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A review by readingrainbot
Everything the Darkness Eats by Eric LaRocca
dark
emotional
slow-paced
0.25
This is the third book I’ve read by Eric LaRocca and I give up.
I’m a gay horror fan always on the lookout for queer horror, and the premise of each of their works has appealed to me, but their writing lacks a core understanding of what makes good horror work. The plot is interesting, but the pacing doesn’t serve it, and there is no tension to propel the terror forward.
There is, additionally, the issue
of how queerness works within this novel. Though written by a queer person and featuring three queer characters, the author seems to want the reader to relate most to Ghost, a heterosexual … medium? Psychic? Messianic figure?… whose wife has died in an accident. Queer horror and horror that features queer characters is not the same, and this book utilizes stereotypes about gay men that would have felt out of date in the 1980s.Crowley (who appears at first malevolent and untrustworthy and then… twist!… is) has AIDS, given to him intentionally by his malevolent ex-husband. Brett is coded as effeminate through his beauty and interests in homekeeping and reconciling with their bigoted neighbors rather than fighting after being beaten nearly to death and smeared with fecal matter (a theme that appears in reference to every gay character in the book, believe it or not). Malik, ostensibly our protagonist, is a cop so poorly equipped for physical violence that he brings a kitchen knife rather than his service weapon to confront a gang of bikers, then is raped (in the most detailed and grotesque writing in the book) by Brett’s attacker Fleece and his entire gang, before empathizing with Fleece for his own childhood sexual assault by a gay man. All of this ultimately is in service of… nothing: Ghost asks God to wipe the trauma of these events from Brent and Malik’s minds, leaving the reader without any meaning for the terror and physical abuse we’ve just seen them suffer and leaving their characters as flat and two dimensional as they were when the novel began.
The violence experienced by these characters is experienced in a vacuum, with a true deus ex machina ending. Horror as a genre uses violence, fear, and revulsion to explore something - but there’s nothing to explore here, except a shallow comment that homophobia is bad (yes) and something half-baked about faith and christianity. The reader can’t suspend their disbelief long enough to both believe in the reality of the characters and care enough about them to experience fear on their behalf. I may fear what happened to Brett and Malik happening to me or my family, but there’s almost a lack of imagination about what kind of violence queer people face today in light of conservative attempts to write us out of existence.
For an alternative that touches on similar themes, I suggest Gretchen Felker-Martin’s Manhunt, Chuck Tingle’s Camp Damascus/Straight, or (for an older take that also touches on the spiritual theme) Clive Barker’s Sacrament.
I’m a gay horror fan always on the lookout for queer horror, and the premise of each of their works has appealed to me, but their writing lacks a core understanding of what makes good horror work. The plot is interesting, but the pacing doesn’t serve it, and there is no tension to propel the terror forward.
There is, additionally, the issue
of how queerness works within this novel. Though written by a queer person and featuring three queer characters, the author seems to want the reader to relate most to Ghost, a heterosexual … medium? Psychic? Messianic figure?… whose wife has died in an accident. Queer horror and horror that features queer characters is not the same, and this book utilizes stereotypes about gay men that would have felt out of date in the 1980s.
The violence experienced by these characters is experienced in a vacuum, with a true deus ex machina ending. Horror as a genre uses violence, fear, and revulsion to explore something - but there’s nothing to explore here, except a shallow comment that homophobia is bad (yes) and something half-baked about faith and christianity. The reader can’t suspend their disbelief long enough to both believe in the reality of the characters and care enough about them to experience fear on their behalf. I may fear what happened to Brett and Malik happening to me or my family, but there’s almost a lack of imagination about what kind of violence queer people face today in light of conservative attempts to write us out of existence.
For an alternative that touches on similar themes, I suggest Gretchen Felker-Martin’s Manhunt, Chuck Tingle’s Camp Damascus/Straight, or (for an older take that also touches on the spiritual theme) Clive Barker’s Sacrament.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Rape