Stoker Award winner Lisa Morton presents an intriguing take on the “remnants of humanity, post-apocalypse” theme in her sharply written short novel for Bad Moon Books, THE LUCID DREAMING.
The story is told first-person by a young woman whose real name is Ashley, but don’t call her that. She prefers Spike since it describes both her hairstyle and her attitude. By the time she has reached the age of 23, Spike has been diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic and takes the anti-psychotic drug Prolixin to keep calm. But one evening, during a period when she missed her medication, she killed a homeless man and ended up at the California State Facility in Oxnard.
Then, one day, she is released from the facility for no apparent reason and with no explanation. As she heads for nearby Los Angeles, she soon discovers that something strange has happened while she was locked up: L.A. is a near ghost town. The few people remaining are acting very odd, as though they were sleep-walking and not waking up. Spike finds shelter in a deserted apartment and learns from a pile of old newspapers that a strange “dreaming sickness” has infected the country, and the Prolixin she’s taking is probably what makes her immune to the disease.
Soon, she finds a car and some supplies, and accompanied by a hunky black guy she finds who is infected with the sickness, she heads out of California and eventually ends up in Texas. There, she finds a community of people who have also discovered the waking effects of Prolixin, but it’s ruled by a woman called Mama, who keeps the inhabitants on a very short leash and imposes her white-trash values on all who live under her protection. It isn’t long before Spike decides that she and her boyfriend must escape.
Morton gives Spike just enough detailing to make her believable and strong enough to carry the story. That, along with irony of a paranoid schizophrenic on medication being among the sanest people left alive, gives the story an odd but appealing energy — a sort of modern-day retelling of H.G. Wells’ “The Country of the Blind.”
Exactly when things start to get a tad predictable, Morton steps on the gas, pulls the story in a slightly different direction, and then gives it a pleasantly twisted kicker of an ending. If THE LUCID DREAMING is any indication, she’s ready to tackle a story that will take her even deeper into her characters, and events that will carry her beyond these 86 pages. And that should be something well worth reading. —Alan Cranis
OTHER BOOKGASM REVIEWS OF THIS AUTHOR:
• MIDNIGHT WALK edited by Lisa Morton
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