best known citizen, serial killer Damon Cross? And what is Mary's role in all of this?

Mary: An Awakening of Terror and I, that was love from the very first lines. All the time while I was reading this book, I was smitten and couldn't stop thinking about it - I stayed in the subway for a little longer and missed my station in order to read just one more chapter, I was anxious to get home from work so I could continue reading and stayed up late reading myself to sleep. I always wonder and ponder about books which can do that to me and ask "why?", why is it that this book could (in this case, literally) hook its claws on me? 

Well, for once, I realized that although I don't yet face the same crises Mary has to weather in her life, I am surrounded by many Mary's - women who are forgotten, overlooked, ignored, belittled as they get older. The doctor scenes being especially significant here and many women of any age will recognize these from their own lives, nodding in agreement: we are either "textbook" examples for a certain reproductive cycle - excruciating stomach aches, poor circulation or vertigo are always and without need for further physical examination due to menstruation - or we need to eat a little more or a little less depending on one's weight. It is very commendable that Cassidy highlights this bias to show that the only thing textbook here is the worth that is not being given to Mary as an aging woman who wants nothing more than to be noticed, to be taken seriously.

Darling. If there's one thing this world teaches someone like me, it's how to hurt myself.

Even though she's physically going through a normal change, it's not like she is totally fine neither, with the visions and voices in her head amplified in Arroyo.

This is where Nadine comes into the picture, Mary's aunt. This seriously overweight, chain smoking, foul mouthed person is only one of the past ghosts Mary needs to confront, but she is certainly a memorable one. I have to say that I'm wildly torn when it comes to Nadine - there were scenes in this book I wanted to slap her in the face, throw her on the ground and stomp on her while she gave her evil cackle, but on the other hand, this highly unlikable person intrigued me somehow. Being one of the very few people excluded from Arroyo's cult-like religious community, she has tons of books at her home and has an apparently compelling back story as a former professor of occult sciences. If there's ever a prequel revolving around Nadine, I'll be the first one to buy that book.

So let's look at what we have until now:

- a middle aged woman who hears voices and hallucinates returns to her home town where these symptoms worsen;

- she discovers many things about herself, some of them unpleasant, she either didn't know or suppressed the memory of;

- an aunt who knows a lot but prefers tantalizing her niece instead of helping;

- a desert town full of freaks and a mysterious history involving a serial killer.

These will mix and build up into a progressively intense and hellish fever dream, resulting in a glorious climax in which Mary gains very unexpected allies and starts drawing strength and confidence in herself, in herselves!

There is one reference in Mary which is hard to miss; Stephen King's debut novel Carrie (1974), in which an oppressed and bullied young girl gains unexpected powers once her menstruation kicks in. In his foreword to Mary, Nat Cassidy credits and makes a point in noting the strong mark King's titular figure left on him - up to the point where he, as a young boy, elevated her to a kind of matron saint due to her suffering, after seeing and being left shocked and awed by the sight of a bloodied, iconic Sissy Spacek playing Carrie White in the 1976 movie. In his appropriately entitled afterword "What's This Asshole Doing Writing a Book About Menopause?", he adds that he aimed at closing a certain circle - Carrie being on the opening side of reproductive/cycle horror, while Mary representing the middle age/closure.

I would be lying if I said that the idea of a book about menopause written by a man didn't initially irritate me. It did. Ongoing discussions under the wider topic of "Men Write Women" even affirm that some male authors deserve to get roasted for the unrealistic and ridiculous ways they portray female characters and that is the root of my irritation. Nonetheless, I found in Mary a well-drawn, well fleshed out and above all very relatable character. Cassidy also credibly argues that he isn't just jumping on some bandwagon - he indeed has critically reflected and tackled the problem of who has "the right" to write about menopause and concludes that it is not only a right, it is even a responsibility for men as allies to contribute to the breaking of this taboo.

He also seems to be a guy who knows what women want, just read this gem:

Just today, a man was sitting comfortably on the subway, and maybe his legs were spread a little too wide, but it's not like he was really hurting anybody, if you don't like it you can get up and move, but then suddenly a hole appeared in his thigh and his femoral artery began spraying everyone nearby.

Gosh, I sometimes wish I could do that to spreaders, don't you? That, and dresses with pockets.

Bottom line is, Cassidy's debut horror novel absolutely struck a chord with me and is definitely worth your time; lots of patriarchal anxiety smashed, tons of gore and blood, epic confrontations and ants! My god, ants everywhere, and also claws...

Mary will certainly be one of the runners up for the Protean Depravity best book of the year in December!