Eric LaRocca (he/they) is a 3x Bram Stoker Award® finalist and Splatterpunk Award winner. Named by Esquire as one of the “Writers Shaping Horror’s Next Golden Age” and praised by Locus as “one of strongest and most unique voices in contemporary horror fiction,” LaRocca’s notable works include Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke, Everything the Darkness Eats, The Trees Grew Because I Bled There: Collected Stories, and This Skin Was Once Mine and Other Disturbances. His new novel, At Dark, I Become Loathsome, has already been optioned for film by The Walking Dead star Norman Reedus.
…the thought of two people alone in a room and capable of doing vile, monstrous things to one another—that’s the very definition of “horror.”
K.L.: Welcome, welcome! I admit I am excited to have you as my guest. As your writing is pretty much uncategorizable and you are known to be a bit of a black box of a writer, one thing I could say with certainty is that your writings hurt, in a singular way. Before I ask my first question, I would like to contextualize it. I read and watch a lot of true crime, and I have been reading up on behavioral profiling for a long time now. I have studied many cases extensively and since I have some background in clinical psychology, I consider myself to be pretty good at the whole psychological autopsy part. However, when I try and truly think like a criminal, when I try to go to the edge of depravity, for the sake of understanding it, I always end up not taking that last step. Don’t get me wrong, I am generally considered to be brave, and I have studied the darkest of the dark subject matters. But the visceral fear tells me if I cross that line, I will never be able to come back. So, are you ever afraid of the images and ideas within your own mind? How do you inhabit that place of utter darkness, without it harming you?
EL: That’s a great question. I think there’s this misguided notion that those who dabble in the art of darkness are inherently depraved or morally questionable. I find that assessment to be entirely false and, moreover, this kind of harmful rhetoric is engineered by those who don’t engage with horror in the first place. Many who operate in the horror genre will unequivocally tell you that those who write and create in the space are the kindest, most generous and selfless people you’ll ever meet. That said, I’ve certainly found myself questioning whether or not I’m crossing a line with regard to the fiction I’m creating. Naturally, I hope to write fiction that elicits a response from my reader. However, some of the material I’m writing about is intentionally upsetting. There have been several moments when I’ve worried that the depravity, the brutality I’m writing about will leach off the page and will effectively contaminate my day-to-day life. However, I’ve established a sense of calmness and peace in my incredible support system—my partner and my family. I think it’s imperative for writers who are engaging with distressing and upsetting material to lean on those who care for us, who remind us that we are loved. Perhaps the unsavory answer to your question is the simple fact that it’s quite natural for me to inhabit that place of darkness while I’m writing. It feels familiar, in fact. That said, because I’ve been practicing for so long and have been writing this kind of material since I was very young, it’s easier for me to remove myself from that pit of despair once I’ve finished writing a scene or a chapter. I find it fascinating (and perhaps a little strange) that I typically don’t have nightmares. On the other hand, my partner (who doesn’t like to engage with horror media) suffers from intense nightmares practically on a daily basis. I find the genre to be hugely cathartic while creating. In fact, writing horror often feels like a “purging” or an “exorcism” of all the pollution I’ve internally accumulated over the course of several days, weeks, years. I will admit—it’s sometimes tiring to go on defending the genre to those who aren’t properly educated in the art form. The horror genre is so much more than grotesque splatter fests or misogynistic slasher films. It’s the only genre that’s primarily centered around an intense, visceral emotion other than “comedy.” (In fact, Horror and Comedy are siblings in many other ways; however, I don’t want to digress too much here.) Horror is hugely cathartic for the creator as well as the audience. I firmly believe that those who are willing to peer into the abyss—that infinite cavern of darkness—are substantially better for the experience. I think the more you engage with the depravity of the material, the better you become at compartmentalizing and removing yourself from the ferocity when the time comes to close the book or turn off the movie. Besides, that threshold you describe of “never being able to come back” is exhilarating for some. It feels forbidden. Horror should always feel that way.
K.L.: Let me qualify the context of my question a bit. I was talking specifically about forensic profiling and going to the limit of criminal darkness, sort of like Will Graham in the show Hannibal. I think it actually represents the dark side of empathy better than the Harris books do. But beyond that, I have had multiple near-death experiences and I fought against the first enemy and the last with whatever fragments of consciousness and lucidity I had left. That’s how I know animal terror. But, of course, there’s only one thing we say to death…
Let me ask you about your short story “You’re Not Supposed To be Here” (the central idea made me think of The Chain by McKinty, albeit I consider it poorly executed) and, to an extent, “Bodies Are for Burning,” from your collection The Trees Grew Because I Bled There: What’s your own view of the human nature? I certainly don’t want to conflate your characters, who seem to be on the homo homini lupus side of Thomas Hobbes, at best, so I am asking about your personal experience-based take. While I am very lucky to know such truly amazing people as my mom and my husband, I have also seen the ostracism that’s as brute and thoughtless as a slab of stone, and Cersei Lannister’s words, “Anyone who isn’t us is an enemy” are ringing increasingly true. I am also thinking of True Detective, when Marty asks Rust, “Do you ever wonder if you’re a bad man?” and Rust answers, curtly and definitively, “I don’t wonder.”
EL: I must admit, I’m rather pessimistic when I reflect on humanity in general. I think a lot of my work skirts around obviously supernatural elements and instead focuses on fraught human relationships because I’m so inherently suspicious and distrustful of my fellow man. Now, that’s not to say that I’m completely misanthropic. It might surprise some to know that I remain permanently hopeful that most people are decent, kind, and good. However, I can’t help but feel a sense of fear when contemplating the future of humanity and the ways in which we cannibalize and harm one another. There’s a brilliant film written and directed by Philip Ridley called The Reflecting Skin. During one of the tenser moments in the film, a character utters the line: “Sometimes terrible things happen quite naturally.” I feel as though this is especially true for humanity. We, the engineers of our own misfortune, our own disasters. I certainly felt this was true while I was coming of age in a small, rural town in the countryside of Connecticut. I had so few friends and most people looked down on me as though they knew of my secret—my queerness, my overly feminine behaviors. The world is not kind to people who are different. Moreover, people are not inherently kind and understanding to folks who might be construed as abnormal. Of course, I don’t mean to make everything sound so dour and grim. Regardless, I can’t help but operate with a certain sense of distrust when interacting with others. I’ve seen far too often how the world (people, more specifically) gleefully devours the weaker, the afflicted for the sake of amusement. Without going off on a long-winded tangent, I worry for those who are marginalized and, therefore, more vulnerable. Its embedded in human nature to seek out those who are frailer, more easily susceptible to manipulation. Supernatural elements don’t really frighten me when I’m interacting with fiction or film. To me, that’s fantasy. It’s make-believe. However, the thought of two people alone in a room and capable of doing vile, monstrous things to one another—that’s the very definition of “horror.” That truly unsettles me.
K.L.: Yes, trust me, the ostracism, viciousness, and active hounding have been part of my life ever since I became disabled as a child. I’d say the only thing that scares me more than, as you say, two people alone in a room and capable of doing monstrous things to one another is the mob mentality directed at the more vulnerable one. This scapegoating goes back to ancient times, as evidenced by René Girard’s work Violence and The Sacred, for example. I also see the supernatural elements as more of a distraction. Aside from Samuel Beckett, the only horror book that broke something in me is Let’s Go Play at the Adams’ by Mendal Johnson. In my essay “Mercy’s Abyss: Living as the Wrong Object (Horror and the Disabled Psyche),” I write—and I think this speaks to your depictions of variously disintegrating and/or incapacitated bodies, “It is a simple, yet inconvenient truth that a person may be good, decent, and... a person, until you radically subtract their ability to move, to take care of themselves. Then they become objects. […] There’s a particular horror in knowing that my survival depends not on my own will or strength but on the mercy of others. Mercy—a word that is supposed to carry so much weight, yet is so precariously dependent on the goodwill, the ethical resolve of caregivers, of society itself. But what happens if mercy runs out?”
Do you have any thoughts on this?
My other question isn’t really a fully formed thought, but, reading your latest work At Dark, I Become Loathsome, is your observation that the night alters the world in fundamental ways—and us along with it. In my case, I’ve been struggling for years now with the fact that the nightfall brings out the collapse of my coping mechanisms, as my deaths happened at nighttime. To quote Poppy Z. Brite, “I believe in whatever gets you through the night. [...] Night is the hardest time to be alive.” No one likes to think about it, but the dark erases and mutilates the world, the sky riddled with star-wounds, the moon the shard of the bone scraped clean and polished till it gleams, the sky-paint hiding an infinitely great cannibalized human corpse. Here I am thinking of one of my favorite quotes from Paul Bowles: “Before her eyes was the violent blue sky—nothing else. For an endless moment she looked into it. Like a great overpowering sound it destroyed everything in her mind, paralyzed her. Someone once had said to her that the sky hides the night behind it, shelters the person beneath from the horror that lies above.”
Again, I hope you can see this as an opportunity to free-associate and reflect on anything I might’ve brought up or alluded to. As we say in the small town of Twin Peaks where I’m from, “Let’s go tangential on their asses!”
EL: I very much agree with the assessment you make in your essay. I think it’s a powerful examination and most likely profoundly uncomfortable for some to read; however, the truth is often a conduit for discomfort, for growth and transformation. Your analysis makes me wonder if most people are inherently merciful or rather if they operate in such a way because mercy is expected—a kind of obligation for those who are more vulnerable and weaker. To exist in a non-autonomous state and, therefore, risk the perils of being aided by others—I think this idea must be rooted in horror. More specifically, body horror. Body Horror is the exploration of the self, the horror more inwardly focused. But what happens when our autonomy disintegrates and we are subject to ailments, cruelty, etc.? I think this is what you’re talking about. I find this especially alarming, and this is perhaps why so much of my work focuses on the body—more specifically, the queer body. I think queer people are inherently powerful by the very nature of the resilience of their spirit; however, we are often ostracized and made to feel weaker by cisgender heteronormativity. Very similar to what you discuss in your essay, queer people often rely on the mercy of others for compassion, understanding, and kindness. However, it’s a distressing notion to consider what might happen if such benevolence from our heterosexual counterparts were to eventually run out. I’m afraid we’re already witnessing the misfortune of this possibility with the disturbing rise of fascism in the United States in 2025.
To answer your next question, I’m rather glad you brought up the possibilities of psychological decay and disintegration because of nighttime. I’ve always had a peculiar relationship with the dark. More specifically, nighttime in general. As a child, I often viewed it as an equalizer of man. However, as I became older, I honestly cannot help but believe that certain marginalized groups are far more vulnerable at nighttime than others. In actuality, the night is not truly “the great equalizer” I had envisioned when I was a kid. The weak, the vulnerable, the afflicted are far more susceptible to harm and psychological distress when it’s dark out. I wonder if cruelty is easier for some when nighttime arrives. I think it’s simple for some individuals to target others who are ailing and more defenseless when nighttime comes. I now cannot help but imagine darkness as a kind of shroud, a strange sort of concealment that disguises our iniquity from one another. Nighttime affords us the privilege of revealing our true identities to others and to ourselves. Like any sort of privilege, this can be misused for manipulation, abuse of power, etc. As you mention, coping skills that were useful during the daytime now completely collapse in the dark. We become feral. Perhaps we are our true selves when it’s dark out—unabashedly grotesque, capable of monstrous complexities.
K.L.: Thank you! It is also a simple truth that most serial killers operate in the dark, so I was thinking that “At dark, (some of us) become prey” could be an unwritten addendum to your excellently titled book.
Since we’re on the topic of your latest novel, titled (as a reminder to our readers), At Dark, I Become Loathsome, I have two questions. First, the protagonist has a sudden change of heart after confronting the truth of what happened to his son. What was going through his head? What exactly triggers the change?
Second—and this is a bit harder to articulate, once more—I admit that the hardest part for me was the blog of the man who fell in love with his partner’s illness, which seems to echo some moments or ideas from The Trees Grew…, like self-mutilation instigated by one’s partner. This part of the novel is the reddest bite to me. Could you perhaps contextualize this or just talk about it?
I am, of course, aware of devotees and of the rare phenomenon of BIID, but that man’s blog delves into something that I find truly monstrous.
EL: That’s a good question. I think so much of my new novel focuses on the inevitability of everything—the certainty of illness, of loss, of death. I feel as though Ashley finally comes to terms with this certainty later in the novel when he discovers what became of his son. Without delving too deeply into spoiler territory, I believe Ashley reconciles the fact that his son, Bailey, never truly belonged to him. I’m afraid it’s a rather destructive, nihilistic view of the world; however, I firmly believe that we belong to no one. It’s the same thing with art. We create something and then we eventually turn it over to the public for their consumption. Anything we create has the potential to be destroyed, to be decimated by others. As an author, I’ve had to come to terms with this sad reality many, many times over the past several years. I think Ashley realizes this, too. Perhaps a little too late. That said, I’d prefer to simply leave it at that without risking the possibility of spoiling the book for potential readers.
Moving onto your next question—yes, I had anticipated that the nested story about the man coming to terms with his feelings for his partner’s terminal illness would be upsetting and difficult to digest for many. However, as an artist, the idea of that intensely visceral reaction from readers sincerely excites me. Perhaps that was the main motivation for writing something so decidedly grotesque. That’s not to say that my ambition to craft disturbing, profoundly upsetting narratives is rooted entirely in the thrill of shock factor. I think that vignette in particular is more thoughtfully sourced from experiences in my own life, in fact. When I was very young and growing up in my hometown of Kent, Connecticut, I became close with a very famous and celebrated actress of film and the stage. She became a mentor to me in many ways and showed me what my life could be like if I remained dedicated to the craft of writing. She took me under her wing and really showed an interest in my development as an artist. Unfortunately, not long after we met, she was diagnosed with breast cancer, and she passed away when I was fourteen years old. It was a harrowing experience—to silently observe while someone I cherished and loved eventually succumbed to something so vile, so monstrous. It was almost unbearable to witness. I think so much of my writing concentrates on cancer and illness in a general sense because it indirectly affected me at such a tender, formative age. Writing this nested narrative about the man becoming infatuated with his husband’s diagnosis felt disgusting and yet also deeply cathartic for me. I think horror affords us the privilege of release in many ways. It’s liberating to be as atrocious, as disastrously complex as possible and face no major repercussions.
K.L.: I also lost the person I loved to cancer. That’s when I knew that I’d very much rather suffer myself than watch someone I love suffer.
To pivot a bit: What are some of the books and movies that have influenced you as a person and a writer? Is there a filmmaker that you find resonance with? (I am seeing you between Yorgos Lanthimos, Gaspar Noé’s Irreversible, and the series Hannibal with the amazing Mads Mikkelsen.)
EL: I’m very sorry to hear you lost someone to cancer. It’s an upsetting commonality among most people—we’ve all been touched by a disease in some way or another.
I’m glad you brought up books and films as influences. I obviously am a student of horror; however, that’s not to say that all I consume is horror fiction and cinema. In fact, it might surprise some to know that I become incredibly fatigued with horror after a while and find I need to recharge, regenerate, etc. I read a lot of literary fiction, in fact. Well, I suppose I should qualify this—literary fiction with a dark, vicious edge. Empty Houses by Brenda Navarro is a stunning exploration of motherhood that I read last year, and I can’t quite shake it from my mind. Also, The Dumb House by John Burnside is one of my favorite books of all time. I won’t bore your readers with a list of incredible literary books because they’re probably more interested in the horror genre. That said, I think it’s imperative for an author of a specific genre to read widely. More importantly, read outside of your chosen genre as much as possible.
As far as horror influences, I’m hugely inspired by the work of the following authors: Clive Barker, Poppy Z. Brite/Billy Martin, Kathe Koja, Michael McDowell, Roald Dahl, Richard Laymon, Dennis Cooper, David J. Schow, etc. Some of these authors were very popular in the 1980’s and 1990’s and were pioneers of the Splatterpunk literary movement.
Pivoting to film, I’m a devoted fan of the following filmmakers: Peter Greenaway, Takashi Miike, David Cronenberg, Shinya Tsukamoto, Sion Sono, etc. I find myself intrinsically drawn to cinematic auteurs obsessed with the same things I’m preoccupied with: sex, violence, flesh, transformation, beauty, decay, etc.
K.L.: I couldn’t agree more about the invaluable value of literature and cinema writ large. I would actually love to hear more about your non-horror faves, since I think many people, myself included, take your recommendations seriously. As for me, I greatly appreciate anything between Samuel Beckett’s prose, Sophocles, Yukio Mishima, and Maurice Blanchot’s ethereal fiction, much like, cinema-wise, Ingmar Bergman, Andrei Tarkovsky, Lars von Trier, and Hiroshi Teshigahara, to name but a few. As you can probably tell, I also gravitate towards the dark and the experimental.
By the way, I have thought a lot about the inevitability of decline and death that you brought up earlier, back in my pre-dissertation days, and in general, but what struck me is the observation from Tarkovsky’s Solaris: Because we do not know the hour of our death, human beings are essentially immortal. That’s truly remarkable.
I have a question about your book Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke, which I will try to pose in a non-spoilery way. Towards the end, one of the protagonists makes the decision to become… absent. Was this guided purely by their desire to get in their Dodge and get the hell out of Dodge or was there a moral impulse to try and prevent things from escalating even further?
EL: I think there are several ways one might be able to interpret the action of the main character towards the end of that novella. On one hand, you could envision the simple fact that this character is manipulative and cunning, perhaps scheming that their absence will do the utmost harm. Yes, perhaps this is what they wanted all along. It might be a bit contrived and perhaps not even that remotely interesting to simply state that this character wished another person unwell and wanted to witness just how far they would decline for the sake of love, of human connection. But it’s possible that’s exactly why Zoe removed herself from the situation—an attempt to cause more harm. Another possibility is that maybe they did feel some sense of ownership, of responsibility over Agnes’s downfall. Perhaps they recognized this catastrophe being engineered by their own malicious intentions at the beginning of the narrative and decided that they didn’t wish to partake in this suffering, this humiliation any further. There are probably other possibilities for Zoe’s motivations for which you could make a strong argument. I’m afraid I hate answering some of these questions in definitive terms because then it removes some of the ambiguity from the story and, therefore, eliminates the burden from the reader. I love the presence of ambiguity in any kind of fictional narrative. Moreover, I really appreciate the ways in which a reader might interpret my work. Sometimes a reader will make an assessment I hadn’t previously considered and will consequently make me reflect on my intentions. Those moments between writer and reader are incredibly special. I’m often afraid of speaking in definitive terms about my work because I don’t want to lose that curiosity surrounding my writing. I yearn for people to question, to become bewildered, perplexed. That’s when fiction becomes truly interesting.
K.L.: Yes, I go for ambiguity and open-endedness in my short stories as well (while my own collection Shallow Cuts is yet to be published, several of my stories were staged by the more experimental theaters locally and that kind of interactive, visual presentation was tremendously rewarding to me).
Since we’re coming to the end of our interview, I’d like to ask you a broader question. You mentioned earlier that you do have a positive view of human nature. However, you also made an excellent point to the effect that there’s nothing more terrifying than two people alone in the room, especially if one of them is different enough to become a target. We can probably agree that violence doesn’t exist in a socio-political vacuum. I am thinking of Alison Rumfitt’s quote, “No living organism can continue to exist compassionately under conditions of absolute fascism.” Now, it is pretty clear from her writings that fascism and capitalism are seen as synonymous. While Marx would disagree with the totalizing nature of the claim, since while it is absolutely true that people are subjugated by and often trapped by their material conditions, one of the striking contradictions of capitalism is that, by forcing people into survival mode, it simultaneously empowers them to rebel. (“What the bourgeoisie produces… is its own gravediggers,” from The Communist Manifesto, Karl Marx.)
Anyway, I want to be clear that I am not suggesting that the violent, fucked-up impulses can disappear altogether in a different socio-political framework (I also don’t endorse utopian thinking, as it distracts us from analyzing and responding to ongoing struggles, catastrophes, and suffering), but they can be cultivated, even socially glorified, or, on the other hand, tempered.
What’s your thinking on the role of socio-political conditions when it comes to the blackest, cavernous depths of the psyche and the evil that men do?
EL: That’s an interesting question. I’ll try to keep my answer brief and as succinct as possible because I’m sure I could ramble on about this for twenty or so pages. I’ve been thinking quite a lot about this, especially with the Trump administration taking charge here in the United States. I’ve been reflecting on whether violence and cruelty becomes the common language for some folk because they feel emboldened, empowered to do so by those who are in charge. But I also wonder if these people are intrinsically programmed to become violent and that their ideologies are just incidental. Obviously with the rise of fascism in the United States, there’s certainly more tolerance for violence and hate-filled rhetoric. It’s unfortunate and very depressing to consider if I dwell too long on it. That said, I do ponder if violence and cruelty would exist without the socio-political conditions you’ve mentioned in your question. I think violence is a strange kind of language spoken by professionals and amateurs alike. More to the point, I think violence would exist regardless of those who feel encouraged to take part in such brutality, such carnage. Humanity is inherently violent and viciously unpleasant. I wish I were able to think more optimistically about humankind in general times; however, from everything I’ve witnessed, I cannot help but remain guarded when it comes to my fellow man. To me, violence seems like some sort of peculiar birthright inherited by man, generation after generation. I think it’s a cycle incapable of being ended, unfortunately. I hope this isn’t terribly crass of me, but my upcoming novel We Are Always Tender with Our Dead (coming September 9, 2025, from Titan Books) delves into the cyclical nature of violence and, perhaps even more so, explores the fetishistic nature of grieving, memorializing our losses due to unexplainable violence. The book examines how violence begets violence and that certain cruelties become commonplace because of humanity’s inevitable pull towards such brutality, such viciousness.
Getting back to the root of your question, I think humanity is capable of imploding upon itself regardless of any political framework or religious institutions coming into power. The act of destroying our fellow brethren seems so unavoidable. In fact, we take pleasure in it sometimes. It’s simple to assign blame when the crux of the issue stems from deep inside mankind. I think that’s why my work focuses so much on the depravity capable within every human interaction. We are dangerous because we pretend to be civil and polite when decorum needs to be preserved for the sake of courtesy. In reality, we are monstrous and vile.
K.L.: It’s terrific news about your new book! It is also an interesting observation that violence is a strange kind of language. I shall ponder. Sophocles did famously say that man is the monstrous being of all. Friedrich Hölderlin’s translation (of a translation) is, “Much is monstrous, but nothing more monstrous than man.” Anne Carson’s choice in Antigonick (yes, I am a geek) is fascinating: “Many terribly quiet customers exist none more terribly quiet than man.” I believe her translation points out that man, stripped of the grandiose words like “uncanny” or “monstrous,” is now reduced to an anonymous, silent participant in capitalist structures of domination. However, as a human being and a scholar, I’d argue for the critical importance of the distinction between potentiality (having vile thoughts) and actually (acting on them). Sort of like Hannah Arendt’s line, “Where everyone is guilty [or vile], no one is,” in Collective Guilt. I think Saving Noah by Lucinda Berry poses difficult questions in this regard that no one wants to talk about.
Since I have brought up theater and we have been discussing various iterations of violence, what’s your take on Medea’s terrible decision to kill her children, beyond the obvious desire to inflict maximum pain on their father? I’ve been living in her headspace for a while, as I finalizing a short novel reimagining her as a disabled figure, wheelchair-bound, which is to say, as someone traditionally seen as devoid of agency. I juxtapose the sheer physical powerlessness of a disabled body and the assertion of power through infanticide. In the chilling act of killing her children, Medea does a lot more than take control over the situation where she is betrayed by the one person she loved. She fractures the very bones of the world through her unholy act, going up against nature itself, thus making the rivers run backwards.
Who is the Eric LaRocca Medea?
EL: I haven’t thought of that play in so many years. However, it seems peculiar for me to admit that because I grew up with a deep appreciation for classical theatre. Tragedies like Medea, especially. Another favorite of mine is Titus Andronicus. I don’t know if I can speak with sincere nuance about Medea’s motivations to kill her children simply because it’s been many years since I read that play and I’m not as intimately familiar with the text as you probably are. In an effort to close out our interview, I will say this: there is such profound power in the art of horror. More specifically, the creation, the publishing, the marketing and the production of horror literature, film, theatre, etc. as material to be consumed by the masses. I don’t know if other authors will agree with me on this; however, I feel somewhat powerful when creating transgressive, audacious material—for instance, a book specifically designed to shock and provoke the reader, to make them as uncomfortable as possible. I spent so much of my life feeling alienated, othered. It feels exhilarating to control, to influence the emotions of others when they sit down to read one of my books. Even if they despise what they read, I’ve provoked them in some small way. That makes everything—all the suffering, all the abuse, all the violence—totally worthwhile for me. If I’ve inspired a reaction from merely one reader, then all of this has been worth it.
K.L.: Thank you so much for a really thoughtful, exquisite conversation! In talking to you, this wonderful line from Maurice Blanchot has been on my mind: “In the night, the beast hears the other beast.”
When all is said and done, I have in fact become a beast. And beasts can be seen as alluring and exotic, but few people want to actually be friends or keep company with them. With beasts, distance is the name of the game.
If you want books that hurt, that jolt us out of complacency and our comfortable understanding of what horror is, check out Eric LaRocca’s books here (At Dark, I Become Loathsome) and here.
.jpg)
.png)