Book Review: Everything the Darkness Eats by Eric LaRocca

 

Everything Darkness Eats by Eric LaRocca

 226 pages, Paperback
Published June, 2023 by CLASH Books

 

As an author who has a book with the same publisher, I have watched the success of Eric LaRocca’s first Clash novel with a sense of pride and joy. I don’t know Eric, I reached out to him when I finished the book and hope to have him on the podcast. Still, it is a book I watched develop, and couldn’t be more excited for LaRocca who is quickly becoming a gold standard for queer horror. We have come a long way from Clive Barker who surprised no one who was reading closely when he came out. There was a time when Queer voices in horror were rare Poppy Z.  Brite/Billy Martin and Clive were it.

Everything The Darkness Eats carries on that tradition for sure, mostly it gives space for characters that at one time we didn’t see on the page. You’ll hear the Clive Barker comparisons often but that is in part because he was the first in the horror field to put realistic gay characters into the genre.
First thing first I want to say that this novel is able to achieve vibes and horror in a no-nonsense way that many novels would twice the pages to tell.  I like that the novel feels epic despite not being a thick book. LaRocca has written a tightly composed and structured horror novel that doesn’t waste words. It builds an off-beat New England horror vibe with plenty of insidious moments that echo for the reader. The characters like Ghost and Heart Crowley feel off-beat enough that if saw them on the street you might give them a wide berth.

LaRocca gives Ghost the right amount of depth that when his part of the story weaves into Crowley’s you’ll feel uncomfortable about it. To counterbalance this LaRocca gives you the heartbreakingly realistic characters of the story the Muslim-raised cop Malik and his husband Brett. Various victims of the disappearances that have scared the small community are quickly established, and that is essential in a horror novel.

“Indeed, there was something dreadful on its way- something pernicious and yet invisible as if it were some infectious disease knitting a gross patchwork of suffering humanity. Regrettably, this was no mere malady, no feverish sickness to be cured by mere antibiotic.”

Moments of vibe like that create tension and that gothic feeling will put you in the spooky mood. When LaRocca delivers those moments of pretty goth prose he does it carefully. In the past writers, even our beloved Clive Barker would fall in love with their own prose and overdo these moments. In some books these gothic descriptions last for pages. That doesn’t happen  Watch how LaRocca uses this method to quickly introduce his monster’s home.

“A monstrous house appeared beyond the tree line in the distance, rising into sight as if the ruins of an ancient civilization long since forgotten by mankind. Ghost’s stomach dropped as the vehicle meandered toward the house and pulled up to the sweeping front steps.”

The story is a classic one in horror. A monster that offers you everything you could ever want is one of the oldest tropes in horror and that is why you get comparisons to Needful Things which is a fluffier take on the subject, and The Damnation Game a more apt and darker take.  There is nothing wrong with tropes, I personally embrace them. La Rocca gives Everything the Darkness Eats a unique feeling.  The best thing you can ask for is a novel that feels like it can from the mind and fingers of the only human being who could combine these elements.  The story of Faustian bargain with a monster, the New England gothic setting, the vivid characters, and the bigotry that a gay couple faces.

Everything the Darkness Eats combines many elements that would work on their own but LaRocca smartly combines all the elements in a short but effective page count. Oh yeah, the book design is amazing. With some interesting designs and colors to the pages. Proud to share a publisher with this amazing book.