Leech by Hiron Ennes Review

In an isolated chateau, as far north as north goes, the baron’s doctor has died. The doctor’s replacement has a mystery to solve: discovering how the Institute lost track of one of its many bodies.
 

For hundreds of years the Interprovincial Medical Institute has grown by taking root in young minds and shaping them into doctors, replacing every human practitioner of medicine. The Institute is here to help humanity, to cure and to cut, to cradle and protect the species from the apocalyptic horrors their ancestors unleashed.
 

In the frozen north, the Institute's body will discover a competitor for its rung at the top of the evolutionary ladder. A parasite is spreading through the baron's castle, already a dark pit of secrets, lies, violence, and fear. The two will make war on the battlefield of the body. Whichever wins, humanity will lose again.

A mysterious parasitic ailment, a medical institute that isn’t what it seems, and the occupants of an isolated, frost-covered chateau sets the scene for an incredibly unique, ambitious, yet often confusing and disjointed read. I wholeheartedly agree with many other reviews of Hiron Ennes’s debut novel Leech that describe it as being positively weird (that’s a good thing) and unlike anything else within the horror and science fiction genres. With strong initial horror elements that vary from body, medical, and psychological horror (nothing too graphic, at least by my desensitized standards) to light elements of supernatural and monster horror, there are a lot of conceptually great ideas that make Leech a riveting read, at times. Unfortunately more often than not, the execution of these ideas and the narrative presentation severely drags down the enjoyment and cohesion of the story, resulting in a puzzling reading experience and a feeling of missed opportunity.

The success of any parasite is proportional to its harmlessness. Some are intelligent; they avoid detection, allowing their carriers to lead healthy lives until obsolescence. Fewer, in brilliant acts of symbiosis, foster dependence in the host. But too many are loudmouths and fools… most parasites cannot think far enough ahead to maintain the well-being of their host, much less their host’s entire species. Usually, such foresight is not necessary, unless humans are involved. They tend to hold grudges.

Featuring fictional regions, settlements, and even reclusive people with vestigial features, Leech has numerous original ideas that together place the story in a purposely vague place that has conflicting indications of the time period. With an emphasis on motorized machinery and references to trains and airships, there are very subtle nods to steam or dieselpunk that add a bit of fantasy flair to the otherwise gothic and rural tale. Initially throwing the reader into the rural mining settlement of Verdira during the chill of Winter, the story begins with an unnamed doctor sent to replace their predecessor who is found mysteriously dead at the Baron’s chateau. Initially setup as a foreboding horror investigation laced with scientific medical intrigue, the first half of the story features some of the novel’s best atmospheric and “chilling” moments (get it, cause the chateau is frozen over…). Without giving away any major spoilers, the concept explaining the parasitic being in Leech is fascinating and is without a doubt a major selling point for the story. Based on the synopsis, I went into Leech obviously expecting some degree of medical and body horror and had recently read What Moves the Dead by T. Kingfisher that featured conceptually similar elements. However, the parasitic concept is utilized for completely different purposes in Leech and the novel can be a page-turner, particularly when certain developments connect it to Vedira and presence of fire; a visually rich narrative choice given the frozen setting.

As the novel progresses, there’s a notable shift in the narrative focus about two thirds into the book where the tone and story pivots into a more character-focused experience (a notable detachment to the characters and developments up to that point was a comment and drawback I had). Foreshadowed by the presence of trace experiences and stories that felt like odd distractions early-on, a new storyline involving cognitive dissonance and independence becomes the focus which unfortunately sidelines the compelling draw of the first half of the book. Though it’s still well connected to the theme of parasites and the appropriate title “Leech”, the abrupt focus to the narrator’s background and the servant boy Emile at times almost feels like a different book. I did like it overall and thought it was interesting enough, but the two stories felt disconnected and tonally separate when put together.

While exceptionally creative on paper and finding the ideas interesting, I found myself constantly struggling to continue this book almost entirely due to its presentation. The book is largely written in a historic 19th century style which works perfectly with the gothic feel and story it’s telling. The main problem with this approach is that initially Ennes constantly uses incredibly obscure vocabulary that hinders the flow of the story to near incomprehension unless this novel is read on an ereader with a built-in long-press dictionary (I read a hardcover copy and did not have this cushion). Between the poetic descriptions of the icy landscape, the unsettlingly detached narration style and the classic English phrasing, the writing itself is beautifully haunting without these word choices that muddy the reading experience. After the first 50 pages or so, the sentence structure and unusual vocabulary almost drop-off entirely, only returning occasionally in sporadic spurts. This results in the earlier passages coming off as forced or try-hard to me when most of the novel is written quite effectively with advanced, yet still understandable vocabulary. Besides the obscure word choice on top of a large number of original story-related terminology, the story frequently segues into moments I’ll refer to in this review for spoiler reasons as “visions”, that adds even more disruptions and confusion to the read. These visions are meant to foreshadow and set up the events in the final part of the story, but the manner in which they are incorporated are clunky at best, distracting and incoherent at worst. The novel also features many additional stories told by other characters, namely the Baker and the Priest, and while they provide more context and ambiance, they often feel like they’re blurring the trajectory of the story (especially during the early death investigation sequence).

I had previously mentioned that Leech has a lot of interesting ideas and concepts incorporated into its story, and normally I’m the type of reader that loves details and high-concept ambition. However, this one was even too much for me and I felt baffled by many random horror/fantasy elements are included in the story. There’s a fictional group of people that have tails and fur (for no narrative reason I can understand apart from being fetishized or the fur for helping them stay warm?), the aforementioned machinery punk bits that don’t really have any narrative purpose in the story, the Baroness who gives birth unusually to non-humans(?) that all the other characters just accept with no context, and creepy twins that have some sort of vague connection to supernatural powers or ghosts. This last one felt like an homage to The Shining or the common horror creepy twins trope but they had nothing to do with anything in the story. If you zoom out to the bigger picture, there’s references to Verdira’s mining contribution to the larger region and a governor looking to expand the territory, impoverished regions scavenging machine wrecks, murderous monsters in the countryside based on in-universe folklore, there is so much going on constantly. I found myself growing increasingly baffled by how disjointed and all over the place the numerous elements were. It felt to me like Ennes threw every fantasy and horror element that’s popular against the wall to see what stuck, and then tried to reverse engineer them into the pre-existing parasitic story.

While there’s an incredible amount of detail to certain areas of the world, crucially there’s bigger questions that go unanswered for me. What is the rock Verdira is mining? It sounds like fuel or industrial construction material yet the Baron’s son proceeds to cut it with a knife and eat it? What are the monsters in the forest and what is their connection to the tribal people like Emile? How did certain characters get machine parts or what exactly is Helene producing in the chateau? The narrator’s backstory involving the region south of Verdira introduces even more questions than it answers. All this to say, I found world-building to be all over the place and many narrative decisions to be baffling.

The one area that I felt was done well was the medical horror angle, interconnected cognitive understanding, and self-realization involving the Institute. Early chapters showcase different individuals having shared access to information and experiences presented yet again in a confusing manner; early understanding of this cognitive concept is imperative to make sense of what’s going. The narrative purpose and mechanism used to achieve this shared cognitive state was conceptually fascinating. I found the Institute’s origin, purpose, and implications impressively creative, the bright spot in the back half of the book. Unfortunately the rest of section is surrounded by a character narrative that didn’t have enough of a proper setup to have the emotional landing it was likely shooting for and the entire dining room sequence other reviewers have commented on leading up to it truly felt like something out of a fever dream. The story tries to do so many different things and reaches in all different directions, but lacks the focus and finesse to do any of them well. And while I liked the open-ended conclusion, I found the novel’s choice to focus on the narrator and Emile’s backstories (Emile’s story in particular is almost cognitively discovered out of thin air) rather than the closure or resolution involving the principle parasite in Verdira, failing to address the premise’s advertised “battlefield of the body”. Yes, the ending does address what happened to the previous doctor, what the Institute is and where the Verdira parasite comes from, but much of the aftermath is just left hanging.

Despite being an entirely unique read that blends various horror and science fiction elements, ultimately I found myself more interested in Leech’s conceptual ideas than what was actually written. I can clearly tell there was a compelling story in there if certain elements were pared down, but numerous puzzling choices in the book’s presentation and direction make this a difficult book to, one understand and two, to enjoy reading. For readers looking for something different or creative, Leech might be an interesting choice. However, for the vast majority of readers, even those that like complex high-concept narratives like myself, the disjointed and confusing reading experience is too big of an issue for me to recommend this book to others.