Book Review: From the Belly by Emmett Nahil

Genre: Horror

Age: Adult

Format: ebook

From the Belly follows Isaiah, a young sailor aboard a whaling ship, who develops a relationship with a mysterious man cut from the belly of one of their captured whales. But the strange man has brought some sort of curse to the vessel and its crew, and Isaiah finds himself torn between loyalties.

This book is frustrating because it contains the ingredients to a story I would love. I adore maritime tales, especially in horror, with the juxtaposition of the isolation of the open sea and the claustrophobia of the ship. Unfortunately, here it just didn’t work.

I have a few problems with From the Belly, but the more I think about them the more they seem to stem from the length of the book. At just over two hundred pages, it isn’t quite a novella, but it is a very short novel. I am a strong believer that when a book is this short, it will benefit the most from being kept simple and focused. The cast should be as small as possible, and most of the book should be focused on the main story and/or relationship. From the Belly just tries to do far too much within such a short word count.

For one, there are far too many names being thrown at the reader with no time available to develop or even distinguish between them. Then when things inevitably start kicking off, I have no reason to care when any of them meet their horrible fate.

It is also set in an alternative world (not named as far as I can tell), with the primary religion being polytheistic with its own rituals and beliefs, it is also queer-normative and our gender roles do not apply. Therefore, Isaiah’s crewmates are a mix of men, women, and non-binary folk. To be clear, none of this is a problem in and of itself. The problem I had is that these elements are not well established and it took me a while before I could work out if the setting was historic or fantastical.

Some religious practices are mentioned but we are not given time to understand the role faith plays in the characters’ lives. I am aware that most religious people do not spend all of their time talking about it, but given that spirituality and superstition is given weight by the plot, it would have helped to expand on how, what and why they believe.

As it is, it just comes across as Christian when characters express suspicion towards Isaiah or the mysterious man, who later uses the name Essex (get it?), which begs the question of why a new faith needed to be made up.

A lot is made in the story of Isaiah experiencing visions and having some connection to the gods, which is linked to some trauma with his father. It doesn’t entirely make sense why this connection is supposed to be a bad thing, and when he foresees the terrible events before they unfold, he makes no attempt to prevent them. Isaiah is passive throughout the book, events just happen around him. Supposedly he is kind and lacks the greed of his crewmates, but it doesn’t ultimately matter as it doesn’t change anything.

Overall, I would consider this book both under-baked and over-ambitious. Many different themes are touched on but none of them are done justice. However, there is potential here, which makes it all the more disappointing.

Review by Dai Baddley

I purchased this ebook.