“Her dark smell was more intoxicating than the ale – cheap soap,
dirty leather, and her demon blood beneath like wet brimstone.”
– When We Were Executioners by J.M. McDermott
I have to admit – I haven’t read anything quite like J.M. McDermott’s Dogsland Trilogy (Never Knew Another, the recently released When We Were Executioners, and the forthcoming We Leave Together). A seemingly straightforward fantasy narrated by the unnamed female of a husband/wife team of wolfskin-clad Walkers – shape-shifting members of a religious order whose mission it is to remove the taint of the half-breed spawn of demons from the face of the earth – the storyline follows the duo as they set out on a seemingly impossible mission.
Walkers have the ability to understand the memories of the deceased and after stumbling across the demonic corpse of a king’s man named Corporal Jona Lord Joni, the nameless narrator and her spouse begin the monumental task of tracking down and erasing the evil stain on every person and place the demon spawn has touched. Joni’s memories are deeply disturbing but perhaps the most unsettling revelation is the fact that he knew of others like him…
In When We Were Executioners, the unnamed narrator and her husband follow Joni’s lover – another demon-tainted human named Rachel Nolander – to a city nicknamed Dogsland where, aided by the dead man’s memories, they try to find her amongst the masses of poor, addicted, and dispossessed...
There are so many remarkable elements to this saga – first and foremost is McDermott’s uncanny ability to thoroughly immerse the reader in the brutal, filthy, and dangerous city of Dogsland. His writing style is incredibly vivid, rich in imagery, and has an undeniable lyricism to it. Here is a perfect example:
• “Night came and there was no end to the beds in the city, and the whorehouses strung together in a chain of forgotten buildings, sheets, and the smell of them, like a swamp full of rosewater.”
And that highly descriptive and darkly poetic storytelling style makes for countless powerful and provocative images and scenes:
• “Her eyes opened and rolled in pain. Tears turned to mud at the corners of her eyes.”
• “She was Lady Joni once, and rich and beautiful. Now she was just another skull along the wall.”
• “I could not sleep. I might never sleep again if we are stopped before we can do what we must. Death is not like sleep. It is more like waking up.”
Another noteworthy quality of these novels is that they work so well on numerous levels. It’s primarily a fantasy but it also succeeds as a work of allegorical fiction. The demon taint in these novels could be symbolic of virtually any kind of prejudice – someone’s religion, their appearance, their socioeconomic place in the world, etc. The character of Joni is a demon spawn, yes, but does that make him evil, ugly, someone to be shunned? Rachel was particularly moving – an unassuming young woman ashamed of her past, and her unusual appearance.
“Her breasts were human, enough, but below her nipples thick scales reflected light like obsidian. Above, the line of scales at her nipples, scales splashed, like pockets of freckles up to her neckline...”
But Joni sees Rachel as she truly is – a kind-hearted and singularly beautiful woman. In a disease-ridden city plagued by unbridled violence, cruelty and paranoia, these two outsiders find something transcendent – true love.
Add to the storyline some highly innovative takes on both the demon and werewolf mythoses – not to mention a deeply contemplative, philosophical undertone – and you’ve got yourself one helluva storyline. Dirty, dark, and deep, readers who experience these novels will not soon forget Dogsland.
Highly recommended for fantasy fans who gravitate towards truly original storylines.
Paul Goat Allen has been a full-time book reviewer specializing in genre fiction for the last two decades and has written thousands of reviews for companies like Publishers Weekly, The Chicago Tribune, Kirkus Reviews, and BarnesandNoble.com. He is a member of the National Book Critics Circle.
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