Every Horror Story is About Power: A Guest Post by Eric LaRocca
Bestselling author Eric LaRocca returns with a dark, decadent story of loneliness and longing, life and death. With claustrophobic rituals and spine-tingling horror you won’t be able to look away from, this is LaRocca at his best. Read on for an exclusive essay from Eric on writing At Dark, I Become Loathsome.
Hardcover $25.99
At Dark, I Become Loathsome
At Dark, I Become Loathsome
By Eric LaRocca
In Stock Online
Hardcover $25.99
From Eric LaRocca—Bram Stoker Award–nominated and Splatterpunk Award–winning author of Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke—comes At Dark, I Become Loathsome, a grim yet gentle, horrifying yet hopeful, intense tale of death, trauma, and love.
From Eric LaRocca—Bram Stoker Award–nominated and Splatterpunk Award–winning author of Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke—comes At Dark, I Become Loathsome, a grim yet gentle, horrifying yet hopeful, intense tale of death, trauma, and love.
I’ve been reflecting lately on a particular sentence in At Dark, I Become Loathsome—a sentence that serves as the novel’s thesis statement and anchors the narrative. This is the line: “Whether it’s blatantly displayed or more discreet, every horror story is about power.” I’m not quite sure if others will agree with me; however, I’ve come to believe that so much of the horror genre is rooted in a sense of power.
There are power dynamics at play whenever you open a horror book. Whether it’s the power a character might feel over the torture, the oppression of another or the influence and control that the author might sense for inflicting such cruelty, such viciousness on an unsuspecting reader. After all, so much of horror fiction is centered around trauma—the devastating effects of distress, the unbearable anguish of human suffering, the gratifying reversal or the inevitable submission to that physical or psychological damage.
It seems alarmingly relevant to write this while harmful instances of prejudice and bigotry against marginalized communities are exhibited on the world stage. So much of our current culture seems to be fixed in the idea of one-upmanship—power over the more vulnerable, the more recognizably inferior. The notion that power is a kind of currency that can be wielded unconscionably by those in positions of authority is troubling to say the least. This obvious misuse of power, naturally, leads to trauma which, in turn, leads to horrific consequences for those suffering at the hands of this misrepresentation of justice.
This is exactly the kind of horror I was hoping to illustrate in my novel: At Dark, I Become Loathsome. It’s fascinating to me how certain creative work can become tuning forks to whatever political or societal disturbances are occurring at the present. I think of the exemplary fiction written by my favorite authors like Clive Barker, Dennis Cooper, and Philip Ridley. I think of how their work has a strange, sort of timeless quality to it and still articulately speaks to the turmoil existing in the world today. Although I don’t subscribe to the theory that art can neatly obliterate oppression, I firmly believe that art is fundamental during these times of difficulty and hardship in order to better understand our collective pain, our shared suffering.
Although I wrote this novel several years ago, I’m wounded to think of how timely this narrative is in our current unsettled landscape. I think we are a society traumatized and still grieving the losses we suffered during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic while simultaneously observing the horrors of genocide, disease, famine, and hatred spreading across the world.
Despite the trauma that must be endured when encountering horror fiction, I believe that there’s a profound kind of catharsis, a sense of purification when we endure something truly harrowing or challenging. I desperately hope readers will remember that after they close this book… After the power of trauma has been inflicted upon you, then comes the opportunity for healing.
Photo Credit: Ali Shirazi