Filaments by KZK: Caught in a living, breathing web

“Tread carefully or risk the grafting of your identity, smoothly spliced into the transcendental network that’ll keep you hostage, mind, body and soul, for the duration it will take you to complete this read…and maybe for longer afterwards…”

There is nowhere to hide in a small town. Not when everyone knows everybody else. Where gossip and opinions spread untamed, colonising the minds of the people you love, who you once believed loved you back equally.

Thea and her mother share a secret. A necessary act secreted away in fear of amplifying the town’s deeply established disdain of both women. When two men of high standing suddenly disappear into the bog during one of their frequent hunting trips, suspicion is firmly planted on Thea’s mother Helen. And when Thea rolls back into town after a year-long absence, the distrust envelops her, too.

Thea and her mother know the bog better than anyone. It was Helen who found the missing men’s gear in the foggy marshes. That was all the proof they needed. Thea’s only objective is to salvage whatever she can of their reputation as the town works to find solid proof to convict the two women based on their foregone conclusions. She must prove their innocence without revealing the truth of the bog’s importance in the process. Without revealing a part of herself, she worked hard to keep hidden.

Spoiler-Free Plot

Thea left Sellers, Minnesota, and never once looked back. It was too small of a place for her to grow beyond the narrow perspective of the town’s population. They said her mother made bad choices, and Thea became an extension of her maligned reputation. As a young girl, her childhood mind could not perceive the world around her for what it was. Her return to Sellers, amidst panic and tragedy, allows her to witness the true nature of the people and places she once held dear.

There is healing to be found in the bog. Many have disregarded its potential. Choosing to only see what it presents on the surface; the wet, spongy muck is deemed an inconvenient feature more than the blessing that it is for those who need it most. The fruit cultivated within it is a miracle. Where modern medicine failed, an alternative palliative, powerful enough to alleviate the symptoms passed down from mother to child, availed itself.

They had been taking it for years. Venturing into the wetland, experimenting with new strains, searching for something stronger, longer lasting, more effective.

A deviation from the norm meant immediate ostracisation. Not a single soul could find out about their treatment. It would spell destruction for everyone involved, including the two women absorbed into the inescapable matrix of their interdependent cure.

There is more to the fruit than the biological desire to survive, proliferate, and conquer. Characteristics of life and death merge in an organism that draws its vitality from the physical and symbolic spoils of decay.

My Take on Filaments

As a former amateur mushroom farmer, albeit with a very small-scale operation, I am a huge fan of the fungal horror subgenre! From its origins in ancient folklore, to classical Lovecraftian representation and now, the upsurge of inclusion in modern popular culture featured in hits like The Last of Us, a thrilling episode of Hannibal, Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s Mexican Gothic, and Silent Hill 4’s toadstools, I cannot get enough of the creativity the theme inspires.

All thanks to the complex properties of fungi spawning endless possibilities in the world of fiction; here’s to hoping that a deeper understanding of their real-world ambiguity will continue to stimulate the imaginations of creators, leading to even more enjoyable literary works such as this.

Aside from the mycological theme, the essence of a life lived within the constraining boundaries of a small town is distilled with such potency throughout this story.

The language used to describe troubled people, the false sincerity, the urge to keep up appearances while chaos reigns behind closed doors, fraud, affairs, hypocrisy, resentment, cosiness, familiarity. It’s all in there. The elements of horror infused into the setting surround readers with an unsettling yet comforting atmosphere. It’s a contradictory feeling that can only be achieved through very precise and exceptional storytelling.

The protagonist’s attempts at fighting her way out of the stagnation that threatens to freeze her in a place she previously worked so hard to escape dredge up a sense of relatability for readers to hold on to.

Small towns hold an aura of liminality. The author’s decision to overlap an alternate dimension where several characters intermingle with the beings who flit between both planes adds to that feeling.

It’s worth mentioning the representation of beliefs held by Native American people who inhabit, or inhabited, the general area that lends itself to the construction of Sellers. The usage of spores for medicinal and spiritual purposes ties in with the spectral figure that takes the shape of a pre-colonial native woman. It was a detail that did not go unnoticed and was much appreciated.

I can see Filaments sharing a bookshop shelf with Gillian Flynn, Alex Michaelides, and Silvia Moreno-Garcia titles. I am keen to read the author’s next offering as soon as it’s released!

Age Rating

15 years and above

Content Warnings

Death, Mentions of Drug Abuse, Mentions of Pedophilia, Murder, Sexual Abuse, Suicide, Vioence.

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