Disseverment by Z.C. Krol – The Rise of the Body Horror Genre

This book review is slightly different as the focus is as much on the rise of the body horror genre as on the critical analysis of the short story.

Disseverment by Z.C. Krol is a short story about a man who reunites with his mother after a long time and discovers a shocking truth that changes his life forever. Disseverment means “separation” or “dividing into parts” and the story is ironically all about cutting parts!

The book is a psychological horror and thriller, but recently, this specific genre has been critically discussed as the body horror genre.

The body horror genre is about the extreme transformation and mutation of human bodies. Kellina Moore (2024) writes in The New York Times, “The terrifying changes often emphasize the futility of our efforts to control our horribly unpredictable bodies”. The story exemplifies the body horror genre, so there are a lot of trigger warnings to check before you dare step into it. I am mentioning the trigger warnings below:

The book contains graphic depictions of body horror, including disseverment, intense physical transformations, eating disorder, death, suicide, rape, and psychological trauma.

Disseverment is a horror story that takes place in 2009 in the US. The main character in the story is Tyler, whose mother, Donna, contacts him after years and asks him to meet her for one last time. In the beginning, we meet Tyler and his fiancée Madelyn, who loves him a lot. The story starts with a letter that he receives from Donna’s husband, Kenneth Shepherd. He requests that Tyler meet his mother as she is dying of cancer. Tyler consults his father, who asks him to never meet his mother again.

It is obvious that there was something seriously wrong with Tyler’s mother in the past. She was suffering from some eating disorder, which made her life miserable. Her mental health affected Tyler and his father as well, who left her for good.

Tyler is not sure if he wants to meet her or not, but he decides to go anyway. Kids can never really get over their parents, right? He goes to the address Kenneth has given him, and when he sees his mother, she is in the worst state possible. She has no limbs at all, sitting in a wheelchair with her eyes staring blankly at him. Kenneth tells him that he is a surgeon and his mother wanted him to remove all the extra weight. Tyler hears the echo of “every ounce matters” throughout the whole narrative. It used to be his mother’s mantra to get rid of extra weight.

Major spoiler ahead!

It turns out Kenneth is some mentally disturbed sociopath who removes body parts of his hostages while keeping them alive. He does the same to Tyler, removing both of his legs and one arm. Tyler’s father is a sergeant detective who tracks him down and saves him. Sadly, his mother and the other “alive” bodies in the drums do not survive.

In the post-traumatic state, Tyler realizes that his disseverment has somehow liberated him. He also finds out that Maddy is cheating on him. He confronts her, and when she tells him that she loves him and will do anything for him, guess what he says? He asks her to cut her body parts, too! Sick! The story ends with them somehow floating weightlessly.

Disseverment by Z.C. Krol has an omniscient third-person narrator. The writing style is casual and descriptive at some points. There are graphic representations of what happens to Tyler and his mother. When Tyler meets her, he says:

“She had no eyelids. Her stare was constant and wide and red with dryness, like her eyes had been in permanent shock. She was without a nose, only a black hole for a nostril like that of some alien. No ears, just two openings below her temples. She had no lips, teeth completely exposed, a snarling dog, but calm; no growl” (p. 58).

As I said, extremely brutal and graphic!

The writing style is quite fast-paced. It’s a few-page-long story. There is no unnecessary story building or anything of the sort. It can be finished in a single sitting. But, it is very disturbing, as you can guess from the extract too! So it might not be an ideal read to finish in a single sitting, just saying.

I would really like to know more about Tyler’s mother, Donna. Sometimes, you don’t really like a character, but they intrigue you in a weird way. You want to know them and access their thoughts. The other characters in the story are not well-developed, which I believe is because there is not enough room to develop them. Z.C. Krol works with very few words in the story, so it’s understandable.

I don’t really know what I feel towards the characters. Tyler has been a victim of child abuse, so I understand why he would prefer to have a degenerate lifestyle. I am not even sure if we can call it a degenerated lifestyle because body horror actually focuses on how such post-traumatic states can change one’s self-perception, granting them a new and more profound sense of identity. So there is a possibility that Tyler found some greater truth beyond human comprehension. But I am concerned about Maddy’s choice. I think she is just the biggest loophole in the story. Why would a woman with all the possible options in her life ever agree to cut her body? It doesn’t make sense at all. The characters are a bit unrealistic in my opinion, but Krol does a great job of introducing the genre.

Z.C. Krol’s Disseverment discusses what it means to be a human. The theme of identity exploration is quite obvious in the story. I don’t want to bore you, but just a bit of philosophy won’t hurt anyone. You can skip the next part if you don’t want to read something serious.

So, identity is not innate. It is a socially constructed concept. When we grow up, we become members of society, and we learn whether we are male or female, wife, daughter, son, brother, husband, every identity is socially constructed. There are theories proving this. Now, if identity is socially constructed, it means that it is all in our socially approved actions, right? For example, if a boy likes or buys cars, he is masculine, but if he goes for dolls, he might be feminine. It is all in the actions. The body horror genre takes the discussion way ahead by reducing human bodies to a state where action is not possible. It is an attempt to know who we are when we are not our actions. When Kenneth has Tyler in his basement, he says,

“What makes you human, Tyler? I mean you specifically. Was it your arm? Your legs? I can take those and you’re still a human being, right? Is it your eyes, your lips, your ears? You’d still be a person in my book”(p. 44)

Kenneth wants to reduce the physical weight of humans. His effort to reduce humans to their “essence” is crazy, but it surely raises important questions about who we are and what makes us human. What is that single thing we cannot live without, or which will snatch away our title of being a “human”?

The story is very shocking, I admit. I am still trying to figure out its themes and ideas, so maybe just give it a read and see for yourself.

Disseverment is not really an enjoyable read. Its lines are very disturbing, so I am not sure if I have any favorites. I am just mentioning the lines that were very shocking to me:

Tyler looks around him in the basement when he is trapped and notes,

“I felt like vomiting again. Bodies. Alive. In all the drums. Twelve of them” (p. 45).

Kenneth explains his sick philosophy to Tyler,

“I know when you look at Oliver and you see something monstrous, perhaps even sad. A freak, trapped in his own piss and shit all day. But I see something beautiful. I see a soul, potentially free, in darkness. No distractions, and soon, no worries. Just life in its purest form. Soon, he won’t even be Oliver anymore. He won’t be anyone, or anything. He’ll just…be” (p. 46).

Tyler, in his post-traumatic state says,

“I reached weightlessness. I was weightless, in the dark and silent. Hours felt like minutes, minutes felt like hours. I was just a soul, floating beyond the limits of a fragile vessel of blood and flesh. I didn’t need any limbs. I didn’t need my eyes or my nose or my hair, and I began wondering: what makes me a person?” (p. 55)

Z.C. Krol does an amazing job of presenting a horror story with such heavy themes. The body horror genre is not a new genre, but its recognition and sudden rise are quite recent. If you have read Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, that too has elements of body horror, but obviously in a very subtle way. I would even call Franz Kafka’s Metamorphosis a body horror book.

Anyway, body horror in such a graphic narrative is comparatively new; I haven’t read something like this in such a compact form before. Krol does not fully explore the body horror themes in Disseverment, but he surely sparks the discussion with this short story.

I hate to say it again and again, but the characters were unlikable, except for Donna, and the readers barely get enough information about her. I was really looking forward to meeting her character, but it does not happen in the story. When Tyler meets her, she is worse than a corpse. There is no other account of her character before her body modification; she is merely in Tyler’s memories, and everything is from his perspective. I was really hoping to read her perspective at some point.

Kenneth and Tyler are also slightly interesting, but the other characters are flat. And above all, I don’t understand Maddy at all. Her character annoyed me, and it felt as if Krol was just hastening to make a quick end, as if he was in a writing competition and the time was running out, so he just put anything random at the end!

To be honest, I would not recommend Disseverment by Z.C. Krol unless there is something seriously wrong with you and you are beyond any help! Just kidding! I mean, it’s just a book. Keep reminding yourself once you finish it. It is not for an average reader, and please don’t read it if you are happy with your life.

I think it is a great read for lovers of mystery, thriller, and horror genres, or if you are looking for something speculative, something that could make you think and reflect. This is a relatively new genre, explore it!

It is a depressing book, so just be prepared for that, otherwise, it is a good one-time read. Also, it is quite good if you are new to the body horror genre, acts like an introduction to it. This is super short, so it’s a great pick to help you stay on track with your reading challenge.

If you’re looking for more short, impactful reads, I have added 5 short book recommendations that will surely help you hit your reading goal!

Reference:

Krol, Z.C. (2021) Disseverment: A Horror Story. Independently Published.

Moore, K. (2024) ‘When the Horror Is Coming From Under Your Own Skin,’ The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/20/movies/the-substance-body-horror-movies.html.