Swallowing the Muskellunge by Lawrence P. O’Brien is
a haunting historical fantasy that blends Black and Indigenous histories with
supernatural horror during the years between 1796 and the early 1800s. The
novel follows London Oxford, a formerly enslaved man in Massachusetts, and his
children, Abner, Annie, and Rachael, as they join the Wright family’s
expedition north into Canada. After London’s wife, Jane, dies under mysterious
circumstances linked to a malevolent entity, the family becomes ensnared in a
terrifying conflict involving ancient Indigenous lore, vampiric creatures, and
the painful journey of settler colonialism. All along, young Abner Oxford has
kept something from his mother, something wanted by a dangerous power, a
creature that is as relentless as it is patient.
Lawrence P. O’Brien has crafted a story that vividly
portrays the struggles of the characters as they journey north, with older folk
getting weaker and weaker, while they face inclement weather and the cold. And
then there are signs of something sinister leaving marks on trails, and disappearances.
The suspense was biting, and it was carefully engineered to have you guessing
and turning the pages. It is a story that is filled with pathos, with
characters that are nuanced and likable. I enjoyed the dialogues and the prose
that sounds like music to the ears. O’Brien fascinated me with the imagery of a
frozen, untamed frontier towering above all else. You will imagine the snow-laden
forests and icy rivers as they become stages for both survival and myth. Swallowing
the Muskellunge explores racism and its aftermath in this period, examines what
it truly means to be free and to belong, while discussing intergenerational
trauma and its connection to indigenous cosmologies and gothic horror. This reimagines
North American history through magical realism and ancestral reckoning.
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