Carter Keane’s debut horror novella Morsel combines folk horror with anti-capitalist critique through protagonist Lou, who accepts a remote scouting job in Appalachian Ohio woods to prove worth to an overbearing employer and support their ailing mother. Accompanied by their dog Ripley, Lou discovers disturbing symbols, dead wildlife, and sabotaged equipment on the property. The narrative employs an unreliable first-person perspective interrupted by text exchanges with Lou’s mother and excerpts from a true crime podcast documenting a prior disappearance in identical woods. These structural layers progressively reveal Lou harbors hidden trauma while suggesting darker forces await. The novella exemplifies folk horror conventions including eldritch entities and cultish undertones, weaving suspenseful atmosphere with social commentary on capitalist exploitation and survival desperation beneath Gothic conventions of psychological fragmentation and existential dread.
Original article published on The Gothic Library — AI-generated summary.
