THE LAMB WILL SLAUGHTER THE LION / THE BARROW WILL SEND WHAT IT MAY by Margaret Killjoy (BOOK REVIEWS)
“Collective safety, sometimes, trumps personal safety. Friends who aren’t willing to fight alongside one another aren’t friends.”
“No real plans, only chaos.
This is how we’re meant to live.”
Margaret Killjoy’s two Danielle Cain novellas, The Lamb Will Slaughter The Lion (2017) and The Barrow Will Send What It May (2018) are remarkable works of anarchist supernatural fantasy, genuinely punk in the sense that they rigorously imagine ways of being outside of the constraints of neoliberal capitalist society. Where her brilliant debut novel A Country Of Ghosts (2014) imagined an anarchist society living in defiance of an imperialist regime, the two Danielle Cain novellas are joyously fun works of dark fantasy that pit Danielle and her found family of itinerant punks against threats both supernatural and authoritarian. Both novellas display Killjoy’s commitment to imagining alternative lifestyles, as Danielle and her friends encounter and interact with anarchist communities in a USA in which magic is real and the demonic is just round the corner. They also show her stellar character work, with every one of Killjoy’s ragtag team of misfits and the friends and enemies they encounter wonderfully evoked and given a chance to shine. The novellas crackle with inventiveness, fun and vividly imagined magic. They are perfect demonstrations of how fantasy can be simultaneously fun and willing to engage with big ideas.
At the beginning of The Lamb Will Slaughter The Lion, Danielle Cain is hitchhiking her way into Freedom, Iowa, the last place where her friend Clay lived before his mysterious suicide. Freedom on the surface appears to be everything she’s always dreamed of – a utopian squatter town run as an anarchist commune, operating outside the restrictions of modern-day capitalism. However, she soon finds out that things are not as perfect as they seem – the town is guarded by a supernatural giant bloodred deer demon with three antlers called Uliksi, who has started murdering the people who summoned him. Freedom is splitting into factions, those led by Eric, who believe that Uliksi is protecting them, and those who fear Uliksi has gone to far and that it is time to banish him before there is more bloodshed. Fortunately, Danielle has her new friends, Vulture, Doomsday, Thursday, and Brynn, to help her solve the mystery and figure out a way to get rid of Uliksi before Eric and his followers seize control of Freedom.
The Barrow Will Send What It May picks up after the end of the first novella, with Danielle and her new found family on the run from the law and looking for their next mission as a newly formed demon hunting crew. They find themselves in Pendleton, Montana, a small town with an anarchist-run library, and two women, Gertrude and Isola, who have been resurrected from the dead. Sebastian Miller, who runs a local gift shop, has a side line in black magic and necromancy, and his meddling may just bring about the apocalypse. Danielle and her crew must team up with their new friends Vasilis and Heather, the anarchists who run the local library, to stop Sebastian before he causes any more damage.
Both novellas are tightly plotted demon hunting fun. Killjoy has a knack for disturbing, psychedelic-tinged imagery which makes her descriptions of magic and the supernatural truly chilling. I doubt anyone who has read the scene where Uliksi punches through a man’s chest with his hooves and tears out and devours his heart will forget it, or indeed sleep soundly, in a hurry. But in between all the fun, the magic and the horror, Killjoy manages to work in thoughtful discussions about different ways to live. The Lamb Will Slaughter The Lion is an investigation into the whole idea of authority, and the extent to which it is possible to escape from it. Freedom, Iowa can only exist as an anarchist utopia as long as no one person tries to wrest control from the will of the people. Clay, Doomsday and local witches Anchor and Rebecca originally summoned Uliski because someone in the community was threatening to take over. Uliski maintains the utopia in Freedom by killing and devouring anyone who acts with violence or intent to control. But ultimately he turns on his summoners because summoning him was an act of violence to maintain control. Because Freedom is only able to exist as an anarchist alternative to the outside world thanks to the threat of Uliksi, who himself becomes ultimately another form of violence and coercion, it cannot be a true utopia. The Barrow Will Send What It May tackles ideas of love and consent. Sebastian resurrects his wife Gertrude following her death from cancer, but he does this not because of Gertrude’s own desires but because he cannot face living without his wife. His decision, which requires a sacrifice of another life to Barrow, the guardian of the gateway between life and death, is one which removes the agency both of his dead wife and the person that he must kill. His love is selfish and destructive. This is contrasted with the burgeoning romance between Danielle and Brynn, which is built around mutual respect and consent, with both Danielle and Brynn working hard to overcome their petty jealousies and selfish tendencies so that they may love each other better.
The novellas’ intellectual themes are anchored by Killjoy’s wonderful character work. In less than three hundred pages across the two books, Killjoy manages to bring Danielle and her friends vividly to life. The demon hunting crew don’t always agree with each other, but they absolutely have each others’ backs and deeply care for and respect each other. They are a lovable bunch of misfits, from a variety of different cultural and ethnic backgrounds, sexual orientations and gender identities, and their diversity is their strength. Though the focus is largely on Danielle and her romantic interest Brynn, Killjoy manages to make each of them feel like fully developed characters in their own right, and gives each of them a chance to shine. I can only hope that we will get to follow Danielle Cain and her friends on more exciting and fun adventures.