The historic figures written into the story are fantastic. Maddy feels a strong attachment to Mutter, and he acts as a protector to her, providing her with the familial love that she never experienced as a child. Mutter, before his injury, was a German soldier who Maddy encountered briefly when her mother was entertaining the troops. Mutter is another character in this story worth mentioning. Dealing with her mother makes Maddy a survivor, and she develops skills that aid her through the rest of her life, leading her to become an extremely strong female character. She came into the world observing the adult world through her mother, a very cold woman who withheld any kind of affection from Maddy. It would be fair to say Maddy was never treated as a child. Maddy was never shielded from anything happening, and was even present at times.

Maddy’s childhood is nothing more than a mother providing for her child and surviving the only way she knew how-through sex, death, and art. I was apprehensive about this at the beginning. As the story progresses, Maddy discovers more about herself, her family, and what she is capable of. Throughout her story, she catches glimpses of her mother, occasionally meeting with her and her father. She channels her innate knowledge of the supernatural, fear, death, and undeath into her art, but is never allowed to head the projects she loves so much. There, she meets and works with some of the Hollywood greats, creating some of the most memorable images in horror history. When Universal Pictures discovers one of her masterpieces, Maddy travels to Hollywood. Then Maddy discovers film, and her love of the horrific. Together, they perform dramatic traumas and seeming resurrections on the small stage. She eventually meets and joins up with street performers, including Mutter, an injured soldier with a love of theatrics. She sets out to find…something? Someone? She’s not quite sure. She knows nothing of where her mother has gone she is alone. She discovers she cannot die, but she also cannot age, and when she eats, she tastes nothing but ash.

Maddy Ulm, a young woman whose mother cast a mysterious spell on her before her premature death, pulls herself out of her own grave. Only the Dead Know Burbank starts out in post-World War I Germany, after the Spanish flu epidemic has passed. Only the Dead Know Burbank by Bradford Tatum

The Monster's Muse by Bradford Tatum