Wake Up and Open Your Eyes
A Novel
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- $19.99
Publisher Description
“Clay McLeod Chapman is one of my favorite horror storytellers working today.”—Jordan Peele
“If talking politics with family has become a horror show, this book’s for you.”—New York Times Book Review
From master of horror Clay McLeod Chapman, a relentless social horror novel about a family on the run from a demonic possession epidemic that spreads through media.
Noah has been losing his polite Southern parents to far-right cable news for years, so when his mother leaves him a voicemail warning him that the “Great Reawakening” is here, he assumes it’s related to one of her many conspiracy theories. But when his phone calls go unanswered, Noah makes the drive from Brooklyn to Richmond, Virginia. There, he discovers his childhood home in shambles and his parents locked in a terrifying trancelike state in front of the TV. Panicked, Noah attempts to snap them out of it.
Then Noah’s mother brutally attacks him.
But Noah isn’t the only person to be attacked by a loved one. Families across the country are tearing each other apart—literally—as people succumb to a form of possession that gets worse the more time they spend glued to a screen. In Noah’s Richmond-based family, only he and his young nephew Marcus are unaffected. Together, they must race back to the safe haven of Brooklyn—but can they make it before they fall prey to the violent hordes?
“Surreal, hypnotic, unrelenting, profoundly claustrophobic, and an absolutely scathing sendup of the pitfalls of American divisiveness.”—Keith Rosson, author of Fever House
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Chapman (What Kind of Mother) takes a big swing and misses in his attempt to explore the mounting political tensions in America through the lens of a splatterpunk apocalypse. Noah Fairchild, a young father in Brooklyn, despairs over his conservative Southern family members getting sucked into a popular cable news channel's far-right cult of personality. When his parents and siblings stop returning his calls, Noah travels home to reconcile with them. Unfortunately for him, the ideological horror he confronts in his childhood home is only the beginning. Soon, he discovers that a mysterious force transmitted through the television is turning formerly normal people into monsters, and that it's up to him to stop it. Chapman has a confident hand when it comes to horror, and, with carnage as creative as it is copious, fans of transgressive gore will find plenty to enjoy in these blood-slicked pages. Unfortunately, the author is less successful at crafting the political metaphor at the narrative's heart, which winds up feeling both heavy-handed and somewhat muddled. The continued use of caustically profane narration, clichés like "snowflake," and false equivalences between violent IRL rhetoric and anodyne internet fads undermine the politics. The result is a gleefully nasty story that fails to deliver a coherent or insightful message.
