First published back in June of 2024, ‘Motel Styx’ was the first co-authored novel to come from authors Jonathan Butcher and Michelle von Eschen.
Finding out his wife signed her body over to Motel Styx was the last in a long line of crushing blows for Ellis Mercer. Not only did he have to come to terms with the fact that Emeley had taken her own life, but now Ellis had to cope knowing that her body would be used and abused by necrophiles in America’s first ever necrotel.
Located along the dusty Chihuhuan Desert roadside, twenty-miles south of Valentine, Texas, Motel Styx was one of five motels scattered around the world catering to necrophiles – establishments colloquially dubbed necrotels.
Motel Styx was established shortly after the passing of the Lazarus Act. Before the instatement of the bill, those with urges towards the deceased either had to deny their impulses or break the law. Now consensual necrophilia was legal, necs didn’t have to hide anymore.
At first glance, Motel Styx looks like any other roadside resting place. Opposite the motel’s entrance was a classic American-looking diner. Outside the motel, a large comical skeleton prop welcomed in those seeking the niche services of this controversial establishment.
Before reaching the motel, mobs of Christians and evangelist protestors wait along their picket lines, trying to quash the travel of potential visitors to the morbid attraction. Despite the horrors taking place within the motel, Ellis knows he must take a room there if he’s a chance to take back his dead wife’s body before the death obsessed guests can desecrate it.
Ellis knows it won’t be easily. The motel’s proprietor, Merl Bonvante, has strict rules against any family members having access to the corpses there. However, Ellis has found a contact working at the motel who’s willing to help him in his mission. Although it is at a price.
A price which might end up being far higher than Ellis could ever imagined. Not only is the financial cost extortionate, but Ellis finds his very morality is at stake. Ellis will need to blend in, play the part of a fellow nec, do whatever it takes to locate his wife’s body and rescue her from this hellhole of depravity.
But the question remains, has Emeley been stripped of her name, wedding ring, and clothing, and reduced to a mere serial number and contractual consent? Has her body already journeyed down the motel’s despicable conveyor belt of absolute deprivation, to become a plaything for the final taboo of perversion…
Opening the book you’re first greeted with a singular dedication – “For Jörg”. For those already familiar with Jörg Buttgereit’s film ‘Nekromantik’ (1988), along with its subsequent sequel, this simple dedication sets in place a warning as well as a tantalising promise for the deviant treats to come.
The tone of the novel is one firmly bedded in the darkest possible black humour. It’s one smothered in the rot and decay of the subject matter, in which a tightly written narrative plays out a story of utter desperation. This in turn is delivered through fast-paced, stripped-to-the-bone chapters, laying down a magnificently engaging narrative that grips you in a chokehold throughout.
What’s fun is that each of these chapters is introduced with a short TripAdvisor style review, or some other columnist or public quotation. These range from the delighted (“Only motel I know where you can get a room both before and after you die”), to the downright appalled (“The world’s going to shit in a rocket-powered hearse”). In fact, the whole structure and overall presentation of the novel, along with the author’s cleverly designed website which accompanied the launch of the novel, is nothing short of magnificent.
Anyway, our supposed protagonist is this fella called Ellis Mercer. A personal trainer whose emotionally complex backstory gradually reveals itself through the descending storyline. Indeed, even with their principal character, the authors haven’t skipped an opportunity to challenge their readers with the gut-punch of uncovering self-delusion.
Alongside this, we of course have the motel itself. A setting that’s masterfully depicted by the authors to the point where you can visualise each corridor, the bar, the rooms and Ellis’ presidential suite, to the very minutest of detail. Of course this is no normal hotel. It’s one built around the sexual exploitation of the dead.
We have a theatre showing live erotic performances of necrosex…we have ‘wetrooms’ where the dead can be ravaged, ripped apart and thoroughly desecrated…there’s even a gift shop, where delightfully tacky souvenirs can be purchased by eager tourists and proud necro-guests.
The story of Ellis’ mission has been woven into the rich fabric of this morbidly surreal backdrop. This is all effortlessly blended together, to the point whereby the reader feels like they’re on a plummeting descent, deeper into a pit of corruption and depravity. Stepping into a yawning abyss of deviancy to embrace a complete abandonment of all that is sacred and human.
If we go back to Jörg Buttgereit’s ‘Nekromantik’ (1988) films, there’s so much in this book which we see echoing and embracing the film’s stylised tone, the cloying purified air, and the strange moral acceptance of the whole idea. When exposed to so much depravity, do we gradually become desensitized to the sheer vileness inherent in the act of copulation with the dead? Personally, I don’t think that’s the case at all, but rather we form a weirdly unnerving tolerance. One that makes you sit back and think fuck, what’s wrong with me?...then you just keep on reading!
In the tale we also have a rich cast of carefully curated characters. Each are given a care and attention to detail which vividly paints their individual personas to an absolute tee. We have Motel Styx’s owner – Merl Bonvante. A character who might as well have been cast by Rob Zombie, wearing his dark and twisted heart on his sleeve with every breath he takes. Honestly, there’s something about the very name. Be honest, can you think of a Merl who hasn’t openly flaunted their persuasion to some dark persuasion? To all the Merl’s out there I apologise, but honestly guys, what is it with your name that conjures up sleaze and the gutter?!
Then we have Yamamoto. A wealthy entrepreneur businessman type, who we’re informed is a Class 6 nec. He’s an absolute fucking nutcase who gets off on the vilest desecrations. They call these lunatics necromutilomanics for damn good reason. And through our pal Yamamoto, the novel begins to edge towards elements of heavy torture porn ala Eli Roth’s ‘Hostel’ (2005).
Indeed, all through the novel are aspects which draw upon similar themes as those within Butcher’s previous novel ‘What Good Men Do’ (2023). An inner circle of the most depraved individuals, brought together where they can feel their morally detestable desires shared and accepted. A strangely sterilised setting or acceptance away from the judgement of the world. One we are brought into as a silent observer, to watch, try to understand. and bear witness to.
There’s really so, so much to fully immerse you within this quagmire of morbid depravation. An attention to detail which provides a strange feeling of faux-reality to it all. Like this shit could almost be real. Maybe the world is just one slipped-step away from tumbling into this sort of moral suicide.
Hand on black heart, this is one of the most compelling novels I’ve had the pleasure to read over the last few years. It took me on a journey of morbid curiosity, then into a turbulence of emotions (for which I honestly wasn’t anticipating), to then plummet the furthest depths of gallows humour (“Gashes to ashes, thrust to dust” anyone?), across peaks and troughs of repulsion, anger and layer upon layer of despair.
Like a groom carrying his bride over the threshold, with ‘Motel Styx’ the authors have lovingly carried ‘Nekromantik’ into the 21st century. The sheer horror in the novel is nothing short of exquisite. The corruption, all-consuming. The thrill of the abhorrent taboo – one which feels palpable in its putrefaction.
This banquet of immoral degeneracy is nothing short of an instant cult classic. An absolute tour de force of abhorrent depravity.
The novel runs for a total of 242 pages.
© DLS Reviews
