Tiffany McDaniel (2023) On the Savage Side.

Tiffany McDaniel dedicated her book to the Chillicothe Six. On the dedication page, she names the victims.

Charlotte Treggo, 27. Disappeared May 3^rd, 2014. Still missing.

Tameka Lynch, 30. Disappeared May 2014. Body discovered in river.

Wanda Lemons, 37. Disappeared November 4^th, 2014. Still missing.

Shasta Himelrick, 20. Disappeared December 2014. Body discovered in river.

Timberly Clayton, 38.  Disappeared May 2015.  Found shot to death in the weeds, May 29^th, 2015.

Tiffany Sayre, 26. Disappeared May 11^th, 2015. Body found near river.

McDaniel’s creates six factional victims. For example,

Office of Ross County Medical Examiner

Chillicothe, Ohio

DECEDENT: Arcade Doggs                  GENDER: Witch

OCCUPATION: Archaeologist/             BODY TEMP: As cold as her house.

Sister/ Finder of the horses.

HAIR: Red as a flame.

WOUNDS AND MARKS:

Daffodil tattoos in back of hand, inside of arms, wrists and shoulders. Green stems. White petals. Gag around mouth. Leaves stuffed into her throat. She couldn’t scream. Body was dragged for some time. Skin along backbone scrapped off. Spine exposed. Heart had already stopped pumping when kick marks on face and rib cage were made. She was beat for a long time after death. There was anger for her. Numerous fractures to the left and right side of the chest, consistent with heavy objects being placed upon her. Daffodil tattoos on the back of fingers.

…There are daffodil tattoos on the skin. Unsure if they are things that have been given. Or things that have been taken. A crown of twigs and leaves upon her head. The last queen of Chillicothe.

PROBABLE CAUSE OF DEATH

Living on the savage side.  

Arc and Daffy live on the savage side. Identical twins. Daddy died from an overdose. Mum is following daddy, needled by needle. Her work as a prostitute keeps the habit going. Aunt Clover is on the game too. Mamaw, their beloved granny, gets hit by a car. She dies. A john, the twins nickname The Spider, uses their mum for sex. But when he spots the twins, and how pretty they are, they’re fair game. They’re ten when their repeatedly raped. Aunt Clover walks away. The Spider is a cop. She doesn’t want trouble. That’s living on the savage side.

McDaniel asks the question: What is a life?

Her previous books also set in Ohio, The Summer That Melted Everything and Betty are triumphs of savage lives. Incest, murder, rape and love grow bold on the page. I ponder if authors write the same story over and over until they get it right. It’s a weakness of mine. Betty, in particular, was so right.

On The Savage Side is not wrong about the world of poverty, or the mythology of women being the keepers of light. I wonder if I’ve grown immured to her poetic license. Superimposing black-and-white images of the river, and allowing it to speak directly to the reader, doesn’t work for me.  

Men in her other novels are grotesques. The more upright they appear the greater license to unravel and show their fucked-up world we live in. The narrative switches between when Arc and Daffy were ten, before The Spider raped them, to when they were twenty and selling their bodies in the Blue Hour. They buy junk like their mom and fade away. Society classes them as junk. Disposable. Barely worth a fuck.

Highway Man, ‘dipped in evil’, The Spider, Welt, Violin Man. Men as misogynists who inflict pain on women because they can. They are all suspect in ‘River Man’ serial killing of women. McDaniel’s puts forward a good case that the real crime here is poverty and addiction. Nothing to see. Move on. But I wonder if the author too has crossed that line. Characters become caricatures. With the rapist, moron’s moron, and 45^th American President once more running for President, that can seem unlikely as his fellow narcissist sociopath, Jeffrey Epstein, handing out sweeties to small children. But I hold a higher standard to factional fiction. Read on.