Suckerville was a small Illinois town located along the banks of the Mississippi river. In many ways it was an unremarkable place filled with the usual hustlers, layabouts and Hee Haw rejects. 

But Suckerville was remarkable in one significant way. It was ground zero for an invasion of giant mutant leeches. The bloodsucking carnivores were born in a nearby boggy inlet and quickly scampered ashore to spread their venom and zombie-like disease.

The first victims were a honeymoon couple spending their wedding night on a cozy pontoon boat. After consummating their marriage (“I love you more than country music,” purred the satisfied bridegroom), the newlyweds were attacked by leeches ripping through the bottom of their love boat. The bride was quickly turned into a ravenous monster with tits like two angry worm mouths filled with gnashing pinprick teeth. The groom, I’m sorry to say, never had a chance. 

Before anyone could sing “Bless the Broken Road” by Rascal Flatts, the leech bride was crawling all over Suckerville turning residents into ambulatory mutant parasites. Looking for a convenient one-stop blood buffet, the rabid zombie leeches headed toward Doc’s Dockside Tavern, a popular local watering hole. It’s here where we finally meet the assembled heroes of the story. 

There’s James Dean Speers, an unreliable fuckup, his best friend Rowdy and two comely beer poster gals named Honey and Ruby (naitre Hailey and Trudy). Ready or not, the Inferior Four had to figure out a way to turn back the predatory worms. With the song “Kashmir” blasting from the sound system, Speers and his friends knew it was time to “get the Led out.”

Sadly, Speers failed to prevent the customers at Doc’s from getting infected with deadly leech cooties. HIs ex-wife got it, the young couple kissing in the bathroom got it and the establishment’s bouncer got it. Doc, the tavern’s namesake, got it just as he was on the verge of figuring out an antidote to the venom. Even the friendly guard dog got it. 

Thinking about it now, the final act of Chris Sorensen’s novel was a little like 2022’s Academy Award-winning movie. Killing the oncoming mutant monsters was important (of course), but it couldn’t be done without J.D. Speers confronting his past, present and future in one messy multiverse of bad decisions, bad luck and bad karma. The endgame was literally everything everywhere all at once. 

[ Suckerville / By Chris Sorensen / First Printing: May 2023 / ISBN: 9780998342459 ]