"Pipefitters Union" by Alma Katsu

3/28/2022

Photo by Evan Michio

Alma Katsu is the award-winning author of seven novels. Her latest is The Fervor (GP Putnam’s Sons), a reimagining of the waning days of WWII with a horror twist. It’s been called “a stunning triumph” (Booklist, starred) and “a must-read for all” (Library Journal, starred). Red Widow, her first spy novel, was a NYT Editors Choice and is in pre-production for a TV series with FOX.

Yifan Zhou was born in Beijing, China. She graduated from New York University with a BA in British and American literature, and has worked as a reader for the literary magazine Fourteen Hills under San Francisco State University. She is currently an MFA student of creative writing at American University.

Introduction to "Pipefitters Union"
by Yifan Zhou

Alma Katsu doesn’t remember exactly when she heard about the case of a young woman who was kidnapped and kept in a box for seventeen years; it could have happened in the 1970s or early 1980s. Yet the case made an impression on her, and years later, led Katsu to write the short story “Pipefitters Union,” which was published in the anthology Enhanced Gravity.

Katsu was born in Fairbanks, Alaska, and grew up near Concord, Massachusetts. Before emerging as a writer of fiction in Washington D.C., she spent over thirty years working in intelligence, at several federal agencies as a senior analyst. Since publishing “Pipefitters Union,” Katsu has had a ten-year career as a novelist. She published her debut novel The Taker in 2011, which was named one of the ten best debut novels of 2011 by Booklist magazine, and went on to publish five other novels, The Reckoning (2012), The Descent (2014), The Hunger (2018), The Deep (2020), and Red Widow (2020). Her seventh novel, The Fervor, is to be published in the US on April 26, 2022.

Katsu writes in the genres of paranormal romance, historical fiction, gothic fiction and dark fantasy. “Pipefitters Union” is not her only story inspired by history. The Hunger reimagines the Donner Party with a supernatural twist. The Deep combines the tragic sinking of Titanic and its sister ship Britannica with supernatural mystery and horror. Her latest novel, The Fervor, is set in the waning days of World War II, reimagined with a horror twist. A lot of Katsu’s writing involves some aspect of history. “It probably has to do with a desire to see us learn from past mistakes,” Katsu says.

Similar to how the Donner Party parallels the 2016 US presidential campaign, the case of the kidnapped woman that led to Katsu writing “Pipefitters Union” still has its relevance today. It reflects a history of violence inflicted upon the female body, though does so in the voice of a character who actively participates in inflicting this type of violence.

Katsu writes “Pipefitters Union” in the first-person, and never gives us a name of her protagonist. This unnamed narrator calls himself a drifter, going from place to place, ruining relationships in the process. He settles down in a new town and begins work in construction, as a helper to a pipefitter named Randall. Randall, our narrator tells us, is a manly redneck who is a little “crazy.” But surprisingly, crazy-ass Randall has a Hollywood-looking wife.

Katsu’s narrator seems well aware he is telling the story to an audience, and constantly addresses us directly. So we follow him closely, as he accepts Randall’s invitation to go to the latter’s home, and there, witnesses Randall making love to his beautiful — though mute, Randall claims — wife, Gina, right in front of his eyes. “I’ll be honest with you; I was of two minds,” the narrator tells us. He explains how he is torn between feeling mad that Randall is committing such a horrendous act, forcing Gina to do something she doesn’t want, while at the same time also feeling aroused. As the story goes on, he would continue to explain his dilemma to us: knowing what he is doing isn’t right, yet also knowing he doesn’t stand a chance against Randall, and hence submitting to his sexual desires, taking part alongside Randall in “using” Gina for their own pleasure. We see him fall deeper into this dark trap, until he reaches a point of no turning-back. Randall is seeking even more from his parter in crime.

The colloquial, conversational tone of Katsu’s narrator is particularly disturbing as it forces us to become part of the story. It is a reminder that the evil as portrayed in “Pipefitters Union” is part of our daily life, underneath the surface, perhaps just underneath the floor. It forces us to question our own morality. “You can sit there thinking I’m some kind of morally reprehensible chicken-shit, but I’m no dummy,” says the narrator. What would you have me do? He is essentially asking. What would you have done? Is the implicit question for us, who have been forcibly turned into voyeurs for this story.

A sense of horror and creepiness pervades “Pipefitters Union.” The pipefitters work in dark subterranean spaces; crazy Randall, with murderous eyes, lives in small and run-down house in a rural area of forest and fields, the nearest neighbor half a mile away. Surmounting clues point towards the unusual dynamics within Randall’s household. Yet other than these external tropes, also disturbing is that we see the narrator struggles internally, albeit not very fiercely, towards exploiting Gina. He repeatedly acknowledges what he does isn’t right, and even seems to retain a tiny bit of awareness on respecting a woman’s decency, though also repeats he will definitely lose to Randall in a fight, and what little moral he has left is not enough to stop him from using Gina as he pleases. This is not a man with good morals, yet it would be rash to call him purely evil. What we see in “Pipefitters Union” is how a man, morally ambiguous and somehow self-aware in usual circumstances, can descend into complete darkness given the opportunities. The close distance between us and this narrator — who addresses us directly, telling the story to our face — means we experience the story as if standing near that abyss the narrator has fallen into, examining how we would choose in his shoes. Evil is closer to us than we think; not just externally, but internally too. As Katsu says, “Nearly every person has the potential to be a villain.”

The creepiness and horror that seep into “Pipefitters Union” are evident in some of Katsu’s other works as well, like The Hunger and The Deep. Katsu describes herself as always having a dark outlook, and her career in intelligence leaves a mark on how she views humanity, and in turn, her writing. As an analyst for humanitarian affairs, Katsu has observed people under “the worst circumstances,” including genocides and mass atrocities. “That experience colors my view of humanity,” she says. “People are rarely as good as they want to believe.” She tends to see the horror as “realistic.” It is a matter of peeling back the layers we put on top to obfuscate reality and pretend everything is alright or that we’re in control. This is what’s really scary: the realization that evil is so close to us, that while we impose moral judgements on the narrator of “Pipefitters Union,” we too have a villainous side within us.

“Pipefitters Union” was inspired by a real event, and years after this story came to be, events like those are still happening in the real world. Women still struggle for full control over their bodies; misogyny and toxic masculinity still plague our daily life. As Randall, in the story, claims Gina to be “mute,” today women’s voices and stories can still get dismissed or muffled.

“Pipefitters Union” is a thrill to read. It builds up horror, from underneath the surface to outright in your face, all in a colloquial and casual tone which only adds to the creepiness in its contradiction to the story it is telling. Katsu captures the interiority of a character complex in terms of moral standing, showing how a person gradually slips down into the darkness. We think about how easily people’s morals get compromised and corrupted, and whether, at the end of the day, things have changed from when this story was written. Katsu recalls hearing about the case that inspired “Pipefitters Union,” and writing it down after the story has bounced around in her head for years:

“I remember hearing of a case where a young woman had been kidnapped and kept for 17 years in a box under the bed he shared with his wife. She’d been out hiking and simply disappeared. I think when you’re young, these stories make a deep impression. It became one of those things that colored my outlook on life and eventually my writing. I didn’t tuck it away thinking it would be the basis for a story some day, however. It just popped out, fully formed. This is one of the rare stories I wrote in one long go and didn’t edit much.”
The very writing process of “Pipefitters Union,” how the event that inspired Katsu stuck with her for years, how that event remains relevant when “Pipefitters Union” was written and even now, as we read this story years after the story’s completion, can prompt us to think: How much have we learned from this past of violence against women? Will we, now, be able to make the right choice, instead of becoming a part of that pipefitters’ union?