Visage of Moros by Tamel Wino; Intense and Harrowing Contemporary Fiction Novel About Loss, Grief, and Vengeance

 Visage of Moros by Tamel Wino; Intense and Harrowing Contemporary Fiction Novel About Loss, Grief, and Vengeance 

By Julie Sara Porter 

Bookworm Reviews 

Spoilers: On the surface Tamel Wino’s Visage of Moros couldn't be more different from his previous book, Dusk Upon Elysium if it tried. The former is a modern Contemporary Fiction novel about a father grieving the death of his daughter. The latter is a Science Fiction novel about a sentient AI that traps users in a paradise of their own design but where their former guilty secrets come back to haunt them. In style and genre they are different, but they have a lot in common thematically.

Both deal with memories of a pleasant paradise, almost a fantasy that is disrupted by a violent, bloody reality. What results is a destroyed protagonist forced to recognize his broken emotions, shattered dreams, and the darkness surrounding them. However, in Dusk Upon Elysium the idyllic fantasy is non-existent, a creation from AI to keep users complacent and lethargic. In Visage of Moros, the idyllic fantasy happened but it was in the past and haunts the protagonist as he deals with the intense grief that envelops his current present reality.

Drystan Caine, a prestigious artist once had a beautiful halcyon family life with his wife, Sophie and their daughter, Alba. It was a life of serious and supportive conversations, family jokes, comfortable money and home, and memorable vacations. That life comes crashing down when Alba disappears one day. Her parent's anxiety turns into grief when the girl's body is found and it becomes clear that she has been murdered. Drystan and Sophie are devastated and their marriage implodes. Sophia takes small steps to move forward with her life, still hurting but willing to live. Drystan however retreats into himself as he becomes a recluse. The only emotions that Drystan feels are crippling depression and simmering rage ready to seek revenge on Alba’s killer if he can find them.

It's also worth noting that there is also a great deal in common between Visage of Moros and Michael J Bowler’s Losing Austin which I just reviewed in that both deal with a family suffering when a child goes missing. However, Austin provides a fanciful Science Fiction based path and resolution whereas Visage of Moros is all too real with Alba’s disappearance and her parent's, particularly Drystan's despair, depression, and rage.

The contrast between Drystan’s life before and after Alba’s death is extensive and deep. The more pleasant that Drystan describes his past, the more the anguish comes through as that past is cruelly ripped away. Wino is able to write those memories not as cloying and mawkish but as clear, matter of fact, and painful. His words are those of someone who has seen those days slip away. They are precious to him because his present life is so empty. It's hateful that Alba's murderers took not only Alba's life physically but Drystan's life which essentially ended when his daughter died. 

Since the book is mostly told from Drystan's first person point of view, we are made to share his conflicting emotions and his transition between sadness and anger. He is completely isolated from everyone. He retreats to a cabin and becomes a recluse only leaving to shop for bare essentials. He can't stop thinking and talking about Alba or remembering that awful day.

He makes some effort to bond with Alba's former boyfriend and a female friend but these moments are brief. Even as he tries to find some semblance of life around him, something to assuage his grief, he always comes back to his sadness. It can be exhausting and draining to read about his grief especially if one has an empathetic response towards another's pain. This book does not keep the Reader at an emotional distance but instead pulls them in daring us to see the world through the eyes of someone whose world has essentially come to an end.

There are elements of Mystery or Thriller as Drystan investigates Alba's killer. It doesn't dwell much on the search so the mechanics of the plot aren't as important as how Drystan feels about it and how he pushes others away in his single-minded pursuit to find a resolution, a denouement to his pain. 

Most of the action consists of Drystan getting lucky in finding a potential lead and stalking them in the pursuit of murdering them in retaliation. Frozen despair gives way to active aggression and it isn't any better for him. He wants to take this person's life since they took Alba's. Like before with his despair, there is no room left in his life for anything but vengeance. 

Drystan's rage is understandable but it is also severe and uncompromising. In a strange way, while he drew us, the Readers in with his grief, he pushed us away with his rage. He's become someone else that even the Reader isn't sure that they recognize. He breaks his last tie and isolates himself, even from us. 

Probably this self-imposed isolation is what is at play in one of the more questionable and puzzling aspects of the book. The final pages reveal a strange plot twist that came from nowhere and is not followed with any sort of resolution. It's possible that Wino wanted to throw in a final twist but there may be another reason.

 It’s possible that Drystan missing the twist is the point. He is so consumed by grief and hatred, that he can't see what's literally in front of him. He is single minded that the person that he chose killed Alba is the one that he won't believe any different. That isolation drove him insane and he would rather continue down this trajectory than sooth it by admitting that he was wrong and moving on with his life. 

The twist is the final note of isolation between protagonist and Reader. It's telling that it is one of the few times where Drystan's first person point of view is no longer present. The twist becomes omniscient, almost intrusive, and is in third person. Drystan is unaware of it. The Reader is and they can't say anything. Drystan wouldn't listen anyway. It's almost a tragic irony that the answer is right in front of him but not acknowledged by him but by us. He's lost his final link to the outside world and is left alone.

Visage of Moros is a heartfelt meditation on loss, grief, Depression, anger, and vengeance. It's harrowing, intense, and ultimately cathartic.

Losing Austin by Michael J. Bowler; Affecting, Poignant, and Transcendent Missing Child Novel

 

Losing Austin by Michael J. Bowler; Affecting, Poignant, and Transcendent Missing Child Novel 

By Julie Sara Porter 

Bookworm Reviews 

Spoilers: Sherlock Holmes said it best, “Whenever you eliminate the improbable then all that remains no matter how impossible must be the truth.” Such is the case in Losing Austin. Michael J. Bowler’s novel about a missing child t is affecting, poignant, riveting, and ultimately otherworldly and transcendent.

Colton's nonverbal Autistic older brother Austin goes missing after Colton insults him. Colton and their parents go through an agonizing search. When they find no evidence that Austin either wandered off, got lost, or had been kidnapped, Colton looks for other possibilities. He remembers a brighter than usual rainbow and a strange unusual presence in the woods at the time and suspects that his brother was abducted by aliens. Other witnesses with similar stories corroborate this theory, a theory that looks more realistic when Austin reappears five years later completely unaged.

Losing Austin is a novel that veers between Crime Thriller and Science Fiction. Bowler produces a novel that is a mixture of the two subgenres and styles.

The book reveals the anguish when a child goes missing. Colton and his parents’ bond bends and threatens to break from the strain and there are hints that this fracture is permanent even after Austin returns. Colton and Austin’s father is so busy trying to be the stoic rock for the family that instead he becomes remote to them. Their depressed mother basically withdraws from everyone else and lives in her own private world of grief and despair. She barely acknowledges Colton’s presence except with occasional disdain and  hovers in and out of life without any real involvement. 

As for Colton, his emotions go from determination, to rage, to guilt. He searches the woods every day long after rescue teams have stopped looking for Austin. Once he admits his theory about alien abduction, he connects with people on social media who have similar experiences. He feels helpless that he couldn’t control what happened to Austin and despite his efforts can’t find him. To respond to that, he takes action so at least he can say that he did everything that he could. 

With that helplessness comes rage and fury. He gets into fights with bullying classmates that make fun of Austin or spread rumors about him. While some want to help Colton, particularly a former bully turned friend, others use the opportunity to isolate him even further. Since Colton and his family have become public figures because of this tragedy, he is constantly aware that he is being watched and monitored by everyone else at school. The scrutiny is so intense that he is temporarily home schooled. This contributes to his loneliness and insecurity. 

Above all,  Colton feels tense guilty and remorse. He obsessively goes over Austin’s last day especially the harsh words that he said knowing that Austin would never retaliate. He acted on impulse, spoke without thinking, and was immediately remorseful afterwards. But what was said was said and it seared into him for a long time. 

Colton reveals his pain and inner torment in an interview with Anderson Cooper (in one of the book’s lighter moments, Colton refers to Cooper as “CNN Dude,” a nickname that the news anchor graciously accepts). Colton bares all partly out of confession but also so people who are going through such grief, pain, and inner frustration can learn from his story. 

The realistic situation that the family goes through weaves with the fantastic theories espoused by Colton and his new friends. One of Colton’s friends shares a similar story of a missing brother and believes that “the rain took him.” 

After rational outcomes produce no results, it makes sense to look for the unusual. At first that seems to be what is at play here. The Reader doubts Colton’s narration but can’t deny that there are some strange things but it’s all understated. The nature around him like the bright rainbow, the rain occurring during disappearances, or the mysterious presence watching him are eerie but not unusual. The other witnesses could be just as confused or worse appealing to a grief stricken boy's anxieties. They could be straws that Colton is trying to grasp to find answers, calm his rage, and assuage his guilt.

However, when Austin returns unaged, the impossibility becomes almost confirmed. It puts the book into a different place than what was presented before where anything reasonable and logical turns into anything supernatural or otherworldly. 

The final chapters open up another solution that wasn’t addressed before. It becomes jarring but it also transcends reality and expands the book’s insights about other worlds into a new direction. The ending is also explained in a way that makes sense despite the abruptness. It makes one curious if Bowler is planning on exploring this scenario in future installments. 

Losing Austin captures the emotions of a Thriller, the themes of a Science Fiction, and the passage of a Coming of Age novel. It is a book that is worth finding.