[Book Review] The Cipher (1991)

“Black. Not darkness, not the absence of light but living black.” 

There is a hole. A hole in the floor of a storage closet in Nicholas’s apartment building. Along with his friend and on/off lover, Nakota, the hole is explored as best they can. It seems endless and inexplicable, and they want to find out what it is and what it does. They call it the Funhole. They lower things into it and marvel at the transformations that are pulled back out. A jar of insects returns as something different. A mouse is irreversibly mutated. A brainwave to put a camcorder inside results in a VHS nightmare. The pair’s initial curiosity develops into a full-blown obsession that takes over their lives. Despite its repulsive and frightening nature, an inescapable attraction pulses from the hole that draws them to it again and again.

The characters and the setting embody the grunginess typified by the 1990s and there’s an innate grittiness that emanates from each page. Nicholas works in a video rental store and Nakota at a dive bar. Thrift stores, run-down apartments, and opening nights at underground art galleries are frequented. We follow the story from Nicholas’s perspective and witness his insecurities and self-destructive nature. Human frailty is on display and existential anxieties abound.

The relationship between Nicholas and Nakota is at best dysfunctional, and at worst, toxic. She is needy, bossy and competitive, but she has a hold over Nicholas and their trysts are inevitable. The pair move within the local art scene and receive attention when Nakota brags about the Funhole. Soon everyone wants to see it, wants to experience it, but it is Nicholas who is on a different journey with it. During one of their Funhole sessions Nicholas’s hand accidentally goes into it resulting in a hole in his palm that won’t heal. Nakota resents him for it, heralding his wound like a trophy, but a prize she wanted for herself. “Wouldn’t it be wild to go down there?”

The Cipher presents a stunning mix of psychological horror and body horror. Visceral scenes play out as the Funhole works its magic on whatever enters its space. Fear of the unknown is universal and plays a big role here. Not only is a seemingly bottomless pit creepy, but one that has such a strong and unique power is downright terrifying. Transformation is another important element here, depicted by both the Funhole’s physical effects and the impacts they have on the characters and their relationships. It’s a study on what other people are willing to do, the use and abuse of others, the breakdown of relationships, the body, the mind. 

Despite being written and set thirty years ago The Cipher remains fresh and offers a unique voice within horror. Koja’s prose is a compelling stream of consciousness, at times disjointed and jarring and at others, lyrical and poetic. Even reading about the everyday mundane becomes fascinating when it’s written by Koja. The writing is evocative, making the reader feel the coldness of the dreary apartment, the urge for another can of cheap beer from the fridge, the allure and repulsion of Nakota, and the disturbing and unfathomable nature of the Funhole. 

The Cipher is like an arthouse horror film in written form. The reading experience of this novel is much like the Funhole itself, offering the same combination of fascination and fear. Unsettling and haunting, it will stay with you after you reel from what you have just read. The Cipher had been out of print since its original 1991 release but in 2020 received the reissue it deserves, making it accessible to more readers who have yet to discover the Funhole and all it has to show you.

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