Revelator: A Novel (2021) by Daryl Gregory

I have been on a bit of a folk horror kick recently. I have found it to be a rich and fertile subgenre worthy of a deep dive. For anyone curious as to what this genre entails, I found the Wikipedia description to be surprisingly on point (slightly edited by me):

Folk horror is a subgenre of horror...that uses elements of folklore to invoke fear in its audience. Typical elements include a rural setting and themes of isolation, religion, the power of nature, and the potential darkness of rural landscapes. Many derive their horror from the actions and beliefs of people rather than explicitly supernatural elements; the primary focus of the stories is often upon naïve outsiders coming up against these forces.

I found out about Revelator through some online research into modern folk horror where it was near the top of many lists. I was unfamiliar with Daryl Gregory, but bought and downloaded the book to my Kindle with the intention to read it after I finished what I was currently reading. However, the book’s opening sentence was too evocative to ignore and I found myself immediately pulled into its very unique narrative:

"Stella Wallace met her family's god when she was nine-years old."

What follows is a beautifully written tale that is equal parts Lovecraftian horror, Southern gothic, poignant coming of age story, and a powerful condemnation of the dangers of fundamentalist religious fanaticism. Our story revolves around Stella Wallace, though the narrative continually hopscotches between the years 1933 and 1948 (which constitutes our ‘modern day’ as readers). 

In the flashbacks to 1933, we are introduced to 9-year old Stella Wallace as she is abandoned by her father in Cades Cove, a backward, poor Appalachian Mountain community in Tennessee. Stella will now be raised by her surly grandmother, Motty. Stella is the next in an ongoing line of female revelators, gifted with the ability to ‘commune’ with her family’s God, dubbed Ghostdaddy, who lives in the cavernous bowels of a church carved directly into a nearby mountainside. Motty had also been a revelator in the past before losing the gift, as all revelators eventually do.

These rapturous 'communions' involve the Ghostdaddy essentially mind-melding with each revelator to impart his wisdom, will, and new revelations. In turn, each revelator’s experiences are recorded and further translated and expounded upon by Motty's brother,  Hendrick, in written tomes that are treated as sacred texts by the family and the church of the god in the mountain, which Hendrick pastors. Uncle Hendrick will quickly morph into our villain, a man seeking power through exploitation of the Ghostdaddy’s influence on the church and its members.

The 1948-set sections of the novel involve an older adult Stella who, having left Cade’s Cove for years following a tragic event, returns to try and save Sunny, the young girl who would become the next revelator and Stella’s successor and who may or may not be Stella’s daughter. Stella by this time has become a highly successful, if illegal, bootlegger, along with her African American partner, Alfonse, using a recipe given to her by Abby, an older friend who assumes the mantle of father figure to Stella. Some of the book’s best parts are conversations between Stella and Abby ruminating about life and moonshine.

There are mysteries galore to be uncovered and author Gregory is careful to parse his story out in easy to digest chunks that continually stop shy of divulging the entire depth of the plot until he starts wrapping everything up in the book’s final climactic pages. The protracted finale really ratchets up the suspense and tension as everything escalates and the full truth of what has been previously going on is revealed.

I grew up in the South of the 1960s and was able to relate to a lot of truth in the way the culture and customs of this Appalachian community was portrayed. The speech, the actions, and the ignorance all ring true. Someone asked me to describe the book in a sentence and the best I could come up with was: what if To Kill a Mockingbird had been written by H.P. Lovecraft. If that sounds intriguing to you, then I heartily recommend Revelator. But be forewarned—Daryl Gregory is more interested in telling you Stella’s story than in explaining in detail every unanswered question. In the end, though much of the central mysteries are solved, much is still left in the dark. This ambiguity was an asset to me personally, but your mileage may vary.

Review by Steve Carroll