Book Review: The Suicide Collectors - David Oppengaard

Set 15 minutes into the future as indicated by the presence of fuel-cell powered automobiles and even planes, a mysterious phenomenon called the Despair has caused the vast majority of the world's population to commit suicide years before the story begins and suicide continues to be an ever-present and oppressive shadow over the lives of survivors.  A mysterious group called the collectors inevitably appear minutes to days after each suicide to collect any body that has not been interred.  The story follows a survivor from a small town as he and his companions travel across the ruins of the United States in search of a functioning city and a cure for the Despair.

I'm surprised that this novel was nominated for a 2008 Stoker Award by the Horror Writers Association, not because it isn't good, but because it isn't horror.  The characters suffer loss and encounter dangerous situations but the reader - or at least this reader - doesn't share their fear.  This is an adventure novel in a post-apocalyptic setting, no more horror than the plot of Half-Life.  There's nothing wrong with that, many readers enjoy an occasional romp through a post-apocalyptic wasteland gleefully dodging evil alien overlords/mutants/zombies/cultists.  The writing is clear and readable, the characters believable if not particularly memorable, and the setting is interesting. 

The only problem is the surprise ending.  The author clearly wasn't expecting it.  Maybe his word processor ran out of ink, or he was afraid of the marginal vowel tax rate for the next word-count bracket.  Whatever the reason, the story's end is sudden and unsatisfying.  Horror stories are often resolved by the death or survival of protagonists, not solving the mystery of the antagonist's origin and motives; besides, explaining why the eldrich abomination does things might make it less terrifying.  But if the reader doesn't genuinely fear for the characters, their survival or death does not provide resolution.  The central question of the story is the nature of the Despair, the collectors, and what they want with the bodies of the dead.  The story manages to confront the Despair without ever addressing most of those questions.  The final passages before the epilogue are a thought-monologue by the main character about how he's never going to get any answers to these questions but that he doesn't care.  Given the nature of the story and the prominence of these questions to that point, these passages read like a direct address to the reader explaining why they should forgive the author for the end that's about to happen.

I might forgive, but I won't forget.  This is Oppengaard's first novel and his second, Wormwood, Nevada comes out next month.  I wouldn't recommend reading this book becuase you will be disappointed, but I might pick up his next one.