Hungerstone

Queerness and vampirism go hand in hand throughout literature. While I’m not well versed in the classics, The Book Eaters and Heart of Stone both showcased how vampire stories can be gripping in both romantic and horror spheres. Hungerstone is essentially a take on Carmilla (which I haven’t read), with a special focus on the main character’s relationship with her own agency. I think fans of gothic horror will love it, and is a good option as a starter to the genre if you like stories with a more internal focus (whereas something like Mexican Gothic or A Botanical Daughter would be better starting points for more plot focused stories). However, its much less vampire-forward than I would have expected.

Elevator Pitch
Lenore is trapped in a listless life and a loveless marriage. An orphaned noble with no money to her name, she married Henry (a corrupt steel magnate) to find a life of security. Now she finds herself without any clear anchors in her life, struggling to figure out how she can salvage some happiness. As they move to the countryside, they pick up Carmilla on the road, a mysterious stranger who seems in desperate need of care. As Carmilla starts to open up Lenore’s eyes to just how dire her situation is, Lenore finds he growing attraction to their new guests matched only by the horror rising in her as she comes to terms with the reality of her life.

What Worked for Me:
The narrative voice is a highlight in this book. Dunn captures the portrait of a woman living in a haze excellently. Lenore drifts through the world, initially unable to see her situation as clearly as the reader does. The pensive reflections on her life fit the portrait of a woman trapped in a house where her only social connection is a distant husband and a woman she suspects of being his mistress. Initially she desperately tries to find ways to win back Henry’s affections, a hopeless prospect but one she resolutely marches towards. Simply put, this book wouldn’t work if Lenore wasn’t interesting and evocative. She’s definitely both, and this carries the majority of my enjoyment with the story.

Additionally, the setting is excellent in how it establishes tone. The new house is a crumbling and musty ruin, filled with decaying plaster and looking out over dark marshes. Henry is relentlessly evil, but not in an unbelievable way. He’s a brutal capitalist whose goals of wealth and prestige lead him to disregard basic ethical imperatives, which was depressingly realistic. People seem to be developing a sickness of insatiable hunger, and Carmilla’s presence looms in Lenore’s mind with a growing awareness of her attraction to the woman. This darkness and lust is interspersed with the social life expected of a wealthy wife in the middle of the industrial revolution, which feels banal, pointless, and mindless even to Lenore, except when she sees it as a way to regain control of her own life. It’s a book where the creeping dread is more important than the monstrous nature of Carmilla herself (who, despite helping Lenore, is also clearly hurting many innocent people in the community, and is just as dismissive of side-character’s health and wellbeing as Henry is). Mood and atmosphere are the brand of horror here, not graphic descriptions of violence or terror.

Finally, I want to shout out the narrator for the audiobook, Perdita Weeks. Sometimes narrators are hesitant to add emotion to their narration, but she really knocked this out of the park in matching her performance to the mood and tone of the book.

What Didn’t Work For Me
I’m not sure that this books is as thematically feminist as it intended to be. To be clear, it is feminist in the sense that its examining sexism, misogyny, and presenting Lenore as an interesting and complex character in her own right. However, she is incredibly reactive throughout the story, and her ‘awakening’ is nurtured by Carmilla for the entire story (its never clear why Carmilla is obsessed with Lenore in particular. It must be solely physical attraction, since Carmilla seems frequently frustrated with Lenore’s own slow awakening to her own situation). Even after Lenore begins taking her dire situation into her own hands, and leveraging the expectations of the patriarchy against Henry, she generally is ineffective and requires others to save her at every turn. Even the climax sees her rescued by Carmilla, who is (to me) just as manipulative and controlling as Henry was, but which the book presents as a happy-ish ending. Perhaps the takeaway was supposed to be about the relentless hopelessness of Lenore’s situation, but I didn’t feel like the narrative was pushing me to think that way. I can appreciate that characters may need external help to break deeply ingrained internalized powerlessness, but this book didn’t show Lenore actually breaking away from that dynamic despite seeming to indicate that she had. It felt like Dunn was consistently undermining her own attempts at thematic development at every turn.

Additionally, while Lenore’s headspace was the highlight of the book for me, I sometimes wished the book had been more grounded in the scenework of the present moment. It wasn’t terribly uncommon for a conversation to be interrupted by a lengthy flashback or extended emotional monologue, only for the conversation to pick up as if nothing had happened. These frequent introspective moments were essential for the book’s success, but their placement could have been less jarring (or simply less lengthy) at times.

Finally, those looking for a heavy emphasis on vampiric elements will be disappointed. While this is absolutely a vampire story (and a take on one of the classics) it felt more like a story that happened to have vampires in it.

Conclusion: an introspective gothic novel with exemplary vibes, but with some thematic challenges

• Characters: 5
• Worldbuilding: 4
• Craft: 4
• Themes: 2
• Enjoyment: 4