Funny thing I’ve noticed. Each time I review a book by Eric LaRocca, I tend to start off with the same statement: Eric LaRocca does not fuck around.

Does this hold true for At Dark, I Become Loathsome? Like you wouldn’t believe.

Ashley Lutin, the main character at the dark heart of this novella, is wallowing in hopelessness, despair, and depravity. He’s lost his wife to cancer, and his young boy has been taken. The only thing that keeps him from ending his own life is the service he provides for others who are similarly at the end of their rope, a extreme ritual or sorts. Then he meets another man who matches him, depravity for depravity.

Lutin is a complex, polarizing character, fascinating but deeply unlikeable. Throughout the book he repeats the title, At Dark, I Become Loathsome, like a poisonous mantra, almost a mission statement.

LaRocca excels at pushing the envelope, at creating situations and characters that are so beyond the pale you’re not sure what you’re reading, but you also can’t stop. Reading LaRocca’s work, I get the same feeling I got when I first read books like Exquisite Corpse, The Girl Next Door, and Tender Is the Flesh—books that challenge a reader’s beliefs on every level.

At Dark, I Become Loathsome is a slim volume, but it is one heavy book.

If you like your horror uncompromising, if you’re ready and willing to dive into the deep, shadowy end of the fiction pool, the place where monsters human and otherwise live, At Dark, I Become Loathsome is the perfect book for you. It releases January 28th, 2025, and is available for pre-order now.