This is volume 4 and the final volume in Thomas Disch's Supernatural Minnesota quartet. It has more of a straight forward story and plot than the other three volumes. It still has Disch's clever surprises, twists and turns to resolve the various plot threads. It also is the most optimistic of the four volumes; the wicked get theirs' the innocent (or at least the least corrupt) get their lives back in a way that leaves them better off than before. Love wins out in the end and evil is vanquished.

Diana Turney is a single regular substitute elementary school teacher. During an economic downturn she is switched to a temporary job (she's not assured a job somewhere each day) and she subsequently quits. See Diana liked her job because it gave her power over others. It's also why she can't seem to keep a permanent partner. This will become very important later. Diana discovers through an unlikely accident that she is a Wiccan and can turn others into an animal form that reflects their human nature (or at least as Diana sees them) under certain circumstances. This starts the main plot going. The theme will be that power without love corrupts and corrupts absolutely. This will be seen in many characters but particularly Diana.

Shamanism figures greatly in the story but I cannot really figure out exactly what Disch is getting at except to perhaps contrast it as a "natural" type of spirituality versus, a man made religion Christianity, which he takes another swipe at in The Sub. Disch also uses some of his favorite themes, pedophilia, rape, murder, sadism, and incest to shadow the corrupt. Only the good hearted simp Alan Johnson seems to be immune to the evil influences. It seems the intelligent spend too much time thinking.

There is a good foreword by [a:Elizabeth Hand|40983|Elizabeth Hand|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/authors/1219875344p2/40983.jpg] that doesn't ruin much so you don't have to leave it for later as you do in the other volumes.

University of Minnesota Press does a nice job with this volume again and this one matches the other four in the quartet. ( )

Sometimes rereading a book is like reading it for the first time. I first read this when it originally came out in 1999 - the year I got married! Yay! - but I have no real memory of what happened in it. I was pretty sure there were pigs involved somewhere.

This was the last book in Disch's Supernatural Minnesota series, and it mines familiar Dischian themes of fundamentalist religion and the banality of evil. It's a masterful, assured, wonderfully written tale of ghosts and witchcraft and shamanism, all grounded in mundane and familiar human passions and foibles and failings. Disch had a keen satirist's eye, and though he saved the worst of his ire for Christian intolerance, wiccans and atheists and Indian skinwalkers prove no less evil and destructive.

Diana Turney is a substitute teacher out of work after a scandal shuts down her school. While her sister is in prison for shooting her husband, she goes to live with the husband to care for their daughter Kelly. She recovers memories of her father abusing her as a child and encounters his malevolent ghost in the smokehouse of the family home, and suddenly she has the power to turn people into animals. A large cast of characters is drawn into the web of evil she weaves with her new-found abilities, corrupting innocence and unearthing horrible secrets.

Disch carries off a complex plot full of the unexpected with ease and skill and invents a range of flawed and interesting characters depicted with unflinching accuracy. Not as dazzling and epic as The MD, perhaps, but then The MD may be one of the best books ever, but still a brilliant horror novel of rare literary merit, moral complexity and real power. ( )

What a dark book, almost uncomfortable to read. It’s the third of the Supernatural Minnesota series I’ve read and, by a mile, my least favorite. Or my only unfavored one, because it’s not badly written or ill thought out, although I'd say the character development on Diana was a little sketchy. It’s just…ebon. I’m very much looking forward to reading more of Disch’s work, because even when he is dark he is very very entertaining.