Kate’s Review: “The Deep”

Book: “The Deep” by Alma Katsu

Publishing Info: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, March 2020

Where Did I Get This Book: I received an eARC from NetGalley

Book Description: From the acclaimed and award-winning author of The Hunger comes an eerie, psychological twist on one of the world’s most renowned tragedies, the sinking of the Titanic and the ill-fated sail of its sister ship, the Britannic.

Someone, or something, is haunting the ship. That is the only way to explain the series of misfortunes that have plagued the passengers of the Titanic from the moment they set sail. The Titanic’s passengers expected to enjoy an experience befitting the much-heralded ship’s maiden voyage, but instead, amid mysterious disappearances and sudden deaths, find themselves in an eerie, unsettling twilight zone. While some of the guests and crew shrug off strange occurrences, several–including maid Annie Hebbley, guest Mark Fletcher, and millionaires Madeleine Astor and Benjamin Guggenheim–are convinced there’s something more sinister going on. And then disaster strikes.

Years later, Annie, having survived that fateful night, has attempted to put her life back together by going to work as a nurse on the sixth sailing of the Britannic, newly refitted as a hospital ship to support British forces fighting World War I. When she happens across an unconscious Mark, now a soldier, she is at first thrilled and relieved to learn that he too survived the tragic night four years earlier. But soon his presence awakens deep-buried feelings and secrets, forcing her to reckon with the demons of her past–as they both discover that the terror may not yet be over.

Featuring an ensemble cast of characters and effortlessly combining the supernatural with the height of historical disaster, The Deep is an exploration of love and destiny, desire and innocence, and, above all, a quest to understand how our choices can lead us inexorably toward our doom.

Review: Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with an eARC of this novel!

It’s been ten years since I was working at our local Science Museum and had shifts in the Special Exhibit about the Titanic, and while I am intrigued by the story still, I’m also a tiny bit burnt out on it. This doesn’t necessarily discourage me from reading stories that are related to or based upon the maritime disaster, however, because if I love the author or the premise sounds promising I’ll happily give it a whirl. Because of this, when I heard that Alma Katsu’s newest horror novel, “The Deep”, took place on the Titanic (and also on the similarly doomed sister liner The Britannic), I immediately requested an eARC from NetGalley. Lucky for me, I was given access. Given how much I LOVED Katsu’s take on the Donner Party in “The Hunger” (as reviewed HERE), I was all in for what she could do with the Titanic.

Katsu has once again brought beautiful prose and an eerie supernatural twist to a well known tragedy, and I think that I liked “The Deep” even more than I did “The Hunger”. She utilizes both actual historical figures such as Madeleine Astor, Lady Duff Gordon, and W.T. Stead, as well as original characters to give an all encompassing view of what happened during the ill fated voyage, and what roles everyone played in each other’s experiences both before and after the iceberg. It is the characterizations of all these characters that “The Deep” found it’s greatest strength, and given how much I loved the other parts that says something. Katsu mostly uses the real life characters to examine the social roles that they all played at the time, to great effect. My favorite to follow was Madeleine Astor, the VERY young, pregnant wife of mogul J.J. Astor. Her age is definitely alluded to through her immaturity compared to other characters, but we also get to see how the position she was in couldn’t have been easy. She was always seen as a trophy wife and her legitimacy was questioned by Astor’s family after his death, and Katsu gets into her head and really explores the insecurities that a young wife at this time in her situation almost certainly would have had. I really looked forward to her chapters, because they always left me with such bittersweet feelings. Our original characters mostly focus on stewardess Annie, whose story is told in flashbacks on the Titanic and in the present on the Britannic, where she has become a nurse thanks to her friend Violet Jessup (an actual woman who survived BOTH sinkings). We slowly find out that something strange is afoot on the Titanic, a ghostly presence of some sort, and see through the flashbacks and the present just how it has affected Annie, and how she has affected others. Annie is clearly traumatized by the time she gets on the Britannic, but there are hints that even before she was on the Titanic that something is afoot with her. Along with her we get Mark and Caroline, a young married couple with a small child in tow. Annie is drawn to Mark, and her interest begins to feel like downright obsession over him and his daughter. There, too, is the mystery, as it seems like Mark reciprocates, but then perhaps he doesn’t. The unreliable narration that comes from multiple characters really helped the mystery at hand. I was kept guessing pretty much the entire time as to what kind of supernatural hijinks were afoot, and how it connected to our cast of characters.

And speaking of the supernatural, like in “The Hunger” Katsu perfectly balances the eerie and unsettling along with more subtle and underlying horrors of the real world. It isn’t completely clear from the get go just what we are dealing with in terms of supernatural themes, but as it’s slowly revealed we get to explore the ideas of spiritualism that were popular at the time, as well as lesser known mythologies that line up with some of our characters backgrounds and culture. This easily could have gone in a predictable fashion, as a ghostly presence on a ship like this is no doubt filled with possibilities, no matter how obvious. But instead we got a suspenseful story that combines things that go bump in the night with the horrors of gender, class, and obsession. I really, really loved how she tied it all together and how well she pulled it off.

“The Deep” is another triumph from Alma Katsu. She brings historical fiction horror to new heights, and if The Donner Party was a little too gruesome, The Titanic will be a good way to experience what she can do with the genre.

Rating 9: Haunting and chilling, “The Deep” brings new spooky life to the Titanic story, and paints a supernatural picture that is effortlessly as emotional as it is suspenseful.

Reader’s Advisory:

“The Deep” is new and not yet on many Goodreads lists, but I think that it would fit in on “Fiction Books About The Titanic”.

Find “The Deep” at your library using WorldCat!