Black Mouth

April 18, 2022
It takes a village, or at least a neighborhood, of misfits to deal with the malignant monsters at the core of this accomplished psychological horror story from Malfi (Come with Me). Jamie Warren, a not-quite-recovered alcoholic, returns to his hometown to bury his mother and care for his developmentally challenged brother, Dennis, even as his childhood friends Mia and Clay tangle with hauntings involving a homeless drifter all four knew as the Magician when they were young. As children under the Magician’s spell, the friends attempted to reach the source of magic, delving into the vast collapsed coal pit called the Black Mouth. Escaping his control caused tragic deaths—and they worry history will repeat when they discover that the Magician is stalking new apprentices. Malfi pulls in familiar horror elements—a weird carnival, an eerie backcountry filled with ghosts, a serial killer with a face fixation, a disabled person with supernatural sensitivity—but rings new changes on them, keeping readers tensely off-balance and unsure of what’s real. The well-done cosmic horror and mix of mundane and magical scares make this a standout. Agent: Cameron McClure, Donald Maass Literary.

July 1, 2022
Many years ago, Jamie Warren split from his mother and brother. Now, in Malfi's latest gothic-horror novel, Jamie and his brother, Dennis, reunite after their mother's suicide. It's not a smooth reunion: Jamie is a newly recovering alcoholic, and he really doesn't have the stamina to deal with his obviously distressed brother, not to mention the reappearance of an evil force that scarred their childhoods and now threatens to destroy their futures. Malfi (The Night Parade, 2016), like Stephen King and Stephen Graham Jones, tells horror stories that are anchored in the real world. His characters, like theirs, are ordinary people caught up in extraordinary events. He earns his screams and shudders honestly, through good writing and careful plotting: there are no B-movie jump scares here, just an increasing sense of dread that erupts into blood-chilling horror. Don't miss this one.

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