Is it just me, or are there a lot of creepy rabbit book covers on the scene lately? What Moves The Dead is just one of the many that I have seen, and it is the one that intrigued me the most. I was very interested to read what has been described as a reimagining of The Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allan Poe, and I can tell you that there were a lot of differences but you can see the parallels.
My favorite character in the book was Lieutenant Alex Easton, and not just because kan was the main character. That is not a typo, for Easton is not a man, but also not a woman, and so the Lieutenant goes by kan rather than him or her. Easton was born a woman, but took on the role and life of a man after her father died when she was young. I was a little confused for the first few pages, because I couldn’t figure out if Easton was a man or a woman, but after the explanation I understood. I was reminded that I had heard of this before, a woman who chooses to live her life as a man. I did a little bit of research and came across the phenomena. These women actually exist in Albania and they are called burrnesha. I read a really great article about them titled The Mountains Where Women Live As Men by Michael Paterniti, which I will put a link to below. There is a good amount of written information regarding these women, and a documentary by the BBC, so if you are intrigued you can find out more by doing your own research. Overall, I think creating this character for the story really made the entire book.
Seeing that I gave away the surprise of the uniqueness of Lieutenant Easton’s life, I will not tell you anymore about the story itself. If you have read The Fall of the House of Usher you might have some idea of where the story is going. The cover itself also gives you a hint of the more morbid details that have been woven into this tale.
For more information about burrnesha:
https://www.gq.com/story/burrnesha-albanian-women-living-as-men
Nonfiction and Nonsense 