Needless. Such a fitting name for a murderer whose motives can be hard to parse, whose past is shrouded, and whose identity is impossible to pin down. Of course, Needless isn’t entirely without needs, and for this tormented myth of a man in a wide-brimmed hat, his needs stretch far into time. Anyone who crosses his path never forgets the tall, shadowy figure with dark eyes, laughing soundlessly. Whether it’s a young boy set on a path of revenge for the mother he lost, a young woman trying to make sense of a world that doesn’t care for her, or an astronaut who travels to space to get closer to God, Needless leaves a lasting impression. Beginning with a biker gang in the 1960s, he becomes synonymous with the “nasty things of society” and loves getting his hands dirty. Decades pass, and he continues to make his mark. But identity eludes this cursed creature as he evolves from killer to avenger to something else entirely. What actually is needless and what is needful is a question every character, and maybe every believer, has to answer alone. Everybody is searching for something, and in the end, finding the way back to self might be the only salvation.
A novel that burns slow and strange, Heretical Talk turns cosmic terror toward questions of faith and decay. Divided into six self-contained parts across a few decades and capped off by numerous religiously charged poems, the novel gives each section its own cast and story while drawing them into a single interconnected whole. Recurring details make every new part feel as essential to the expansive plot as the last, from fireflies and the variants of the name Sidis to an old hat and jacket, predators in holy garb, and fragments of anguished poetry. The horror runs dark, hostility toward religious hypocrisy abounds, and the overall arc closes as a macabre life cycle. Lemmerman writes in an unnervingly calm register where dark comedy sits beside palpable dread without softening either, most memorably in a church standoff where Needless drinks the communion wine and turns a demanded confession into a sermon on evil. Readers who value clean, polished prose might be frustrated by wrong-word errors and frequent tense slips, but those who come for freakish splatter and grisly, centuries-old lore will appreciate the author’s full-circle storytelling. A cult of skin-wearing creatures and a stitched-together carcass-monster are only a small sample of what lurks inside Heretical Talk, a dramatic metaphysical descent into the darkest corners of belief.
