Tucked away in the Chihuahuan Desert lies a motel unlike any other…
Fuelled by online trends, a shift in the American zeitgeist has led to the instatement of the Lazarus Act, legalizing the ‘recreational use’ of human corpses.
Ellis Mercer, recently bereaved, embarks on a secret mission to America’s first ‘necrotel’ to recover his wife’s remains, before her corpse and his memory of her are desecrated by the motel’s twisted membership.
As he uncovers the murky inner workings of Motel Styx, evading its suspicious staff and encountering a wild array of death-obsessed guests, he will be forced to face an unsettling truth: there is more than one way to define love. Motel Styx is an explicit, disturbing, witty tale about lust, loss, and the last taboo.
Dark bleatings, my mysterious tribe. I’m here today to talk about Motel Styx by Michelle Von Eschen and Jonathan Butcher. Yes, yes, I know, I know I’m late to this party. Very late. But I made it in the end! Am I glad to be here though? Hmmm, let’s see…
This is the story of recently widowed Ellis, whose dearly departed wife donated her body to the Motel Styx, and outraged by the idea of perverts having their fun with her, he goes there under the guise of being a regular customer, planning to stop the madness. Oh yeah, major trigger warnings for all sorts of things, really. Probably should have said that upfront.
Anyway, when Ellis arrives there, he finds a pleasant owner, a lovely clean room, excellent service and great amenities. He’s not going to register anything that makes the place look good though, because he thinks it’s all rather despicable and sick. On quite the high horse, he is. This is a world in which necrophilia has been legalised (so long as the bodies are donated and it’s totally consensual), but not everyone agrees it should be, including our protagonist. And thus begins a sordid journey of self discovery, emotional turmoil, and some pretty sick imagery.
I love so much about this book, and the fact that I tend to avoid this subgenre just faded into nothingness as I was reading it. It is so entertaining I couldn’t put it down.
I was impressed by the writing, and also delighted because I didn’t know if the merging of these styles would work. I love Jonathan’s writing style but his stories are usually too brutal for me, and Michelle tends to approach sensitive topics with a lovely literary flair. They seem like authors that should not work well together, but oh looky here, this is possibly the best co-written novel I’ve ever read. The merging of both their language and subject styles, not to mention their very different authorial voices, was so seamless that I kept forgetting it was written by two authors and not just one.
This is also very possibly my favourite example of subtle world-building. This is our world with one different law, and there are so many little lines and details that bring it to life. The rules are very clearly established, which makes the human element all the more interesting because what a morally dubious topic. Don’t get me wrong, I can’t imagine ever being on board with this and I certainly would never participate, but the authors were bold enough to go there and open this up as an actual discussion, rather than just using necrophilia for its shock value.
Ellis is a highly interesting and increasingly detestable asshole who has convinced himself he’s on a noble quest, the motel’s owner overexplains everything as if he’s trying to justify his work (despite his insistence that all is well), and there are some characters that show us exactly why this should never happen in real life, and others that provide an empathetic avenue that demonstrates why it might be…er…useful?
Thematically, there’s a lot going on here, and I think it’s probably up to the individual on what might resonate. I picked up on the more glaring moral questions about respect for the dead, abuse in relationships, expressions of sadism and violence in a “safe” space, how the law and rules differ between economic classes, and more.
This is a sick, twisted, excellently drawn work of transgressive horror that presents its topic with as much empathy, layering, and sensitivity as there is manic, chaotic, bloody, shocking violence. It’s not for everyone, but it’s for more of us than I think we might assume from the synopsis alone.
I loved it, I think it’s fantastic, and I rated it 5/5. Check the trigger warnings, but I wholeheartedly recommend this. If you’d like to check out the book or the authors, I’ve popped some links below for you:
Bleeeeat!
Happy Goat Horror 
Leave a comment