Have You Read This? You've Lost a Lot of Blood by Eric LaRocca

 From horror classics like Frankenstein and Dracula to Joe Hill’s “Twittering (or is it Tweeting) at the Circus of the Dead,” the epistolary technique has been used in horror to generate terror. It is both a peak over the shoulder of the main character as they write, record, or blast out on the Internet their innermost thoughts while also forcing the reader to piece together all the notes, letters, entries, etc. to figure out what exactly is going on. Once the final note, journal entry, etc. is read and the last puzzle piece snaps into place, then the reader can be rightly horrified by the entire picture. For example, Eric LaRocca’s latest work, You’ve Lost a Lot of Blood, can be a story within a story, but it is also much more ambitious than that description.

The novel is basically a critique of the work of Martyr Black, a writer who has a penchant for describing murders he may or may not have committed in enough graphic detail that lends people to believe he knows murder intimately. While there are many diary entries, transcripts of recordings, and even attempts at poetry by Martyr Black, there is the novel he’s written, also titled, “You’ve Lost a Lot of Blood,” that runs through the entire work like an infected thread in a sutured wound. The story in that book is about a programmer who, while caring for her younger brother, takes a job that requires her to complete a game that just might be cursed.

What brims in Black’s story is a story that’s plenty scary and gruesome on its own, with loads of body horror and family trauma. But LaRocca’s work also looks at some very metafictive questions, such as what does an artist’s work, whether intentional or not, reveal about that artist. There are moments in the book that seem to be real snippets of Black’s life, but the novel and poetry within may be just as revealing. It’s a book that somehow manages to be both a tale about the loss of identity and a character study that tries to paint a very bloody picture of who Black is. If readers like a puzzle and don’t mind (losing) a lot of blood, then they should attempt to know Martyr Black.

Have You Read (Listened to) This? Passersthrough by Peter Rock

 (This story was listened to as an audiobook. Fair warning!)

There can actually be ghost stories without ghosts, or at least stories where the ghosts aren’t the focus. As opposed to rattling chains and hooded figures, ghost stories, especially in the modern era, can almost be psychological horror. Yes, the characters in the story are haunted, and there can even be an actual ghost, but the real haunting takes place in the mind and memories of the protagonists, everything from terrible acts they have done to simply, in their minds, not doing enough when they had the chance. Such is the case for Benjamin, the father in Peter Rock’s story, Passersthrough, and he’s old enough to have gathered a lot of memories and actions to regret.

The story opens with what reads like a transcript. Benjamin and someone interviewing him talking about a device that lets him record his thoughts. He seems annoyed about having to use this device, finding it inconvenient, but the situation becomes more fascinating when it’s revealed that the person who is setting up the equipment that will take down his private thoughts is his estranged daughter Helen. They apparently had a falling out when Helen disappeared for a week while under Benjamin’s watch and decades later they are trying to reconnect, but hanging over their attempt to reconcile the past are memories of Helen and Benjamin’s trips to the woods, as well as Sad Clown Lake, a lake full of bones that is never in the same place twice.

The story felt like it could veer off into some very dark territory as more about Ben and Helen’s past is revealed, but simply the promise of bad things happening is enough to keep the reader engaged. Add in a sort of guru figure that helps Benjamin rediscover the world he sought and this story becomes an exploration of life, death, and beyond. There are ghosts and even some possession horror here, but the real treat of this tale is the sentences Rock has constructed and which are beautifully read by Eric Jason Martin, which reveal a darkly beautiful world behind the veil of our reality as well as what’s underneath the veil of this father and daughter relationship. Ultimately, the story isn’t as much a mystery as it is a meditation, a trip through the pathways of poetic language where Sad Clown Lake might reside on the other side and/or in the human mind.