THE REDEMPTION OF MORGAN BRIGHT by Chris Panatier – Review

I received this book for free from the Publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

The Redemption of Morgan Bright by Chris Panatier
Published by Angry Robot on April 23 2024
Genres: Adult, Gothic, Horror
Pages: 416
Format: Finished paperback
Source: Publisher
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The nitty-gritty: Unsettling and eerie, Chris Panatier’s latest is a skillfully written story that delves into the horrors of psychiatric care gone wrong.

“Charlotte lurks at the edge of my thoughts, pulling strings in the shadows of my psyche. She is my creation, not the other way around. I say it aloud when I’m alone. But I’m not alone, am I?”

If anyone can come up with a completely original story combining asylum and pregnancy horror, it’s Chris Panatier, one of the most unique genre writers around. The Redemption of Morgan Bright is weird, upsetting, and gross (at times), with an eerie Gothic sensibility and a couple of slow burn mysteries at its core. Most of the story is told in standard prose format, but the author includes some epistolary content in the form of police interviews, articles, texts and more, which are critical as the story unfolds. This is an ambitious, intricately plotted piece of fiction that should be on every horror fan’s TBR.

Morgan Bright’s sister Hadleigh was found gravely injured, wandering a snowy road after apparently escaping from Hollyhock Asylum. Morgan is distraught and will do anything to figure out what happened to Hadleigh, and so she and her friend Darius hatch a plan to sneak Morgan into Hollyhock so she can investigate and hopefully get some answers. In order to execute their plan, Morgan and Darius take on fake personas and become Charlotte and Andrew Turner. “Andrew” insists on having his wife committed, and “Charlotte” is diagnosed with “domestic psychosis” and admitted to Hollyhock, where she’ll spend thirty days in the care of the asylum’s staff, hoping to recover from her condition. In reality, Morgan will get to experience first hand what goes on behind closed doors and perhaps even expose the truth. 

But stepping through the doors of Hollyhock is like stepping into the past. Morgan is shocked at the antiquated and dangerous methods the staff uses on their patients. The other women seem eager to participate, in the hopes of getting better, but once in a while a woman goes off for a procedure and never returns. And when Morgan begins to experience periods of forgetfulness, she’s drawn into the mind of her creation—Charlotte. If Charlotte isn’t real, then why is Morgan struggling to control her own actions?

In between chapters are interviews between the Scottsbluff Police Department and a “witness” (Morgan/Charlotte) that take place after Morgan leaves Hollyhock. These interviews serve as a way to explain what Morgan went through, and they also give readers a peak into the weird relationship between the two characters. I loved these sections, and Panatier did a great job of creating lots of mystery and tension, since we don’t yet know the full story.

There are a lot of layers to unpack in this story. You have the fraught relationship between Morgan and Hadleigh which is revealed mostly through text messages. We know that something happened between the sisters that fractured their relationship and caused Hadleigh to be committed to Hollyhock. These details are slowly revealed over the course of the book until the final shocking revelation, and there’s a lot of bitterness and heartbreak between them. Then there’s the equally unsettling relationship between Morgan and Charlotte, which is really the crux of the story. Morgan is real, Charlotte is a fabrication—or is she? Panatier brilliantly weaves their stories together, where reality and dreams are hard to tell apart. Is Morgan trapped in her own body? Or is Charlotte the victim? It’s not always easy to tell.

The strange relationship between Morgan and Charlotte is made even more surreal as the many horrors of Hollyhock Asylum come to light. When Charlotte first arrives, she’s sent to a “welcome room” and fed exotic foods. Later she’s introduced to different types of therapies, like Housework, where she spends hours cleaning and making beds (to what end, well that’s the question, isn’t it?). It all feels sort of innocent, until Morgan “awakens” and begins to experience what Charlotte is doing. It’s at this point that the dirty secrets of the asylum are revealed, led by the director Althea Edevane, who has her own terrible agenda.

Panatier sets his story in the present, but Hollyhock is clearly stuck in the past, utilizing illegal methods of “curing” women and inventing maladies that don’t exist. “Domestic psychosis” in this story is a horrifying term that allows husbands to have their wives committed to a psychiatric hospital for any reason they want, an outdated idea that Edevane uses for her own diabolical plans. We also glimpse such “cures” as electroshock (which Panatier describes in horrifying detail), the Elizabeth collar that keeps patients contained in the dark, and the Utica crib, another device to restrain a patient from moving. This last one has a particularly gruesome use at the end of the story. And I won’t ever look at butterflies in quite the same way again. Edevane and her hairstreak cage play a roll in Charlotte’s treatment that gave me nightmares, to be honest (hairstreaks are a type of butterfly in case you didn’t know. I didn’t.)

And if these horrors weren’t enough, the author touches on the hot button topic of women’s reproductive rights, adding an emotionally charged layer to his story. Under the guise of “health care,” Morgan, Charlotte and all the other women in the story are brainwashed into thinking Edevane’s methods will actually cure them. I mentioned in the beginning of this review that the book contains pregnancy horror, and while I won’t spoil the details for you, do be aware of triggers like rape and forced pregnancy, which should upset every single person who reads this book.

After everything that happened, I wasn’t quite prepared for the final chapters, which were emotional and shocking. Morgan learns the unfortunate truth about Hadleigh, but the nightmares of Hollyhock will be with her for a long time. The Redemption of Morgan Bright does what the best horror stories do—it leaves the reading feeling both satisfied at finally learning the answers, but uncomfortable with the horrors those answers reveal.

Big thanks to the publisher for providing a review copy.