'The Fervor' by Alma Katsu is a historical supernatural horror novel that weaves together three plot strands around the central theme of the jorogumo, a Japanese spider demon that can shape-shift into a beautiful woman. Set against the backdrop of the US Japanese internment camps of WWII, the story delves into the overwhelming hatred towards the unseen enemy, mirroring real-world issues like racism and nationalism. As a contagion breaks out in the camp, the narrative takes a chilling turn with government medical teams, sinister chain of events, and a blend of demons, historical accuracy, and imaginative plot.
The book captures the atmosphere of WWII in America, exploring themes of fear, racism, and hatred through a mix of characters dealing with conspiracies, impossible creatures, and the dark history of internment camps. Alma Katsu integrates various plot threads seamlessly, creating a genuinely scary and relevant story that holds a mirror to the past and present societal issues, while also providing insights into historical events like the Fu Go incendiary balloons deployed during WWII.
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Content warnings include themes of racism, violence, and imagery related to spiders, which may be distressing for some readers.
From The Publisher:
The acclaimed author of the celebrated literary horror novels The Hunger and The Deep turns her psychological and supernatural eye to the horrors of the Japanese American internment camps during World War II.
1944: As World War II rages on, the threat has come to the home front. In a remote corner of Idaho, Meiko Briggs and her daughter, Aiko, are desperate to return home. Following Meiko's husband's enlistment as an air force pilot in the Pacific months prior, Meiko and Aiko were taken from their home in Seattle and sent to one of the internment camps in the Midwest. It didn't matter that Aiko was American-born: They were Japanese, and therefore considered a threat by the American government.
Mother and daughter attempt to hold on to elements of their old life in the camp when a mysterious disease begins to spread among those interned. What starts as a minor cold quickly becomes spontaneous fits of violence and aggression, even death. And when a disconcerting team of doctors arrive, nearly more threatening than the illness itself, Meiko and her daughter team up with a newspaper reporter and widowed missionary to investigate, and it becomes clear to them that something more sinister is afoot, a demon from the stories of Meiko's childhood, hell-bent on infiltrating their already strange world.
Inspired by the Japanese yokai and the jorogumo spider demon, The Fervor explores the horrors of the supernatural beyond just the threat of the occult. With a keen and prescient eye, Katsu crafts a terrifying story about the danger of demonization, a mysterious contagion, and the search to stop its spread before it's too late. A sharp account of too-recent history, it's a deep excavation of how we decide who gets to be human when being human matters most.
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