This Halloween, VERVE authors are bringing you their scariest reads for the spooky season. Add these recs to your TBRs and prepare to be terrified.
Zee Carlstrom Picks:
TENDER IS THE FLESH by Agustina Bazterrica
Let’s kick things off strong with an Argentinian novel about cannibals, shall we? Not only does Bazterrica create an incredibly life-like dystopia in which factory-farmed human meat has become culturally banal, but she also renders a protagonist who will keep you guessing until the very last page. Is he a monster profiting off the human flesh trade? A reluctant middle-man in a fascist regime? Or a decent human man trying to save the life of his favorite female meat-lady? Haha, just kidding about that last question. If you’ve ever read this book, I think you’ll agree that there’s no such thing as a ‘decent human man.’
THE METAMORPHOSIS by Franz Kafka
Is this horror novel actually a horror novella? Probably. Is it technically even a horror story? WHO CARES! Franz Kafka’s gripping existential terror tale of a depressed clerk turning into a roach-thing is basically the urtext of body horror. Never has a book felt more profoundly relevant to my own monotonous daily struggles. I think about it literally every time I wake up in the morning, and you should too.
Okay, okay, this one is also not technically a novel. It’s a graphic novel, which I’ve heard are all the rage among demi-literate, AI-powered teenagers. But hey, I also like pictures once in a while, and graphic novels are one of my favourite art forms. Uzumaki, though, stands head and shoulders above the rest. First, writer and illustrator Junji Ito asks the simple and relatable question: what if a small Japanese town was haunted by…SPIRALS??? Then, he hits you with some of the most disturbingly illustrated visuals you will likely ever experience in your natural born life. Read it if you like pottery, and keep reading it if you like ladies with holes in their faces and children who are also slugs.
Stephanie Feldman’s Picks:
NO ONE DIES FROM LOVE by Robert Levy
Horror lends itself to short fiction – intense bursts of fright honed by dark fairy tales, sleepover ghost stories, and old and new folklore – and this time of year I find myself turning to anthologies and collections. I love Robert Levy’s collection No One Dies from Love, which features teenage games gone awry, macabre history, lurking ghosts, and psychosexual mystery, all of it lyrical and fueled by a deep sense of love and loss. It’s a spooky read, but one that also shows all the lush possibilities in the scary story.
There’s something about a novella or short novel, too. It leads you deeper into the darkness, but doesn’t linger too long. We’re caught in the horror, but with no promise of comforting resolution or explanation. Sara Gran’s Come Closer has taken on cult status in recent years, and I’m a member of the Sara Gran cult. (Once you finish Come Closer, pick up the Claire DeWitt existential detective series.) This novella is a pointedly grounded demonic possession tale, a terrifyingly realistic spiral into a shocking conclusion.
EXTENDED STAY by Juan Martinez
Sometimes, though, you need to sink into – or, in this case, dissolve into – a novel like Juan Martinez’s Extended Stay. It begins with a brutal encounter in Colombia, and then follows two refugee siblings as they try to survive in a Las Vegas hotel. Of course, the hotel isn’t just a hotel, but what is it? I love how the novel balances cosmic horror, body horror and the uncanny to explore the old and ongoing horrors of America.
(Bonus recommendation, for the book I just finished last night! If you’re looking for gnarly, in-your-face, but somehow still elegant stories, check out Nathan Ballingrud’s Wounds, which collects short stories and a novella about Hell, but a hell that never feels cartoonish or cheesy.)
Elle Nash Picks:
VIOLENT FACULTIES by Charlene Elsby
Written in the form of a doctoral thesis or monograph, Violent Faculties by Charlene Elsby follows a scorned professor of philosophy who commits a series of dehumanising experiments in order to gauge the boundaries of personhood. Extreme horror often gets a bad rap for being all surface splatter. Elsby is a master of the deep in exploring the psychology, as well as the inner moral philosophy, of the violent actor. The result sweeps you away on a mind-bending current of sadistic electricity, fully embodying the spectacle of violence.
Frisk is one of the most disturbing novels I have ever read. The story is told in first person by a man named Dennis, who was deeply affected by being exposed to snuff photography as a minor. Thirty years later, Dennis sends his ex-boyfriend Julian a letter that describes in graphic detail a motiveless killing spree Dennis committed in Amsterdam. In the world of the novel, questions arise from whether Dennis’s letter is a grand display of sick fantasy or if it had actually happened. Because the author and narrator share the same name, this question seems to layer over itself until it metastasises off the page, violating the reader’s own boundary between reality and fiction. This novel both amazed and discomforted me, as it left me questioning whether or not I was a bad person. To have a piece of fiction afflict the reader this way, to me, is the core of horror.
UNDER THE SKIN by Michel Faber
Under The Skin starts with a woman who picks up hitchhikers on the edge of the road in the highlands of Scotland. In my opinion, it’s best to go in completely blind to this story, as there’s no good way to explain how masterful Faber is at shifting the reality of the novel’s world, step by step. You think you have a grip on it and then suddenly you move down a level, and another, deeper and closer the ‘true’ reality of the novel as the plot goes on. What you find at the bottom is a story about what humans are willing do to each other. It raises the question of what it means to be human and what happens when the systems that bind us refuse to see that humanity in others.