January 2024: The Dead Take the A Train

Making a Brand New Start of It

New York City is one of my favourite places in the world.

That wasn't always the case. The first time I visited the city I was 16, and I was left more intimidated by The Big Apple than anything. Standing in the streets that I'd seen on TV for years was a surreal feeling, almost like standing in the middle of a theme park I'd always wanted to go to. But rather than there being roller coasters or ferris wheels around every corner, I had the creeping sensation that the only thing that waited for me down the smoking alleyways was danger.

I've since gotten over this fear, and have been back to New York probably half a dozen times in the years since then. Maybe I just needed to experience a bit more life to appreciate the city - at the time, New York was the biggest place I'd ever been, and I think the sheer scale of it was part of what intimidated me. But I think what's more likely is that, as I got older, I understood that darkness that lurks on the edge of the city lights more and more. And I fell in love with the city in part because of that edge, not in spite of it.

They say you're not supposed to judge a book by its cover, but I can't deny that the monstrously cool artwork... is a big part of what drew me to this book.

I was lucky enough to ring in 2024 in New York City, and it was there that I made my resolution to start reading at least one new book a month. In the name of an auspicious start to my challenge, I went to The Strand to purchase the first book that I would read. And it was there that I saw The Dead Take the A Train staring out at me from the shelf.

They say you're not supposed to judge a book by its cover, but I can't deny that the monstrously cool artwork by James Jirat Patradoon is a big part of what drew me to this book. And once I read the premise, I felt it would be the perfect way to start off my New Year's resolution.

Introducing Julie Crews

The Dead Take the A Train is the story of Julie Crews, a freelance demon hunter living in New York. Julie has reached her 30s feeling that she has nothing to show for it: the work that she puts into her contracts has done nothing to improve her living standards or her reputation amongst her colleagues, and her ex, Tyler, has left her for a cushy job in a supernatural Wall Street firm called Thorne & Dirk.

While Julie drowns herself in whatever substance she can get her hands on, a bright spot arrives in the form of her former best friend, Sarah. As the two reconnect and begin to mend their relationship, Julie finds herself wanting to do better to be worthy of her friend. She sees her as something to protect, and wants to save her from her abusive partner Dan, who drove her to flee to New York in the first place.

Desperate for an easy way to clean up her act and get everything that she wants, Julie summons a guardian angel. Unfortunately for her, she ends up with an eldritch monster instead, and the creature is less interested in granting Julie's wish, and more keen on global annihilation. Julie and Sarah must work together with each other and their friends to save the world, all while attempting to navigate an unspoken romantic tension that's been building between them for years.

Cosmic Horror Meets Urban Fantasy

This was my first real experience with the cosmic horror subgenre - I hadn't even come across the term before reading the jacket of the book. If you're familiar with H.P. Lovecraft of any of the work he inspired, you'll already have a grasp of the main tropes of the genre. Cosmic horror deals less with slasher serial killers or malevolent spirits, and more with humanity's place in the universe, and how ultimately insignificant that is. Antagonists in cosmic horror tend to be incomprehensible, eldritch beings, often with god-like power. The "horror" aspect comes from how easily these beings could destroy us, and how small we are to them.

New York might be this unknowable machine, yes, but inside of it, there are people that are knowable, and The Dead Take the A Train is more about them than it is about the horrors of the big city.

Based on my own experiences of New York, I actually feel like it's the perfect setting for a cosmic horror story. The more that I read about Julie's fight against the various monsters and demons she encounters, the more I was reminded about how I felt the first time I was in the city, and about the dread I would sometimes feel thinking about how big and alien it was to me. It was almost as if New York itself was one of these Lovecraftian monsters - unthinking, unfeeling, beyond understanding, and capable of destroying the people in it without a second thought.

But I also think New York is a great location for an urban fantasy story. It's already such a cultural melting pot, with so many people from so many places all living in its streets. Once you add magic into the equation, it makes total sense that aliens, demons, and monsters would also call the city home. So although the two genres may seem at odds with each other on paper, authors Cassandra Khaw and Richard Kadrey do a great job of blending them together. New York might be this unknowable machine, yes, but inside of it, there are people that are knowable, and The Dead Take the A Train is more about them than it is about the horrors of the big city.

Urban fantasy is my personal favourite flavour of fantasy - I love the juxtaposition of fighting magic and monsters, while simultaneously trying to hold together a "normal" modern day life. A lot of the fantastical world in The Dead Take the A Train is grounded in reality in this way, and there are realistic, understandable consequences to living in that world and fighting its creatures.

In particular, the mechanics of the magic Julie uses were really interesting. I love that her barbed wire spells were physically tattooed onto her body, and that she had to rip them from her skin in order to fight. The little detail of her wondering who she'll get to tattoo more for her was a nice touch too. The idea of a magical tattoo artist is such an interesting concept, and I almost want to read whatever their story is next.

Whenever Julie speaks a spell, it also takes a toll, giving her a headache and leaking black goo all over her mouth. These nuggets of realism - the cost of fighting the forces of darkness, and the thought that Julie has to put in to prepare for those fights - help to ground the more eldritch elements, and that marriage of the gritty urban fantasy tropes with the cosmic horror backdrop is one of the most unique things about the book for me.

Julie and Sarah's relationship is a blessed bright spot... it's like the silver lining of a cloud that hangs over the entire city.

My other favourite part of this story was the friends-to-lovers arc with Julie and Sarah. The world of The Dead Take the A Train is often a forboding, graphically violent one, but this love line stops it from going too far down the rabbit-hole. It really feels like there's a genuine, messy history between the two friends, and I appreciate that it isn't instantly solved as soon as Sarah arrives. The relationship that they begin to build in this book is very sweet, and set against the gruesome backdrop of this monster-infested New York, it looks even more innocent. It's a contrast that works really well, and results in the moments of levity that Julie shares with Sarah shining all the brighter.

A Belated Reflection

At this point in the review, the 3 star rating is probably looking pretty low. Admittedly, after sitting down and thinking about everything I enjoyed about the book, I'm beginning to wonder if I shouldn't have bumped it up to 4 stars. The trouble is, I'm writing this review nine months after finishing the book, and I'm struggling to remember what it was that stopped it from being the home run that I hoped it would be.

This was the first book that I managed to finish in years, and on reflection, although there were parts of it that I really enjoyed, I wouldn't say that it was the most accessible book that I've ever read. Not that the prose is difficult to understand, or that the plot is hard to follow. But for as much praise as I have now for the gritty realism and the darkness of the story, I actually think that when I was reading it, it kept me at a distance.

So much of this book is dedicated to creating the dark magical underbelly of New York that Julie and her friends are a part of. Innocent people are being eviscerated immediately in the opening pages, and the violence only ramps up from there. Julie spends much of the book despondent, broke, abusing substances, and pushing people away. Julie and Sarah's relationship is a blessed bright spot amidst all of this, but it's like the silver lining of a cloud that hangs over the entire city.

I'm not unattracted to darker stories. These last few years I've been exploring horror cinema for the first time, and loving a lot of what I've discovered. Earlier this year, even, I read Bret Easton Ellis' American Psycho - another showcase of just how dark New York's dark side can get - and really enjoyed the experience. But as a first foray back into reading, I didn't give myself a comfortable run.

Looking back now, nine months later, I realise that my first impression of this book is similar to my first experience of New York itself: enjoyable, but intimidating. Forboding. Scary. And just like how I grew to love New York, I think if I were to give this book another read (maybe when book 2 comes out?) I'd find a lot more to love about it than I did the first time around.