Eco Review | Suicide Valley: Trail Maintenance
Review by Ben Lockwood
Cover of Suicide Valley: Trail Maintenance
Redwoods, fungus, worms, and blood. That's all you really need to know about Suicide Valley: Trail Maintenance, a recent horror novella written by Colin Alexander and published by Stanchion Books. But I enjoyed this quick and bloody ride and I'd like to talk about why.
On the surface, this is a standard, pulpy, survival horror story. A guy hikes into the woods and finds some weird, horrific shit. I think there's always more to be mined from the things that terrify us, though, and no less so here, when we follow Adrian–a combat veteran turned forest ranger–as he embarks on some trail maintenance work in the colloquially named "Suicide Valley".
The valley gets its name, ostensibly, from the amount of people who have apparently opted to end their life in it, as evidenced by the frequently found (and poorly preserved) human corpses. The plot descends into the narrative as rapidly as Adrian does the valley, which is good because there's some very interesting things waiting for him there. I hesitate to say much else regarding the storyline here, because A) there isn't much there and B) the plot isn't really the point.
What's most interesting about Alexander's writing is the horrific version of nature he creates, and why it's horrific. One aspect is simply dropping a human into a world where we are no longer the dominant species. This is tried-and-true horror territory of flipping the predator-prey dynamic. Humans, who so often think of ourselves as removed from nature, are actually just fleshy bags of meat.
We're highly consumable.
But that's nothing new, as much as we do our best to ignore it. What interested me the most about Suicide Valley was the version of nature with which Alexander terrorizes our main character. Without giving away too much, this is a nature that defies categorization. The biology and ecology in Suicide Valley are novel, and unknown. In true eco-horror fashion, we are in uncharted waters, an ecosystem that doesn't operate under known rules, full of allies and enemies we don't understand. That's the fun part of this novella.
And I'd emphasize the fun here. Suicide Valley is a lightweight, unpretentious read that classic horror fans will enjoy. It also has more lurking beneath the surface, for those who want to look.
Ben Lockwood is an ecologist and geographer in the Department of Ecosystem Science and Management at The Pennsylvania State University. He holds a Ph.D. in Geography from Indiana University, and a M.Sc. and B.Sc. in Biology from Ball State University. Ben’s writing has been published in Nature, Clarkesworld Magazine, Area, Literary Geographies, and elsewhere. He is also the founder and editor of Brief Ecology.