Review: Dreck by Alex Grass

Author Alex Grass creates a haunting and gritty dystopian world in Dreck, a monstrously good read penned with a masterful voice. Driven by an unflinching protagonist who takes no guff and gives no quarter, this dark and raw-edged thriller will suck you in and keep you there.

Dreck, the mystical beast from a sinister nursery rhyme, ends up on Frank Attanasio’s cold mortuary slab, but this dauntless and sardonic hero quickly learns that death is anything but permanent. The antlered monster is still glowing, appears to be doling out gold coins, and has repeatedly broken into Frank’s mind with vague warnings via horrific nightmares.

Not only that, but the feds want to repossess the body, a viciously weird storm is rolling in, and Frank realizes that he has stumbled into a post-war power struggle that is way above his pay grade. Everyone seems to want a piece of the monster that rolled into his morgue, but Frank isn’t one to simply roll over and play dead. His skills as a frontline fighter are inevitably tested, from swanky nightclub bathrooms to a mutant-infested sewer kingdom, and everywhere in between.

While the paranormal or supernatural elements start slow at first – a beastly corpse with a three-fingered hand – the strangeness of this eerie tale only swells. By the time supernatural energy warriors and transforming demons grace the page, readers are fully immersed and hooked in the fantasy. Like China Miéville at his best, Grass grounds this novel in authentic characters and believable settings, but injects each step of the plot with inexplicable darkness.

Set against the ominous backdrop of the mysterious Long War, which broke down borders, decimated the population, and returned the world to diseased instability, this story feels oddly relevant to the present day, despite its bizarre and fantastical elements. Couching the story in an unspecified future, at least a century beyond the present, gives the book an enigmatic aura. More details of the conflict and the aftermath are gradually doled out, but Grass avoids concentrated passages of exposition, easing readers into this fictional and ominous paradigm.

From the very start, the prose is gripping and savagely smart, with visceral descriptive bursts, sharp-tongued exchanges, and a sheen of tension that makes it feel like a fight is always around the next corner. The language itself is a curious cornucopia of dialects and slang, setting a post-apocalyptic mood and rarely wavering in consistency. The narration is especially engaging, with vivid and compelling descriptions that make you want to slow down and savor every carefully chosen sentence, macabre as they may be: “Purgato’s red eyes vaporized, and the porcelain flakes were sucked into the storm of electrical energy.”

Dramatic prose aside, the writing is also laced with caustic wit and dark humor, peppered with splashes of chilling poetry, and fueled by potent, fast-moving dialogue. The editing of this novel is meticulous, the world-building is remarkably detailed, and the creativity on display feels endless. All in all, Dreck is a wickedly wild read that does not disappoint.