Local author Victoria Brownworth’s latest work is her darkest, most compelling horror novel to date.
“Ordinary Mayhem” recounts photojournalist Fay Blakemore’s harrowing journey to report on extreme violence in Afghanistan and the Congo. Equally terrifying is Blakemore’s traumatic childhood, which comes back to haunt her in ways that will change her life forever.
Originally published as a short story in a 2012 anthology by her editor Greg Herren at Bold Strokes Books, “Mayhem” stood out and demanded to be made into a novel, Brownworth said.
“The short story got a lot of attention. People kept mentioning it as the best in the book or the creepiest, and it won honorable mention for Best Horror [from Ellen Datlow] in 2012,” Brownworth said. “Everyone said I had to make it into a novel.”
“Mayhem” was inspired by a combination of real-life stories Brownworth has covered during her career as a Pulitzer Prize-nominated journalist and her own horrible tale as a victim of sexual violence. The fact that “Mayhem” has its origins in plausible events that actually happened, and that it’s told from a female point of view, sets it apart from other horror novels.
“I have been writing for a long time. I’ve written horror novels before about vampires and things like that. But there is something truly terrifying knowing that these things in ‘Mayhem’ could absolutely exist,” Brownworth said.
“There are certainly things that are taken from my own life,” she added. “The character Blakemore and I traverse some of the same ground that a lot of women are traversing. It’s violent and real and constant.”
Brownworth said one of the main points of the novel was to show that the horror, like the incidents that take place in the book, is real. She also thinks the story will jolt people who have become desensitized to violence into a heightened state of awareness.
“I’ve witnessed some things I wish I had never seen,” said Brownworth of her time as a journalist. “The horror is real. I have experienced it as well. It has become ‘ordinary mayhem,’ not extraordinary at all to us.
“The things that are happening in the book are reality,” she added. “In some places in the world, yes, these things that you can’t even imagine are taking place.”
If you like “Mayhem,” keep your fingers crossed for a sequel.
“I didn’t realize it at first, but the ending is definitely set up for a part two,” Brownworth said. “Blakemore is a very compelling character and I am still not done with her.”
“Mayhem” is available online and at major booksellers. Fans of the genre can sign up for a horror-writing workshop hosted by Brownworth March 7 at the Big Blue Marble Bookstore, 551 Carpenter Lane.