It's no secret HP Lovecraft harbored xenophobic and racist views. His story The Horror At Red Hook is infamous for depicting Red Hook's immigrant population as 'sub human mongrel hordes'. What author Victor LaValle was able to take his conflicted feelings on Lovecraft and reclaim the story. The two main characters from Lovecraft's story are kept along with some of his ideas. Everything else is given a new sheen. The 'subhuman immigrants' are now victims of a wealthy, privileged white man's manipulations.
It's a perfectly structured novella that never overstays it's welcome.
Messed with me on a level I was not expecting. Demonic possession narratives, when done right, tend to genuinely scare me. A Head Full of Ghosts is a good example of one done right. This is another. What makes it so effective is the subjectivity of it. It is told from the possessed character's perspective as the possession gradually unfolds.
Like Black Tom, Come Closer is a short novella that packs a punch stronger than several full length novels.
What happens when good people do nothing?
Small town horror is a subgenre I continue to come back to. Stephen King mastered the form in Salem's Lot and It. Joan Samson does it with her only novel. A slow burn that doesn't take on any supernatural aura until it's final pages.
A small slice of queer cannibalism. Sara Tantlinger mostly does poetry, so the melding of descriptive prose with extreme horror is as vivid as you can get. Not for the squeamish.
"His fear was whetted to such a fine edge that he could actually feel it now: a disembodied ball of baby fingers inside his stomach, tickling him from the inside. That's what mortal terror felt like, he realized. Tiny fingers tickling you from the inside."
Every camper in this book is fully fleshed out. Their flaws are put under a microscope and magnified when dealing with the horrors of the island: tapeworms. Not just any tapeworms, genetically modified hydatids that spread faster and consume faster. If that's not enough, one of the boys is a full on sociopath.
The structure reminded me of Carrie. We are treated to accounts of the island, Q & A's with biological scientists, journal entries. There are scenes in this book that will stay with me. Lingering.
The true crime obsession has been at an all time high with the release of the Netflix series Dahmer. Triana's book takes on the true crime obsession and pushes it to new, frightening heights with the protagonist being infatuated with a serial killer. This book is a journey of grime and muck, where the rivers you are traversing run with blood. All leading to an unforgettable final line.
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