'The Hunger' is inspired by the Donner Party, in which American pioneers resorted to cannibalism to avoid starvation. A 3.5-star book review.
You’ve heard of the Donner Party. You know they were pioneers who set out for California, that things went poorly and did not end well. If nothing else, you probably know that they ate one another to survive.
The Hunger, Alma Katsu’s new novel (Putnam, 373 pp., ★★★½ out of four), assumes some familiarity with this California Trail horror show. Instead of sapping the story of suspense, this familiarity infuses every page with dread. And that’s before Katsu adds in a supernatural twist.
All this may have been enough to damn the historical Donner party, but Katsu’s poor souls are dogged by an additional evil: a voracious presence that stalks them across the land, preying on and infecting the pioneers. As the days go by, the party dwindles, winnowed by forces known and unknown.
Everything goes wrong, with repeatedly fatal results, and the pioneers turn on one another, their suspicions and conflicts heightening with their desperation. Many of them harbor burning secrets — shameful pasts, as well as blood-fresh crimes and designs.
Ironically, the supernatural elements almost relieve the tension and horror of the story. The Hunger, for all its wickedness, is somehow less of a nightmare than the actual Donner Party history, some of the darkness pushed onto external threats, or disproportionately contained in one sociopathic villain.
Because what would you do in those mountains, to survive the ever-present threat of death? The Hunger might show you more than you’d like to know.