If, through some infernal alchemy, the DNA of Franz Kafka, William Burroughs, and Clive Barker, were combined, and the resultant child was raised in a haunted house, on a steady diet of Hershel Gordon Lewis and David Cronenberg movies, EC and manga comics, Grimms’ fairytales, and powerful hallucinogens; and if that child grew up to be a writer, they might, just might, create something like We Can Never Leave This Place.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that Eric LaRocca is a utterly original, uncompromising writer, and We Can Never Leave This Place is a masterpiece of grotesque horror.

Mara is a fifteen year old girl trapped in an apocalyptic nightmare. Her father has been killed in the stark violence that surrounds the crumbling, bombed out flat she shares with her cold, hateful mother. They are both consumed and overwhelmed by sorrow, devastation and loss. There is little food, and raw sewage pools on the floor.

Then a series of monstrous visitors arrive, and shit gets weirder than you can possibly imagine.

Eric LaRocco has been on my radar for awhile, but this is the first book of his I’ve read. I plan to quickly remedy that, as I haven’t read horror this fiercely imaginative in a long time. If his other books are anything like We Can Never Leave This Place, consider me a huge fan.