Undertaker’s Moon (Moon of the Werewolf) by Ronald Kelly (1991), Part 2

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Greetings and welcome!

As promised, here is the second part of the article about Ronald Kelly’s werewolf novel Undertaker’s Moon. If my rambling piques your curiosity and you decide you would like to read the book yourself, you can find a direct link to Amazon’s Kindle e-store to the side. In this second (and last) part, I would like to first talk about the portrayal of werewolves in the novel; afterwards, I will say a few words about how different characters in the book view lycanthropy, and, finally, I will end with my general impressions and evaluation of the book. That said, let’s get down to business, because there is quite a lot to talk about.

Werewolves in Undertaker’s Moon

As I’ve mentioned before, in this section I’d like to talk a bit about the way werewolves are presented in the novel. There is a lot that can be said on the subject, so without further ado, let’s get started with what we can glean from the text.

The first thing to be said about the werewolves in Undertaker’s Moon is that they are immortal. They don’t suffer from diseases that are fatal to humans and are resistant to physical damage in the sense that inflicted wounds, even those seemingly severe, merely inconvenience them. They possess extremely fast regenerative powers, which let them heal any damage they suffer practically instantly. Needless to say, they can virtually live forever and do not seem to age physically past their prime – although Devin and Rosie became werewolves as small children, they still kept growing, while McManus, being at this point over a millennium old, had not seemed to have changed since his prime back in the 8^th century.

The werewolves’ only weaknesses seem to be: silver, which causes an acute allergic reaction, other werewolves, and the two mysterious Celtic amulets owned by Ian Danaher. The amulets and the gems embedded in them have the power to weaken any nearby werewolf, draining them of their powers. The origin of said amulets is never fully explained, apart from the fact they were kept secret by the Irish monks who lived in the Kells monastery in the 8^th century. We can only speculate about their genesis and the reason why they possess their supernatural properties. Since the source of the Silver Beast’s curse is a pact with the devil, the crosses may work as they do due to being holy relics. Unlike silver and werewolf-inflicted injuries, the amulets themselves aren’t lethal to werewolves. They simply diminish their powers, even as far as quenching their hunger for flesh and preventing transformation altogether if worn, as it is in the case of Ian Danaher.

As for ways of getting rid of werewolves permanently in the novel’s universe, it is stated that the only way they can be killed is either if another werewolf kills them or they are killed with the use of silver (bullets, knives, swords, daggers, and the like). Both contact with silver and being injured by another werewolf cause sizzling wounds as if one was burned by a very hot object.

Werewolves here are able to transform at will, but the process isn’t instantaneous – it takes a while for them to assume their werewolf forms and the act of shapeshifting seems to be quite painful, since their bodies basically rebuild themselves. However, it does seem that the more accustomed one is to their curse, the faster this process will be. Moreover, they are also able to only partially transform, as shown when Rosie defends Brian from Mickey by slashing the latter with claws, as well as later on when Devin threatens Jake and confronts Brian about his sister. Even in their human form, the werewolves possess superhuman strength, agility, reflexes, and heightened senses.

Once transformed, their werewolf forms are those of bipedal, seven-foot (or more) tall human-wolf hybrids. There are some traits that the werewolves retain from their human selves – their human body build is reflected, while their fur is the same colour as their human hair colour; also, their eye colour remains the same. The werewolves can communicate with each other in what the author calls ‘the snarling tongue of the wolf’ (Chapter 12, loc. 1658), but it is unclear whether this form of communication is intelligible only among the werewolves or not, because there’s no instance where any werewolf successfully communicates using this method with a human. As I see it, any dialogue between the lycanthropes (which, nota bene, is written in italics) is limited to them only and cannot be understood by humans, to whom any utterances of the kind simply sound like lupine growls and barks.

As far as the process of becoming a werewolf is concerned, it is a little bizarre here. As shown numerous times throughout the novel, people becomes werewolves similarly to what was shown in the movie Underworld: Evolution in the case of werewolves created by the elder werewolf William. Here, same as there, in order for one to become a werewolf, one must be killed by another werewolf. And yes, by that I don’t mean being brought to the brink of death – I mean they actually have to die, after which they come back to life, their injuries healed, as werewolves. According to Ian Danaher, there is a magical element in the process of being infected through a bite (it seems like it’s not possible to be infected through means other than a bite in this universe) – this is possibly because of the fact that the roots of the curse are supernatural, since McManus first became a werewolf with the help of the devil. Upon healing their injuries, characteristic white scar tissue covers those parts of the body of the new-born werewolf that were damaged by the other werewolf. This scar tissue is also a kind of a mark binding the infected to the curse, because when they are killed, these white patches are healed and disappear.

A defining feature that drives the whole plot of the novel is the werewolves’ craving for human flesh that increases as the moon gets closer to being full. This irresistible, burning hunger is the underlying cause for the novel’s premise – the whole reason why McManus lives with the O’Shea family and helps them maintain the undertaking business is to be able to sate that hunger with as little risk of discovery as possible. As he himself admits at one point, hunting humans became too risky as the world developed over the course of the centuries – it was no longer as easy to kill human beings without being hunted down as in the past. That’s why, in order to survive, McManus and his unwilling lackeys were forced to resort to scavenging. Migrating from town to town depending on where the fatality rate is highest, the werewolves use the undertaking business as a cover for their monthly feasts on dead, but still human, flesh. Their attitudes towards this practice differs, but up until the events in Old Hickory, they all accept it as a necessity for their survival.

Although the source of the werewolf curse is supernatural in nature and it’s stated at one point in the novel that there is a ‘magical’ element to the bite and the infection process, it doesn’t seem to only be limited to humans, as we find out at the end of the novel when it is revealed that one of Devin’s victim’s pet dog named Popeye has survived his struggle with the werewolf Booker brothers… and is now a werewolf-dog. This topic isn’t elaborated on, obviously, since it just serves as a cliff-hanger ending to the story, but it does seem like even a small creature like Popeye transforms into a large enough beast to carry a grown pig with ease. Whether this creature is different from the werewolves our human characters turned into remains unknown.

Finally, one more thing I wanted to mention here are werewolf babies. Yes, you read it right. In Undertaker’s Moon there are two instances where the subject of werewolf babies is brought up. First, during the novel proper, we learn of the possibility of a human becoming pregnant with a werewolf baby when Devin reveals his diabolical plan of populating the earth with his progeny to his lover, much to her horror. We learn that, apparently, the conception of such a child is not as easy as one would have thought, because, according to Devin, he had failed to actually make a human woman pregnant in the past. Another instance where we meet with the mention of a natural-born werewolf is in the novella The Spawn of Arget Bethir and this time we learn a little more about it. During his fateful visit to his hometown, Brother Ian learns the truth about his mother’s passing from his older sister. It is then revealed that Ian’s mother had fallen victim to McManus’s lust and had become pregnant with a werewolf baby. As we learn, this pregnancy did not have a happy ending – close to the time of birth, when the child was big enough, the full moon caused the foetus to transform inside its mother’s belly. Shortly after, the werewolf infant tore its way out of its mother’s belly, causing her death. Whether this would have been the fate of Devin’s lover had she not committed suicide is unknown, but there is a big chance that she would have shared the same fate as Ian’s mother.

The Characters’ Differing Attitudes Towards Lycanthropy

As I’ve mentioned before, each character in the novel has a slightly different stance on their condition. Some view it as a curse, others a blessing, while others yet see it as a natural part of their existence. In this section, I’ll try to outline how each major (werewolf) character sees lycanthropy. As an afterthought, I’ve additionally included one non-werewolf character due to his ties to werewolves even if he isn’t one himself.

Squire Crom McManus

The Squire is portrayed as the source of lycanthropy in the novel’s universe. A charismatic man that once lived in the early centuries A.D. Ireland, he struck a deal with the devil who granted him power and riches, but with a catch – although he would be able to shapeshift into a great wolf-like beast at will, every full moon he would suffer from insatiable hunger for human flesh that would force him to feed on the living. This, however, did not bother McManus in the least. Using his brand-new gift, he would quickly become a figure of legends among the Irish folk, recruiting more and more werewolves into his ranks, devouring whole villages at a time where his pack appeared. Needless to say, during that time, McManus openly defied every authority and boasted about his superiority to man every chance he got, relishing in the hunt. His attitude gradually changes with the passing of time. As human civilisation develops, he and his followers are no longer able to enjoy the same freedom as in the days of old. From hunters they become the hunted and are forced into the shadows of the underworld. McManus himself is forced to leave his native Ireland and he travels around the world, trying to survive, if not flourish, in a different place. Come twenty-first century, he admits to himself that he has grown old – mentally, if not physically – and remarks during the climax of the novel that, although he is forced to live the life he does out of the necessity for survival, he longs for the hunts of old and misses the time when everyone trembled at the sound of his name.

Patrick and Mary O’Shea

Patrick and Mary O’Shea were a happy couple with two young children before Squire Crom McManus crossed their path. They died by his hand and subsequently were forced into his service through the curse of werewolfism. They have memories of their lives before they became werewolves and because of that, they resent lycanthropy and the one who bestowed it upon them. Lacking the strength to oppose their master, Patrick and Mary are forced to be a part of his scheme. They view werewolfism solely as a curse that binds them in an unholy way to McManus and are themselves appalled at their deeds during the full moon. And yet, they are unable to end their lives by their own hand, choosing to continue living a life that is, for them, full of deeply hidden sorrow. It comes as no surprise, then, that they welcome their killers when they raid their house at the end of the book.

Rosie O’Shea

Rosie, the youngest of the O’Shea family, was still a toddler when she was made a werewolf. Hence, she does not know any other life than that of a shapeshifter forced to feed on human corpses every full moon. Due to this fact, her attitude towards lycanthropy is very different to that of her parents. Contrary to them, Rosie views werewolfism as a special gift that should be cherished. Despite that, she knows that it’s not something she can brag about openly. She does, however, make use of her abilities when her back is forced against the wall, especially if someone dear to her is in danger, partially transforming to fend off whatever danger looms ahead. She tries to live as normal a life as a teenager whose family is on the move every few years can live, her wolf side being just a natural state of things that she has to cope with, the Feasts of the Moon being to her like an old family tradition that one cannot free oneself from. Shortly after arriving in Old Hickory, Rosie falls in love with Brian – a teenager living next door – and is grief-stricken when the boy comes to her house to murder her because she’s a werewolf. She is angered at the fact that her secret became known and even suggests that Brian become a werewolf like her, so that they can be together, but she is met with refusal.

Devin O’Shea

Rosie’s brother Devin, who also became a werewolf when he was a young child, developed a vastly different attitude towards lycanthropy from that of his sister. He is not only the stereotypical upstart of the pack who refuses to comply with the rules set by his alpha, but he takes it a step further. He oftentimes clashes with McManus, pointing out to him that he has become too meek and that by leading a life of a scavenger he brings shame to any werewolf out there. Devin knows, however, that he on his own isn’t strong enough to overthrow McManus, so he resorts to plotting behind his back. To carry out his coup, the teenager plans to establish his own pack of werewolves, which he gradually starts doing over the course of the novel. He refuses to continue feasting on human remains, to which McManus orders him to hunt animals if he must, but forbids him from killing live humans – which Devin, of course, ignores. Additionally, Devin is fascinated by Hitler’s Nazi ideology of the master race – a fascination that his family dismisses as a phase that he will get over, eventually. However, Devin uses Hitler’s ideology as a basis for his own – in his mind, werewolves are the master race, while ordinary humans are to them merely prey, or slaves. Even as a human, he looks down on people around him and likes to humiliate others using his superhuman abilities. His obsession with the idea of werewolf superiority doesn’t end there. He embarks on a personal crusade to not only fill the world with werewolves he creates with his bite, but also to establish his line of werewolves born from human mothers. To this end, he seduces girls at school and tries to impregnate them, his good looks making it all the easier for him to do so. Because he feels invincible thanks to his powers, he doesn’t shy from partially transforming in front of people he wants to harass and even admits he is a werewolf and blackmails another boy, who witnessed him killing another boy during the full moon. He likes taking advantage of people’s disbelief in the supernatural, certain that even if he reveals his identity to other teenagers, no-one will believe them if they tell any adults about it. In the end, Devin’s ideology and his reckless campaign prove to be the cause of his family’s downfall (and McManus’s as well, subsequently).

The Booker Brothers

Billy and Bobby Booker are Old Hickory’s liaison with the underworld. As such, they are said to be able to procure anything illegal the local teenagers would ask of them, for an appropriate price, of course. It comes as no surprise then that being made into werewolves turns out to be right up their alley (well, except for the part where they first have to die by Devin O’Shea’s hand). Initially not fully aware what they’re getting themselves into, the brothers agree to become Devin’s lackeys in exchanged for the promise of immortality. In exchange for the curse, Devin orders them to supply him with living humans every full moon, so that he can feast on them instead of on corpses or wild animals. The Bookers are fiercely loyal to Devin and are prepared to take risks in order to destroy any evidence that could endanger him. They also serve as Devin’s henchmen, threatening and harassing whoever he orders him to. Moreover, with their new-found powers, they are not above murder if it is a way to silence those who have begun to discover their secret.

Ian Danaher

Ian Danaher is McManus’s arch nemesis and has been such since the destruction of the monastery he was a brother at in the 8^th century Ireland. Ian’s backstory is revealed in the novella The Spawn of Arget Bethir, found after the end of the novel proper. Deeply religious, Ian is nearly driven insane by the strange premonitions of him becoming a werewolf. Trying to find peace of mind, he is given leave to go back to his home village to his sister, the last of his kin. There, not only does he find his birthplace ravaged by the werewolf pack, but learns that his sister has become a werewolf herself. Having put her out of her misery, Ian goes back to the monastery, where he comes across the Silver Beast and his pack. Nearly killed by McManus, as a last ditch effort the man throws himself off a cliff to deny the werewolf the satisfaction of the kill. However, he survives the fall and wakes up on the shore, now a werewolf himself. Actually, keeping in mind the way werewolves are created in this universe, it’s more probable that he actually died from the fall and came back to life as a lycanthrope. Ever since, he treats his werewolfism as a means of conquering the evil that is the Silver Beast. Wearing his holy Celtic amulet allows him to keep the beast within at bay, preventing his transformations.

Brian Reece

While not a werewolf himself, Brian has some peculiar ties to lycanthropy. When we first meet him, we learn that he’s an avid fan of everything horror and likes to write monster-related fiction. However, subconsciously Brian despises werewolves, so in his whole gallery of horrors one would be hard-pressed to find anything much about The Wolf Man. And, as it is explained (kind of) later, there is a good reason behind it. Faced with the possibility of the O’Sheas being genuine werewolves, the teenager starts reminiscing about his late father and recalls an instance where he arrived home one morning naked and dirty, for no apparent reason. Also, he experiences a dream (which turns out to be based on his childhood memories) in which he cowers in his bedroom as a small child while a great black wolf-monster tries to reach and devour him, but is then chased away by his mother with the help of a silver-plated mirror. Based on that, as well as a newspaper article describing an accident (which, in fact, was a suicide attempt of his father’s) in the local silver mine, in which his father died. But although Brian realises his father was a werewolf, this plot point doesn’t seem to go anywhere further, apart from serving the purpose of some character development for the boy, I guess. Did this realisation have an impact on Brian’s attitude towards his love, Rosie, once he’d found out she was a werewolf? Could the mutual feeling between the two even be called love if it didn’t matter in the end?

Impressions and Evaluation

While I enjoyed reading Undertaker’s Moon very much, I’ve concluded that I still have mixed feelings towards it as a whole. I enjoyed reading it until the book started heading towards the conclusion, at which point my enjoyment began to decrease. It’s kind of like when a very expensive and tasty looking meal leaves a bitter aftertaste in your mouth or gives you heartburn.

This is mainly because of one reason. Namely, I was left frustrated with the direction the author decided to take. I’m angered at the one-dimensional approach that has been done so many times and I keep asking myself why the story couldn’t have ended differently. I’m not even going to mention the plot-point of the werewolf dog at the very end, because it’s just plain silly. At the same time, I do acknowledge that picking up this reading I wasn’t expecting anything more than a stereotypical horror story, where all the monsters are eventually slain (or was I?). In this sense, the book has done good by its genre; the rednecks managed to kill all the werewolves (well, except for the werewolf dog), enabling their town to go back to being the boring Southern backside of beyond it had been before.

What I found annoying and deliberate on the author’s part was the portrayal of the werewolves throughout the book. Let me explain. In the first, let’s say, half of the novel, the O’Shea family are presented as friendly, well-mannered folks (except for Devin, of course, and McManus to some extent) willing to be part of the local community despite their nature. The young Rosie even goes as far as establishing a happy romantic relationship with a neighbour teenager. Once the proverbial faeces hit the fan, however, and the human protagonists learn of the O’Sheas being werewolves and feeding on the corpses of the town’s deceased, this approach suddenly ends. In actuality, all portrayal of the characters apart from their portrayal as monsters that have to be destroyed at all costs and regardless of everything stops. From then on, the novel focuses on the human  characters, their investigation into the O’Shea family, and their plan to destroy them.

Now, don’t get me wrong. Undertaker’s Moon is an excellent monster horror story for any fan of the genre. It’s well-written and gripping, which makes it a very good read for all fans of the genre. It also has a lot of werewolf references that us fans catch on the fly, e.g. the jukebox in the pub plays Warren Zevon’s Werewolves of London and Credence Clearwater Revival’s Bad Moon Rising, while another time a character makes an inside joke about the 1941’s The Wolf Man. However, for me, it became a little one-sided somewhere in the middle and turned into a survival horror with human protagonists towards the end. I just found it lacking; even though during the final confrontation the author tried to give the O’Sheas some dignity, it was still not enough. The line between humanity and bestiality, initially not so fine, becomes a crevice separating the werewolves from the local community. That, I think, is my biggest gripe with Undertaker’s Moon – that, in the end, no matter your intentions, be they good or bad, if you’re a monster, you need to be destroyed. Not even love, be it genuine or an infatuation, seems to make a difference here, which was very disappointing. And this, for me, was the biggest let-down of the novel, which left me dissatisfied after I finished reading it – the horror fan inside me was satisfied, I guess, however the lycanthropologist was definitely not.

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Thus we have come to the end of the second, and last, part of the article, and it’s time we finished up with Ronald Kelly’s Undertaker’s Moon. I hope you enjoyed my ramblings and if I’ve sparked an interest in you in the novel, you can always find the link to its Kindle version by clicking on the image of the cover at the top. And if you don’t have a Kindle reading app yet, you can find a link to where you can download it from in the right sidebar (or, alternatively, you can click here). In the meantime, I’m off to watch some more werewolf movies and read some more werewolf books. Remember to follow me on Twitter @werewolftheory for any smaller updates I might post and I will see you soon!

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Undertaker’s Moon (Moon of the Werewolf) by Ronald Kelly (1991), Part 1

Greetings, werewolf fans! The full moon is in the sky and, unfortunately, I do not have a werewolf movie review for you yet, but I’ve prepared something else for now that is a representative of a section of Werewolf Theory that is, sadly, a little under-appreciated. It’s time for some written werewolf fiction!

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As I wrote earlier on Werewolf Theory’s Twitter account (@werewolftheory), I’ve been reading a lot of werewolf novels recently thanks to Amazon’s Kindle app (and the fact that Kindle versions of said novels are much, much cheaper than physical ones). The novel I’d like to talk about today is one of those novels that I discovered by browsing the Kindle e-store. This will be one of those long articles, which is why I decided to break it up into two parts.

Moon of the Werewolf is the original title of Ronald Kelly’s novel, first released in 1991. In 2011 it was re-released as Undertaker’s Moon together with a novella, The Spawn of Arget Bethir that serves as a prequel to the events of the novel. It is currently available for purchase on Amazon in the form of a Kindle e-book (there didn’t seem to be a paperback version, at least at the time I bought it). If you’d like to get your own copy either before or after reading the following article, simply click on the image of the book’s cover that should be to the side, which will take you straight to Amazon, where you’ll be able to buy and download the novel to your Kindle device.

Speaking of Kindle editions, this would probably be the place where I would start my e-book rant, but instead I’ll just say that for the lower price than that of a paperback I am able to overlook the amount of typos in the text. But seriously… does anyone even proof read e-books? Because there are a lot more mistakes than you usually see in paperback editions, which still makes me frown on digital copies of books. And no, putting an acknowledgement at the end of the novel that the readers can notify the publisher of any mistakes in the text doesn’t make me happier. Why? Because it’s located at the end of the book, so by the time I see it, I’ll most probably already be done reading it. It would be so much better if this message was located before the text… That way I could have actually marked mistakes as I was reading and then I’d have been able to write a constructive e-mail to the address provided. Instead, I was left feeling disappointed, because I remembered some of the typos, but I wasn’t able to pin-point them in the text. And I didn’t feel like re-reading the novel from the start just to find them again – Kindle should have their own people to do that before a book is released, right? …Right?

But that’s enough of complaining from me – without any further ado, let us dive into the contents of the novel at hand. Oh, and before we start, the following article contains spoilers, because writing a post  where I’m trying to analyse the novel in the context of werewolfism and at the same time trying to not reveal anything plot-related would be like writing with my hands tied behind my back. I will try to keep spoilers to a minimum so that it’s still an enjoyable read for those of you who decide to give it a shot, but there are some aspects of the story that can’t be interpreted without knowing a thing or two.

General Plot Overview

An Irish family arrives one day in the small town of Old Hickory, Tennessee, USA to take over the undertaking business after the previous mortician retires. They are warmly welcomed into the local community, but things start going downhill after the first full moon of their stay. A teenage boy is killed and devoured by a bipedal monster, while his friend is severely injured, but survives. Although he saw his friend’s death with his own eyes, nobody believes his account of a werewolf running rampant around town. Sometime afterwards, the new undertaker’s son reveals to the boy that it was he who murdered his friend and admits that his whole family are werewolves that feast on the flesh of the town’s newly-departed every full moon. As time goes by, the events in Old Hickory begin spiralling out of control and a small group of its inhabitants band together and formulate a plan to put an end to the werewolf family once and for all.

Synopsis (contains spoilers)

Patrick O’Shea is an ordinary Irishman living in a small town near Cork, Ireland. He works as the town’s only undertaker, has a wife and two children: a son and a daughter. One autumn night, as he is returning home from the local pub, he finds his family brutally murdered. As he investigates the house, he encounters his family’s killer – a werewolf. The great beast attacks him and rips his throat out, killing him.

However, it turns out Patrick isn’t as dead as he thought he was. He wakes up some time later at the local graveyard, where he is accompanied not only by an elderly-looking stranger, but also his wife and children, who also seem to have risen from the dead. Confused, he is then forced to dig up a freshly-buried corpse by the stranger, after which Patrick, along with the others, undergo a terrifying transformation and feast on the deceased’s flesh, the full moon hanging in the sky above them.

Fast forward sixteen years to the sleepy town of Old Hickory in Tennessee, USA. After the local undertaker retires, an Irish family moves into town to take over the business. Of course, the family is none other than the O’Sheas accompanied by the elderly gentleman-werewolf by the name of Squire Crom McManus. They make a good impression on the locals and proceed to lead a secretive, but otherwise uneventful life among the townsfolk.

Throughout the novel, most werewolf characters (excluding Patrick and Mary O’Shea, since they seem to be the least fleshed out in this regard) develop various relationships with the locals. McManus starts seeing the divorced owner of the local newspaper; Rosie – Patrick’s daughter – falls in love with a neighbour; and Devin establishes himself as a patron and the de facto leader of the local gang.

As it is gradually revealed over the course of the novel, the reason why McManus – nearly a thousand-year-old werewolf once known as Arget Bethir, “the Silver Beast” – chose the O’Sheas is not mere coincidence. It is part of a strategy that the old werewolf had developed in order to ensure his own survival and, at the same time, keep his existence a secret. The O’Sheas are just one of numerous undertaker families he had bound to his will through the centuries. The reason for this is the burning hunger for human flesh the werewolves experience, which peaks during and around the full moon. In order to sate this hunger, McManus and the O’Sheas bury the newly-deceased without embalming, so they can eat their remains during the nearest full moon.

Fortunately for McManus and the O’Sheas, a local woman falls down the stairs of her own house, breaking her neck in the process. She is then buried and soon becomes the family’s first meal in their new place of residence. That night, the werewolves’ transformation and the subsequent desecration of human remains is witnessed by a former custodian who used to work at the mortuary, now taken over by the O’Sheas. The man runs away and dismisses what he saw as alcohol-induced hallucination, but the seeds of doubt begin sprouting in his mind.

During that night’s feast, however, the family becomes divided. The young Devin – Patrick’s son – refuses to eat dead meat and runs off to hunt on his own. Disregarding McManus’s order not to kill humans, Devin murders and devours a local teenager who’s out camping with his best friend by the river. The latter is spared, but is severely injured by the werewolf.

The news of the murder spreads like wildfire through the county and the sheriff’s office launches an investigation into the matter. However, the sole witness’s account of a bipedal wolf monster killing his friend is outright dismissed as lunacy. Instead, the officers begin tracking a wild animal that they think is responsible. The investigation into the murder of the teenager increasingly baffles the sheriff’s office, as more and more new evidence that corroborates the surviving boy’s statement comes to light.

Soon after, Patrick’s son, Devin, embarks on his personal crusade to create a werewolf pack of his own. He strikes a deal with two brothers running the underworld of Old Hickory and turns them into werewolves, thus making them his lackeys. In his thirst for blood, Devin orders them to supply him with living humans every full moon – this being the only condition in their arrangement. Additionally, he reveals to Jake – the boy whose friend Devin murdered – that he is the werewolf that attacked him and his friend while they were camping on the riverbank. He also tells him that he’s not the only werewolf living in the town, since his whole family is cursed. Using his superhuman powers, he starts harassing Jake into silence about the true nature of the undertaker’s family. He does the same to the boy his sister, Rosie, begins going out with, trying to force him to stop seeing her.

However, as time passes, as a result of Devin’s reckless actions, a few inhabitants begin connecting the dots and launch their own inquiry into the nature of the O’Shea family. With the help of an Irish drifter, who seems to know more about the matter than he at first lets on, the two boys threatened by Devin, and the widower of the woman who became the werewolves’ first meal hatch a plan to put an end to the O’Sheas (as well as the two werewolf brothers in Devin’s service) once and for all. The widower, who runs the local gun shop, prepares silver bullets for the weapons they are planning to use during their raid and they decide to carry out the deed before the next full moon.

First, they head to the farm where the brothers live. After a fight, they kill the two werewolves and free a man captured to be served to Devin during the nearest full moon. Afterwards, the group splits up, each person assigned to take care of a different member of the O’Shea family. Regardless of their feelings towards each of the O’Sheas, they all go through with their plan.

Aware of what’s coming, McManus flees the residence, leaving his fake family to die at the hands of the humans, certain that he can find a new group of people to enslave in the future, but nonetheless furious at the turn of events. During his escape, he comes across Jake’s mother and decides to kidnap her in order to vent his anger on her and thus make her an example for her son to see for crossing the legendary Silver Beast. However, he is chased down by the Irish drifter – who turns out to be his arch nemesis, as well as his worst nightmare. The man is revealed to be the sole survivor of an order of monks whose monastery McManus and his pack attacked and destroyed in the 8^th century. Accidentally turned into a werewolf during his confrontation with McManus at the time, the man vowed to avenge all the people that the Silver Beast had murdered and had been hunting down the lycanthrope throughout the centuries.

As a final showdown to settle the matter in one way or another, the two engage in an all-out werewolf battle. Although at first it seems like the monk has the upper hand, McManus still manages to inflict a fatal wound on him in the end. His victory is short-lived, however, as he is immediately stabbed in the back with a silver carving knife by Jake’s mother – her desperate move ending the legend of the Silver Beast.

Life in Old Hickory soon returns to its previous flow. The O’Sheas are thought to have died in their sleep due to a gas leak, while McManus and Devin are considered missing (since their bodies have been thrown into the river by our human protagonists). The novel ends with a cliff-hanger, though, as a dog that used to belong to one of Devin’s victims is found by a man and his son. Thinking they ran it over, they decide to take it home until they can get it to a veterinarian. But it is not to be so, because the full moon triggers a transformation in the dog – which was bitten by one of the werewolves during a struggle when its owner was captured – and the hulking werewolf-dog (yes, you read it right) runs off with a pig the father and son were transporting. Fortunately, no-one but the pig is hurt, but the matter of the werewolf-dog is left unresolved.

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And so, now that we know what’s what (I’ve really been trying to leave out as many details of the plot as possible to not spoil the book completely), I thought this would be a good place to end Part I of the article on Undertaker’s Moon. In Part II, which I plan to submit within the next few days, because it’s nearly finished, I will be taking a look at the characteristics of the werewolves in Ronald Kelly’s novel, as well as the characters’ attitudes towards their own lycanthropy and lycanthropy in general. I will also write my impressions of the novel at the end of Part II, so please stay tuned! I hope I’ve sparked your interest at least a little bit in this piece of werewolf fiction and I’ll see you next time, when I post the second part of the article. Until then!

Part 2 is now available! Click here to read it!

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Literature: The Wolf Gift by Anne Rice (2012)

It’s been quite a while since I last posted anything here due to the hustle and bustle of my daily life. In the blink of an eye, warm autumn weather has given way to the cold days of upcoming winter (at least in this part of the globe), so if the temperature outside your cozy homes is around or below zero degrees Celsius, I hope that you are and will continue to keep warm.

Click here to view Anne Rice's 
Wolf Gift on Amazon.

But enough introduction! Some two weeks ago, as I was going about my own business in a media store, my eyes were caught by a pyramid of books on whose covers I noticed the picture of a wolf and of course the word itself contained in the titles. And as we all know that’s enough to trigger my lycanthropological  curiosity. At first, I thought that it must have been another example of those novels that seem to have surfaced recently on the waves of the popularity of vampires that shall not be named, but still I couldn’t resist coming closer and examining it. And it’s a good thing I did, because when I saw who the author was, I put the book straight into my shopping basket. 

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, Anne Rice, the author of Gothic vampire novels known as the Vampire Chronicles – which, among others, include the famous Interview With the Vampire – has come back with a brand-new novel, this time about werewolves! Will she manage to engage us once again, like she could in her works about vampires? Perhaps we are now witnessing the publication of what will become in the future a basis for the screenplay of a Hollywood movie, like in the case of the mentioned Interview... and The Queen of the Damned?

For me it is a return to Gothic motifs – old, dark houses, mysterious death, the promise of family secrets and a monster of supernatural powers as the protagonist – which I used in the "Vampire Chronicles" and "The Mayfair Witches". – Anne Rice

The back cover blurb of my Polish translation of the novel reads as follows (in my translation):

Cliffs overlooking the Pacific, a beautiful mansion against a sequoia forest backdrop. A young journalist gets an assignment – he is to write an article about the extraordinary mansion. A chance meeting of two people and an idyllic night is interrupted by a brutal attack. The man is bitten by a beast which he cannot even see in the darkness… Soon, he undergoes a terrifying, but also strangely appealing change. He is fascinated by his newly-acquired power, but also anxious. He finds love when he is least expecting it, but above all else, he tries to unravel the mystery which has changed his fate. Why and how was he given the wolf gift? The journalist embarks on a difficult journey full of temptations in order to discover his new, dual nature: of a man and a wolf.

So there you have it. I haven’t been able to read the book as of yet, because I have a lot of other reading at the moment, but when I do, I’ll make sure to drop a few lines about my impressions right here in this post. In the meantime, I hope I’ve managed to whet your appetite for this new piece of writing, so when you have a chance, drop by your nearest book store or order the title through the internet. Also, feel encouraged to visit Anne Rice’s official website at www.annerice.com

Since I am now part of Amazon’s Affiliate program, you can directly support me by purchasing a copy of your own of Wolf Gift from Amazon! Should my article spark your interest in the book – or should you want to read it yourself – please consider buying it using the link provided next to this message. Simply click on the cover of the book on the right-hand side and you will be sent to a page listing all the offers related to it! Thank you and enjoy!

Until next time, werewolf-lovers!

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