Obsession and mania have never been far from my heart, and with that has always come the certainty that everything we build can fall apart. I’ve always been fascinated by our frail bodies; what they can do, what they can’t, and the limits we can all be pushed to. People are forced to their extremes, day after day, and that this can happen to anybody at any time has always attracted my imagination. Something shatters. Bones break. Flesh twists. And, in itself, the incident is never the end. Afterward, what’s left? This question haunts me through every word that I write.
Discovering that she has less than six months to live, Snow Turner does what any introverted punk body piercer would do: take out a life insurance policy and hire an internet hitman to make it quick. But when a vicious attack instead leaves her with a polymorphic curse, she soon discovers that someone out there may be still trying to finish the job.
Consumed with an insatiable hunger and violently changing into random creatures, Snow has to learn to control her shifting as the bodies begin stacking up, all the while trying to discover the identity of her mystery killer. Can Snow keep her humanity intact, or will she tear everything she loves apart?
From such an innocuous beginning, from the first snail shell to the horrifying corruption of an entire town, Ito’s nightmarish black-and-white images are something I can never unsee. Set in a small Japanese fishing village, this story of one person’s obsession spiraling over into infectious madness is gorily beautiful on every page. We all have our little manias, and the degree to which this one defiles led me to some deep introspections. As the insanity spreads, the visuals are stunningly imaginative, the plot insane and unrelenting. Ito never lets the reader look away, and with every new iteration of spiral I was dragged further and further down.
You can never claw your way back up again. A must-read.
Kurozu-cho, a small fogbound town on the coast of Japan, is cursed. According to Shuichi Saito, the withdrawn boyfriend of teenager Kirie Goshima, their town is haunted not by a person or being but by a pattern: uzumaki, the spiral, the hypnotic secret shape of the world. It manifests itself in everything from seashells and whirlpools in water to the spiral marks on people's bodies, the insane obsessions of Shuichi's father and the voice from the cochlea in our inner ear. As the madness spreads, the inhabitants of Kurozu-cho are pulled ever deeper into a whirlpool from which there is…
A dark hole appears in the floor of an apartment storage room. But where does it lead?
There’s nothing about this book I don’t love. Koja’s scrambling punk-rock prose and wholly unlikable/lovable characters straight out of my backyard are completely relatable and tear to the heart of this central mystery as they seek to explore the Funhole, a physical anomaly that leaves anyone who’s entered its orbit fundamentally changed. A story about toxic relationships, sick obsession, and transformation, the two frenemies are upsettingly relatable, and once they enwrapped me in their sickness, I can never let them go. Brutally short on exposition but spilling over with momentum, the plot bleeds forward with inevitable gravity from the first page until the shocking end.
The intoxicating language of Koja and the fundamental unreality she grounds so well still haunt me. Anything could be a gateway. Your washing machine. Your glove compartment. Your kid’s toybox. Eventually I’ll be able to open my closet without wincing again.
Kathe Koja's classic, award-winning horror novel is finally available as an ebook.
Nicholas, a would-be poet, and Nakota, his feral lover, discover a strange hole in the storage room floor down the hall - "Black. Pure black and the sense of pulsation, especially when you look at it too closely, the sense of something not living but alive." It begins with curiosity, a joke - the Funhole down the hall. But then the experiments begin. "Wouldn't it be wild to go down there?" says Nakota. Nicholas says "We're not." But they're not in control, not from the first moment, as…
Crawling with cockroaches, mold, and touching moments, this dark love story of a protagonist unable to move on and his neighbor whose boyfriend is so controlling he’s stitched himself to her is a bizarro classic. I’ve lived with both pretty abhorrent apartments and breakups, and the grotesque escalation of the novel as both the protagonist and their dwelling fall apart get under my skin in the best way possible. Full of nightmarish yet recognizable characters (maybe this says a lot about me), the plot propels itself forward through so many twists and turns that the ending is a true surprise. Slater’s ability to fascinate and repulse in equal measure is on full display as he explores the nightmare side of relationships, and I can’t help but sympathize with the protagonist as their heartbreak causes a brutal and irrecoverable decay.
You can’t know where this one is going. Even as the cockroaches try to lead you.
WHEN THE WORLD FALLS APART AND YOUR BODY STARTS TO ROT, LET THE ROACHES LEAD.
Meet Ernie. His life is a mess. Gretchen's gone, and the apartment they once shared in this grey, grim city is now overrun with intelligent mold and sinister bugs.
Then his neighbor Dee shows up, so smart and lovely. If he can just get past the fact that her jealous boyfriend could reach out of her blouse and punch him in the face at any moment, this could be the start of a beautiful friendship.
Unfortunately for all involved, a Great Storm is coming and…
The alternate title really says it all. Necrophiliacs: A Love Story.
Full of splatterpunk angst and memorably depraved characters, the tale of two serial killers meeting in 90s New Orleans and the couple they crash into swings for the fences from the very jump, and I have to admit that on my first read I wasn’t prepared for it. Stylistically strong, with memorable characters and a South so real you can taste it on every page, the author never lets you look away from the depraved side of obsession and the dark symbiosis relationships can foster. As things began to escalate, I couldn’t look away, even as the outcome became horrifically inevitable.
What’s the worst thing you’ve done for love? What would you be willing to do? The gorgeous prose delving into the grotesque made me ask myself this, again and again, even as atrocities are trotted out again and again across the page. A book so dark the publisher under contract wouldn’t touch it, Brite’s third novel is a true classic.
From the author of Lost Souls, Drawing Blood, and Wormwood comes a thrilling and chilling novel that bestselling author Peter Straub says serves as a “guidebook to hell.”
To serial slayer Andrew Compton, murder is an art, the most intimate art. After feigning his own death to escape from prison, Compton makes his way to the United States with the sole ambition of bringing his “art” to new heights. Tortured by his own perverse desires, and drawn to possess and destroy young boys, Compton inadvertently joins forces with Jay Byrne, a dissolute playboy who has pushed his “art” to limits…
My introduction to Clive Barker was, probably like many people, through the Books of Blood, but this novella forever set the bar for one of the godfathers of body horror. A sadomasochist convinced that he’s had all the pleasures the earth might offer strikes a diabolical deal to go further with a clan of mutilated, agonized torture demons. When inevitably the man comes to regret it, he tries to resurrect his existence with his brother’s wife, who has carried a torch for him all these years. An evocative novella exploring the dark side of passion and fetishism, Barker never blinks through the grotesque imagery, the violent eroticism, and exploring what truly rests beneath our human skin. The plot is economic, the language simple but spellbinding, and the story charges forward like the spray of a ruptured artery right up until its flesh-rending conclusion.
I read this one at a young age (too young?) and some of the scenes and images are forever carved onto my consciousness. Not for the squeamish or the faint of heart, the novella nonetheless truly has such sights to show you.
The classic tale of supernatural obsession from the critically acclaimed master of darkness—and the inspiration for the cult classic film Hellraiser
From his scores of short stories, bestselling novels, and major motion pictures, no one comes close to the vivid imagination and unique terrors provided by Clive Barker. The Hellbound Heart is one of Barker’s best—a nerve-shattering novella about the human heart and all the great terrors and ecstasies within its endless domain. It is about greed and love, desire and death, life and captivity, bells and blood. It is one of the most frightening stories you are likely to…
I’m an avid reader of queer literary fiction not only because I write it but because I’m looking to see my life experience captured on the page. As a gay man, a father of two young boys, and one-half of an interracial married couple, I know the complexity of modern queer living firsthand. In recent years, I’ve been astounded by the breadth of great LGBTQ+ books that examine queerness fully and empathetically. I seek out these books, I read them feverishly, and I become a champion for the best ones. In an era of intense book banning, it’s so important to me to elevate these books and their authors.
The Birthright of Sons is a collection of stories centered around the experiences of marginalized people, namely Black and LGBTQ+ men. Although the stories borrow elements from various genres (horror, suspense, romance, magical realism, etc.), they are linked by an exploration of identity and the ways personhood is shaped through interactions with the people, places, and belief systems around us.
In each of these stories, the protagonists grapple with their understanding of who they are, who and how they love, and what is ultimately most important to them. In almost every case, however, the quest to know or protect oneself is challenged by an external force, resulting in violence, crisis, or confusion, among other outcomes.
The Birthright of Sons is a collection of stories centered around the experiences of marginalized people, namely Black and LGBTQ+ men. Though the stories borrow elements from various genres (horror, suspense, romance, magical realism, etc.), they're linked by an exploration of identity and the ways personhood is shaped through interactions with the people, places, and belief systems around us.
Underpinning the project is a core belief - self-definition is fluid, but conflict arises because society often fails to keep pace with personal evolution. In each of these stories, the protagonists grapple with their understanding of who they are, who and…
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