Books
‘Sarafina’ Review – Philip Fracassi’s Latest is Immersive Historical Horror
One of the great joys of any horror story is settling into a tale of well-worn tropes and scenarios and finding that they still have something to offer after decades of exploration. I’ve often said that there’s nothing wrong with a formulaic story if the formula is sound and the storyteller knows what they’re doing. But with some stories, that’s just the beginning, a portal to one of the genre’s other great joys: When you think you know where the story’s going, and only to find, just a few dozen pages later, that you’ve arrived somewhere entirely different.
Sarafina, the new historical horror novel from genre mainstay Philip Fracassi, is an example of this latter joy. It begins somewhere familiar, even predictable, and nestles the reader happily into a sense of cozy familiarity. Then, just when you think you’ve arrived at the place you always expected, the story takes flight, and you’re left breathlessly turning pages to see where it goes next.
Set in 1862 in the midst of heavy fighting during the American Civil War, the book follows three brothers – Ethan, Mason, and Archie – as they desert the Confederate Army right in the middle of the Battle of Shiloh. Determined to survive rather than die fighting someone else’s war, the men flee through the wilderness, starving, wounded, and filthy, until they miraculously happen upon a house on the other side of an idyllic creek. There, a kind woman named Sarafina offers to care for them, even shield them from the Confederate Home Guard, which hopes to arrest them. But this house, with its massive guard dogs and stream that seems to run in all directions at once, is more than a simple refuge, and Sarafina’s hiding secrets threaten the brothers’ hopes of ever seeing their family again.
There are a lot of narrative risks cleverly nestled in this propulsive narrative. Much of the early pages are devoted to the trio of brothers simply fighting to survive through confrontations, starvation, and the elements, putting us as readers in the position of empathizing with men on the losing side of a treasonous war. Fracassi deals with this by, quite smartly, placing us in Ethan’s head, framing the narrative as an extended letter home to his twin sister, Ellie. Ellie also makes appearances along the way, writing letters of her own to her lost brother, waiting for word of survival or death. Their struggle becomes universal, particularly as Ethan reckons with the possibility that he and his brothers may not actually be good people, and may in fact be on the path to something worse.
When Sarafina enters the picture, you get the sense that Fracassi is playing in some kind of demented, historical fiction Hansel & Gretel territory, and he is, but not in the way you think. The formula is there, but through careful plotting and evocative first-person prose, Sarafina evades easy classification the deeper you get into the narrative. Yes, this is the story of a group of lost people taking refuge in a mysterious, almost otherworldly house in the middle of the woods, but it’s not going to go the way you think.
The longer the brothers stay, the more Ethan sees his siblings changing, and the more Sarafina and her mysterious surrogate son Titus start to trust him with their own secrets. Soon, it’s no longer a simple matter of survival horror. It’s about more than just remaining intact. It’s about what happens when the world you know starts to change, and the makeup of your own soul changes along with it. It would be easy for the Civil War narrative, particularly the Confederate perspective, to serve as mere window dressing, a layer of intrigue to get readers in the door, but Fracassi refuses to stop there. What begins as an act of desertion from a lost cause soon evolves into a meditation on good, evil, and our place in a world that’s packed with secrets we cannot fully understand without risking our own sanity.
With Sarafina, Philip Fracassi has joined the ranks of fellow authors like Daniel Kraus, Isabel Canas, and Silvia Moreno-Garcia as a first-rate practitioner of historical horror, blending in dark fairy tales and even religious mythology along the way. This is a transportive, vivid book that’s very hard to put down, and reaffirms Fracassi’s place as one of horror’s essential modern storytellers.
Sarafina is available now from CLASH Books.
Books
Urban Legends, Serial Killers, and Space Epics: 10 Horror Books We Can’t Wait to Read This June
We have entered summer reading season.
Schools are emptying, beaches are filling, and it’s a great time to pack a tote full of brand-new books and get some reading done in the shade. But even if the sun is bright, your fiction can still be dark, because June is absolutely packed with great new horror releases from rising stars and genre icons.
From a Psycho retelling to a dark twist on Peter Pan lore to a new book from a Pulitzer Prize winner, these are the horror titles we can’t wait to crack open this June.
The Children by Melissa Albert – June 2
A blend of dark fantasy, Gothic family saga, and horror novel that’s received rave reviews from Stephen King and more, The Children follows the adult children of a legendary fantasy author who died when a fire consumed their home. Now, living their own creative lives, Guinevere and Ennis must revisit the secrets from the night of the fire, the darkness surrounding Ennis’s new art installation, and the truth of their family legacy in both fact and fiction. It sounds like a wonderful twisted nest of secrets and magic, and I’m eager to dive in.
Marion by Leah Rowan – June 2
Just when you thought we’d run out of interesting ways to riff on Robert Bloch and Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho, Leah Rowan comes along with Marion. As the title suggests, it’s the story of the Bates Motel’s most famous victim, but this time, she doesn’t die in the shower. She takes control of the knife and the narrative in this daring retelling of a proto-slasher classic. The story we know is just the beginning, and I can’t wait to find out the end.
Headlights by CJ Leede – June 9
Through her first two novels, Maeve Fly and American Rapture, CJ Leede emerged as one of the most exciting new horror voices of the 2020s, and she’s just getting warmed up. Leede’s third novel follows an FBI agent on the brink of retirement, running from his past and from the unsolved case that haunts him most, as he’s slowly pulled back into a gruesome serial killer narrative. Victims start turning up again, wearing someone else’s skin like a cape, with no memory of how they got that way, or how they got a lone strand of unidentified hair tied around their tongue. Both a riff on The Shining and a journey into the dark Colorado night, Headlights is one of the year’s most exciting horror lit events.
It Came From Neverland by Cynthia Pelayo – June 9
Cynthia Pelayo‘s novels have always felt like dark fairy tales, and with her latest, she’s taking things into the realm of one of the most famous children’s stories ever. It Came From Neverland follows a version of Wendy Darling who, while working as a schoolteacher and as an aid to rehabilitate World War I soldiers, finds old fears returning when a student goes missing. It seems that an entity Wendy knows only as “Peter Pan” is back on the prowl, and unlocking her memories might be the only way to stop it. That’s right, it’s a dark Peter Pan retelling as only Pelayo can do it, and you know you want a piece of that.
The Other by Annie Neugebauer – June 9
Annie Neugebauer’s The Extra ranks as one of the most clever and frightening horror novellas in recent memory, but that was only the beginning. This June, Neugebauer returns with the next book in what’s been dubbed “The Outsiders Sequence.” This time, Neugebauer’s strange world of doppelgangers and mimics turns to a couple on a hike who run into their exact duplicates, setting off a chain of events that will test their understanding of each other in terrifying ways. Neugebauer’s one of horror’s finest rising stars right now, so if you haven’t jumped on board The Outsiders Sequence yet, pick up The Extra and get ready for The Other.
Marla by Jonathan Janz – August 18 (Editor’s update: Release has now shifted from initial June 23 publication date)
Speaking of rising stars in the horror world, we’ve got Jonathan Janz, whose work has hit another level in recent years thanks to work like Children of the Dark and Veil. Now he’s back with Marla, the story of a local woman surrounded by urban legend, and her possible connection to a string of crimes in the community of King’s Branch. Is Marla a witch, a killer, a victim, a helpless child? We’ll have to read and find out in what feels like a perfect jumping-on point for new Janz readers.
The Sixth Nik by Daniel Kraus – June 23
Daniel Kraus has long been a favorite among genre readers, but thanks to his recent Pulitzer Prize win for his brilliant novel Angel Down, he’s more visible than ever, and all that visibility comes as he’s about to unleash a space epic with all the hallmarks of epic sci-fi and horror alike. The Sixth Nik promises everything from a sentient spaceship to a rogue planet full of plague to a nine-year-old “cultist” with an enhanced brain. This is Kraus playing in a brand-new sandbox, and genre readers everywhere won’t want to miss that.
Slasher Summer by E.L. Chen – June 23
E.L. Chen‘s latest novel is described as a love letter to ’80s slasher films, and anyone who’s taken a dive into the meta-horror of Scream or My Heart is a Chainsaw will want to sit up and take notice. The book follows a group of friends who grew up in a town famous as the location of a slasher movie, where they frequently played the characters during midnight shows. As adults, they return to their hometown, and to the location of the slasher movie, only to find that someone’s out to get them, someone wearing a very familiar mask. This sounds like a blast, and the latest in an ever-growing strand of slasher novels reinventing the genre on the page.
Dead But Dreaming of Electric Sheep by Paul Tremblay – June 30
Modern horror master Paul Tremblay‘s latest novel sounds like his most ambitious yet, and that’s really saying something. Dead But Dreaming of Electric Sheep follows Julia, a former pro gamer who gets an offer she can’t refuse: For a hefty payday, she must pilot a man named “Bernie” across the country for her mother’s tech company. The catch? Bernie’s in a vegetative state, and his mobility comes from the AI chip in his head. As Julia moves Bernie’s body, Bernie’s mind moves through an unfathomable nightmare world, but where are they heading, and what’s Bernie really meant to find? Every new Paul Tremblay book is an event, and this one feels particularly special.
Red X by David Demchuk – June 30
This one’s technically a reprint, but David Demchuk’s Red X is so revered among the horror community, and particularly other horror authors, that it feels worth highlighting, especially during Pride Month. Complex and metatextual, Red X is about a series of disappearances and a demonic entity plaguing the gay community of Toronto, but it’s also an autobiographical sketch of an author navigating death, survival, queer culture, horror as a means of expression, and more. In short, it’s an essential, and this new edition, complete with fresh writing by Gretchen Felker-Martin and Anthony Oliveira, is a must-have.
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