Which got me thinking, what if there was more to the story than mere bad luck? What if something malevolent was following them? And that combination-a desperate survival story coupled with an element of horror-was irresistible.Įarly reviews for The Hunger have been fabulous, including starred reviews from both Publisher’s Weekly and Library Journal. It wasn’t until I started the research that I realized bad luck had dogged them from the beginning: it was almost like they were cursed.
Add to it the stories of the men and women in the wagon party: why did they decide to pull up roots, leave family and friends behind and make an incredibly long, hard journey through the wilderness? Some were looking for a new start or better opportunities, yes, but some were running away from trouble, debt, or disgrace.
With that alone, you have the makings of a great tale. Out of food and already pushed to the point of starvation, they had only one choice if they wanted to survive. Just as they arrived at the last mountain pass standing between them and their destination, the worst storm of the century descended. Instead, it took them through a hellishly impassable landscape that put them weeks behind schedule. Here are the facts: In the late summer of 1846, the Donner wagon train headed down a little-known route in the hope that it would cut hundreds of miles off the trek to California. The Donner Party holds a special place in the American imagination. I can understand why anyone would think that what happened to the Donner Party was bad enough does it need any embellishment? But as a storyteller, the opportunity was too good to pass up.
The Hunger is billed as a reimagining of the Donner Party “with a supernatural turn.” Why a horror twist on this famous historical tragedy? I recently spoke with her about the Donner Party, historical research for fiction, and the role gender plays in her novel. A former US senior intelligence analyst, Katsu’s known for her hybrid literary-historical bestsellers like The Taker, The Reckoning, and The Descent. Alma Katsu’s latest supernatural thriller is The Hunger, based on the Donner Party incident of 1846-7, when a group of pioneers stranded in the Sierra Nevada resorted to cannibalism to survive a harsh winter.
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