There are few occupations more associated with the genre of horror than the clown. Ever since the release of Stephen King's It, the killer clown has been at the forefront of just about every medium that can support horror: books, movies, video games, even the real world.
It wasn't like clowning was all fun & games before 1986, though (The Joker introduced people to the scary clown archetype in the 1940s). Besides making people laugh, clowns, jesters, fools, harlequins, etc, throughout time have also brought acute awareness to society's ills, and they usually do both of these things in the same breath. When you consider the juxtaposition of these two seemingly disconnected elements, and the discomfort that might illicit, it's easy to see why clowns have been so readily adopted by horror creators.
Horror, as a genre, is similar to clowning. You take something familiar and distort it in some way to alter its effect. But while clowns take something upsetting and make it funny, a horror author might take something funny and make it terrifying, like in It. Or, a horror author may take something that's already devastating and introduce new elements to create something far, far darker. If you'd like to plumb the depths of that darkness, then stick around because there's some great books I've been dying to talk about, and deep within their pages you may just find something scarier than clowns.
Gabino Iglesias' barrio-noir The Devil Takes You Home takes one of the most devastating things that can happen to a parent, the loss of their young child, and uses that as the starting line. But that's hardly as bleak as this book gets. Following the loss of his daughter, and now wracked with medical debt, the book's main character, Mario, becomes a hired gun. His jobs start out small, just whacking a few guys that Brian, his handler/heroin addict, has assured him are bad dudes, but soon enough the pair have gotten themselves wrapped up in a scheme to rob a cartel caravan.
So far this may sound like more of a hard-boiled action story than something horrific, but I'd like to remind you that Mario is a man that is haunted. Haunted by the loss of his daughter, by the poverty he's had to live in, by the systematic racism and marginalization he's faced for most of his life. While this more figurative haunting does a great job at creating a bleak atmosphere, the introduction of genuinely paranormal elements are what make this book truly terrifying. And the way that Iglesias contextualizes them is especially interesting.
Taking place between Texas and Mexico, this book is rich with Mexican & Mexican-American culture. One example of this is that many of the supernatural elements manifest themselves through Christian iconography. There are witches possessed by the devil and ghosts that look like little angels. The sequence I found to be most horrifying mixes this Christian supernaturality with the human cruelty that also runs through the book, and the product is El Milagrito. I won't give you any details, so as not to tarnish the experience, but I still get goosebumps when I think about those pages.
The Devil Takes You Home is a perfect example of the way how horror can successfully use distortion to great effect. It sets a scene of the world, with all its ugliness, and injects elements of the other to strap the reader into a roller coaster ride of fear, violence, and paranoia.
Brainwyrms, by Alison Rumfitt, is another book that kicks off with a horrible bang. Frankie is the survivor of a bombing on her workplace carried out by TERFs (or Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminist). Frankie's life is destroyed, and in its wake she begins to drink more, see her friends less, and sleep with an increasing number of strangers. When Frankie meets Vanya the two hit it off immediately, almost to the point of obsession, but Frankie gets the impression that there's something sinister lurking behind Vanya's surface.
Where The Devil Takes You Home takes some of the worst parts of the world and frames them alongside something supernatural, Brainwyrms posits that the two might be linked. More specifically, it is a novel that examines transphobia and its effects, specifically on members of the trans community like Frankie and Vanya. At the root of all the hatred are the titular brainwyrms, which are infecting people throughout Britain with transphobia and driving them to commit hate crimes like the one at the beginning of the novel.
Horror has traditionally been a genre where more "taboo" topics can find a home, and Brainwyrms certainly does not shy away from those. Where it really leans in is the realm of sex, and more specifically into kinks. But what kink would fit into a story about brain-eating parasites turning people into bigots? Why, infestation of course. It's not just introduced as a cheap gross-out, though, but rather works as great characterization for the interested party, showing us their innermost desires, not just sexually but more generally. Additionally, the fascination serves as an interesting exploration of how what one person may find horrifying, say a parasitic worm eating someone's tongue and taking its place, can be tantalizing to another.
If my description hasn't made it clear, Brainwyrms is an intense read. There's even a part in the middle of the second act where the author suggests you take a break before proceeding. But if this sounds like something you may be interested in, even just a little, I'd encourage you to face your fears and take the plunge. And if you're on the fence, not just about Brainwyrms but about The Devil Takes You Home too, then I'd encourage you twice as hard, because if you live your life in the light then you'll never really know what's going on in the dark.
You can find both of the books discussed here on the shelves at Eagle Eye Book Shop. And if someone got to them before you, or you'd rather order online, you can find the links to purchase them below.
https://eagleeyebooks.com/book/9780316426718
https://eagleeyebooks.com/book/9781250866257
