Subcutanean Review - Follow the Staircase if You Dare
In the summer of 1821, during an altercation with a girlfriend’s neighbor, Arthur Schopenhauer, the philosopher-pessimist, needled and in a pique, pushed the woman down a flight of stairs. Upon her passing, decades and court appearances later, the saturnine German famously opined, “the old woman dies, the burden is lifted.” Stairs, if misused will extract revenge. And the culture is rife with wonton misapplication: from harkening a hapless Ash and company towards gory annihilation in Evil Dead, to providing an uncomfortably voyeuristic platform to a young Fred Savage in, Little Monsters, every rung the wrong direction is paid for in flesh or treasure, the reward, hindsight, granted only after a lengthy penitence. Schopenhauer may have learned his lesson—he committed no similar crime—but his violent encounter with an obtuse-angel, rarely rose above a blunder—circumstances were far from dire. Such is not the case for the heroes in Aaron A. Reed’s byzantine new novel, Subcutanean, where an unexpected encounter with an errant staircase leads to extreme terror of the mind-bending variety.
After accidentally discovering a concealed stairway beneath—where else?--his bed, the novel’s protagonist, the diffident, erudite, and inaptly named, Orion (thankfully referred to as Ryan) and his equally insecure best friend, Niko, venture into what at first seems a coed’s Arcadia: a sprawling underground complex, devoid of inhabitants, rules and, seemingly, presence in reality. However, after a handful of punitively unspectacular parities with various housemates, none of whom are extended an identity any more specific than “vaguely jock-ish”, the area is all but abandoned by everyone except our heroes.
Ryan and Niko are besotted with it., Diving deeper, sometimes separately, usually together, into the bland warren of office-lite sconces and doorknobs, the seemingly cannot resist trekking forward. In the world beyond The Downstairs, Ryan is shy and willing to be lead. Gay at a time when homosexuality is only loosely tolerated (no exact date is given though the story appears set in the early-to-mid nineties), he worries about attacks from the intolerant, with the jarring phrase, “a queer died here” repeatedly checking his ego. Here, however, it is Ryan who pushes the prototypical alpha, Niko towards the darkest regions of The Downstairs. Niko lets him. Ostensibly straight, he is nevertheless connected to Ryan through feelings of both adoration and, interestingly, sputtering inadequacy. The descent into The Downstairs overlays the codependency they share outside in the world. As Ryan laments, he is “…Trapped in [Niko’s] orbit, for better and worse.”
Exhaustive explorations of unrelenting rows of office doors and utilitarian hall carpeting at first yield nothing but more halls and carpeting. It is revealed that in the area under their home there once stretched a gaping cavern of indeterminate magnitude, where several decades earlier two young men with more than a passing resemblance to our intrepid Magellans unceremoniously vanished. (This is one of the scariest moments in the book, recalling a glitch in the Matrix and the rictus old woman from Beverly’s apartment in the second It film.) Also, while exploring, Ryan encounters what appears to be different versions of himself on the periphery, stalking and out of sight. Events take a nosedive when alone and on separate occasions, Ryan and Niko lose themselves in the labyrinth’s central nervous system. Niko, after an emotional implosion at a party, vanishes only to reemerge later slightly “off” and with a mysterious set of keys. Days later, Ryan enters The Downstairs exiting a staircase that looks like—but certainly couldn’t be—the one he went down. It soon becomes apparent neither man is where he is supposed to be.
Around the start of the novel’s second act, Subcutanean segues full-bore into the surreal. Recognizing that they have landed in a dimension just slightly left of center, Ryan and Niko attempt an alliance with their inter-dimensional simulacra in hopes of returning to the correct astral plane. Time spent where one clearly should not be apparently leads to migraines unendurable by either character. However, questions arise as to whether the other Ryan and Niko even want to return. So they must descend into The Downstairs, equipped with prepackaged snacks and glow sticks
How deep must our heroes foray to find the path home and how many versions of themselves block the way? As it turns out: many, all malign. Some are equally green and unsure while others have survived The Downstairs for decades committing acts of the foulest depravity.
Subcutanean is a story about inter-dimensional travel. It’s about the evils that nibble the corners of the quotidian ceaselessly until everything is crumbs. But at its core, it is a novel about friendship: about finding ourselves within the contours of our connection to others. Gazing out at the hellish Dis beneath his bed, Ryan’s thoughts turn towards his friend and the inter-personal sphere encompassing their relationship. Their link, and how unshakable, despite the wickedness inflicted on them and by them is the first ingredient in their exit recipe. It’s about how much braver they are together.
This is what Ryan considers when fleeing for his life, lost amidst limitless, violent, blandness. This is what’s contemplated while traversing grotesque Dali-esque visions of dorm rooms gone awry (one scene has them mounting enormous textbooks). It’s what saves them, as the struggle to escape the caverns threatening to engulf: “The pain doesn’t matter. It’d be worth it. You’re worth it. . . . I belong with you.” The words of best friends who are so much more than best friends. Because Subcutanean is also a story of the self and how immeasurably bolstered it is bathed in the warmth of those who care about us. In this light, hope is never gone. Ryan and Niko spend more than half the book lost in a sunless maze of menace and despair but they never stop searching for a way out. Even as gross distortions of themselves threaten and cajole, they are always best together. Together they can never die, their burden will lift. The novel ends in a beatification of friendship and humanity. And in that blazing clarity they climb—finally ascending the stairs. Rise to a plane Schopenhauer could only ruefully dismiss. Buzz and Woody in Purgatory: You’ve Got a Friend in Me.
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