Memoria

Adam Pepper

There are a few names that get mentioned whenever the subject of the new cutting-edge horror authors come up. Among them is Adam Pepper. I've been working my way through the authors who get recommended on a fairly regular basis to those of us who ask, and while Pepper's debut novel, Memoria, didn't prove to be the best of the bunch, it's certainly an interesting first novel, and worth your time.

Part of this may have been the fault of publisher Medium Rare Books; their proofreader could probably have been a little more diligent (or needs some help with comma placement). There are a number of minor typos scattered throughout, but with the publishing business these days-- when one can pick up a novel from one of the bigs and manage to find it rife with grammar, punctuation, and spelling errors (don't believe me? Grab a random Danielle Steel novel published since 1990)-- those are expected. The comma placement errors in this one, however, go above and beyond the call. I'll grant you, it's a minor annoyance, but it's pervasive enough to actually be annoying.

The other part is likely Pepper himself; his prose reads like that of an enthusiastic amateur, a guy with great ideas, but without the seasoning to pull them all off with success. I'd have liked to see this be his fourth or fifth novel, once he'd gotten a bit more experience and signed, as he inevitably will, with one of the bigs.

And it is inevitable, for Pepper's thesis in these pages is exactly the kind of thing a reader wants to see in a horror novel: it has at its core a classic horror-novel element (the medical search for the soul going horribly awry) done up in a new and interesting way, with plenty of artfully-done scenes of gore (and by "artfully-done" here, I mean that, compared to most of the generation he's coming up with, Pepper is a master of restraint), a decent sense of pace, and a respect for the idea of plot inevitability. This isn't one of those books that will try to dazzle you with plot twists and red herrings; you know, once you're into the meat of the book, there are only two ways it can end, and whatever happens, things will not turn out well; all you can do is sit back and enjoy the ride.

The story centers on Dr. Osias, a scientist who since an early age has been obsessed, as his father and uncle were, for searching for the physical seat of the soul. He knows, from reading his father's journals, that his father was on the verge of a breakthrough before his mysterious disappearance when Osias was twelve, discovering that the human souls is actually a gateway to some sort of massive collective consciousness, which Osias' father called Memoria. Osias himself has also had glimpses of the prize on which he's kept his eyes. Not to say that he hasn't had some other breakthroughs along the way. Part of his research has allowed him to tap into the underutilized power of the brain, making his test subjects sort of super-Norman-Cousins clones.

One of those subjects is Dave, a harried family man (were this set in Japan, Dave would be the prototypical salaryman) who's been out of work for months, and jumps at the chance to make some money by being a guinea pig of Osias'. After a single day under the doctor's care, Dave finds he's able to cure a nasty, lingering bronchitis with just the power of his mind. He's ecstatic; what could possibly go wrong?

Thus we meet the other two main characters here. There's Desiree, kind of a Queen of Memoria, who haunts the dreams of both Osias and his test subjects. There is also Job, a reluctant part of a whacked-out religious group who spend their days protesting outside the gates of Osias' compound.

You've got all the ingredients for something that could have ended up being a sprawling doorstop of a masterpiece of psychological fiction. The very premise of messing around with the soul, and in the process unlocking the power of the dormant part of man's brain, invites the writer to really dig down deep into his characters and mess with their motivations. And here is the third problem with Memoria, and unfortunately the greatest-- Pepper's characterization is somewhat weak. His minor characters are cardboard cutouts at best, and his major characters don't have much more depth. Not a good thing when you're spending so much time inside the minds of those same characters. Their motivations are simple, instinctual at the best of times. Were that the case with just the Faithers, one could see it as satire, and it makes some sense for Dave, who's desperate for the money he needs to pay the rent and put food on the table. But for the Doctor? One has to come to the conclusion that Pepper needs to spend a lot more time with his characters-- getting to know them, as it were.

The final problem with Memoria is its ending. It seems not as if the book comes to a natural conclusion, but as if it just ends. I admit, I'm a proponent of breaking the rules when it comes to ending one's novel, and if Pepper actually planned his ending the way it turned out, then he took on a Herculean task and simply failed to pull it off (which, even so, would be worthy of respect); the other choice, however, is that he simply didn't tie up loose ends. The main storyline (or the one we are given to believe is the main storyline, from the amount of screen time each character gets) just wanders off into the darkness, never to be seen again, while a relatively minor storyline introduced somewhat later in the book ends up shouldering the burden of the novel's climax. It gives the ending an odd, out of place feeling.

In the end, of course-- it is, after all, a horror novel-- Memoria seems to set up for a sequel. And despite what seems to be a far more negative review than I'd planned to write when I started typing away, if there does end up being a Memoria II, I'll most probably read it, because Adam Pepper writes a page-turner. From the point of view of pace and writing style, he's about on a par with Dan Brown right now, a notch or two below, say, Jack Priest or Doug Winter, guys who write novels that demand to be read in one sitting. A little work on characterization and structure and Pepper will become very, very good at what he does very, very quickly. While I can't outright recommend Memoria, it's the kind of thing that, once Pepper's name is mentioned in the same sentence as King, Koontz, and McCammon on a regular basis, will be highly sought after as the misstep that began an otherwise brilliant career. Keep your eye on this guy.