Books book reviews Sacrament of Sacrifice: Obsessive Devotion in Bethany C. Morrow’s The Body Maya Gittelman looks at religious trauma in the new horror novel from Bethany C. Morrow. By Maya Gittelman | Published on March 3, 2026 Comment 0 Share New Share Mavis means to do right by her husband. She left a lifetime of her parents’ strict church behind after her parents faulted her for her ex’s cruelty, and asked her to forgive the man for what Mavis knew to be unforgivable. But when strict scripture is the very mechanism that raised you, it’s not so easy to free yourself from its unthinking, unyielding grasp. Especially because Mavis has the sort of anxiety-brain/intrusive thoughts that manifest for her as “talons”—worst-case scenarios metaphorically digging into her brain. She takes some medication to help with her mental health, and then more medication after a violent incident that takes place at the beginning of the book, but none of that numbs the talons for good. As anyone who’s housed the kind of catastrophizing brain that haunts your waking moments knows, there is really nowhere else to go.  So when that great violence repeats, compounds, complicates, Mavis is struck by something that’s almost paralyzing hysteria—and almost a strange relief. Finally, the outside world matches the violence of her worst fears. Finally, her hypervigilance fits her reality.  Mavis will be a good wife. Because that’s the only path to being a good daughter—or, if she can’t be a good daughter, at least she can be that: good for her husband. Perhaps Jerrod’s love will be less conditional than her parents’. It probably will be. He’s a good man himself.  Too good, maybe. More than Mavis might deserve.  The synopsis says “Escalating attacks on her marriage,” but what’s happening here is more nuanced and interesting than that. I can sense the promo doesn’t want to give away too many of the twists, but I don’t think it spoils the experience to go in knowing the base premise, which is such a cool one: Mavis’s parents went behind her back to get her husband to agree to a congregation vow at their wedding. You might be familiar with the concept: In addition to pledging themselves to each other and God, the couple also enters into a covenant with their wedding guests. The congregation agrees to recognize the marriage as a holy thing, and vows to protect it from harm. It turns out “harm” might include “behaviors unfitting a good partner under God,” and neither Mavis nor the congregation get to choose the criteria that governs them—nor the cycle of bloody, divine retribution that shakes their community. When does “defensive protection” turn to “violence and control”? Often, in organized religion, if history (and the present) is any indication, especially in localized sects.  Often too, in the suburbs.  Buy the Book The Body Bethany C. Morrow Buy Book The Body Bethany C. Morrow Buy this book from: AmazonBarnes and NobleiBooksIndieBoundTarget I imagine a congregation vow can be a romantic concept if you’re in true community with your wedding guests, but Morrow exposes the dark undercurrent of such a vow—the intrusiveness, the elevating of lofty sacrament over earthly truth—not to mention the weirdness of entering this covenant with veritable strangers if, say, most of the congregation is composed of people your parents invited. There’s such rich potential for horror there, and Morrow digs deep into the soil and marrow of it. What does it mean to protect a marriage? At some point, you have to wonder what exactly is being saved, and if it’s worth the sacrifices necessary to preserve it. One of my favorite elements, which I found myself thinking of obsessively in the hours between reading over the days I read this book, is how it’s religious horror without almost ever invoking God. No explicit prayers, no routines of kneeling and worship. Partly because Mavis left her family’s church, but partly because religious horror (at least/especially for women and other marginalized people) is not about fearing God. It’s about the behaviors of the people who believe beyond self-reflection that they are guided by a higher power. The horror is the bloody, gristle-rich sacrifice you have been instructed is necessary for salvation.  The horror is what people do to each other under the guise of grace. This has always been true, and as the daughter of a Roman Catholic Filipina, I’d argue it has always been true of the Catholic Church in particular. There are peaceful people of every faith, but evangelism and control are harmful no matter who preaches it. All to say, the horror is not about any one religion, really. It’s about blind obedience. Unjustified self-forgiveness. A sense of righteousness and purpose so powerful it blots out all else.  The Body is short in page count and tautly contained, but it wasn’t as quick a read as I expected, even at its propulsive pace. It’s less of a traditional story arc, opening into an extremely heightened moment, establishing great tensions to quiver throughout, then ramping to violent, satisfying punch of a conclusion. The real horror here is more psychological than supernatural. There are definitely elements of both, just expect something closer to a thriller in tone. I felt some resonance with Jordan Peele’s films; The Body is closer in genre texture to Us than Get Out or Nope, which is to say somewhere between psychological horror and rooted in fucked-up, what feels like uniquely American systems of violence, couched within the guise of community, righteousness, even morality. Horror as a space to explore the intimate twisted monstrosity we are all capable of, if we can internalize the right justification.  The Body reads like a perfect parable. It knows what it is even when I, as the reader, didn’t, which was enough to anchor my trust and intrigue fully, the entire way through, to great satisfaction. Mavis is perhaps my favorite unreliable narrator, and Morrow’s expertly employed economy of word choice makes her voice read so richly. This is at once Morrow’s mastery of craft and her trust in the reader, her commitment to the shape of the story and Mavis’s tremulous psyche, and it’s highly, highly effective. How can a narrator so fraying be contained in such an exacting narrative? Delicious. It’s simply such good writing, alternating between subtle and pushy to maximum effect.  A wife’s expected martyrdom. The obsessive requirements of patriarchal devotion, the performance of piety, the viscera belying rituals of communion, the prickle of thorns and talons. The Body is one of my favorites from Bethany C. Morrow, and—it might only be February, but I’m calling it now—one of my favorites of the year. [end-mark] The Body is published by Nightfire. The post Sacrament of Sacrifice: Obsessive Devotion in Bethany C. Morrow’s <i>The Body</i> appeared first on Reactor.