horror authors — Blog — Rebel-Mouthed Books

Who Was Changed and Who Was Dead Commentary

Considered to be one of English author Barbara Comyns’ seminal works, Who Was Changed and Who Was Dead is a tight under 200-page, terrifying, absurdly funny, gorgeous novel about a small village affected by a flood and then a mysterious, deadly illness. Who Was Changed and Who Was Dead is a clever, character-driven story explosive with a frightening plot, vibrating with the electricity living under each sentence— not a word wasted. About disaster and illness, Comyns’ novel is full of people trying to live “normally” amidst death and destruction— a theme that can resonate with today’s post-COVID readers who give this 1950s novel a chance. Who Was Changed and Who Was Dead whispers tragedies to us— suicides, mass violence, drownings, gruesome illness casualties— but tempts us with the tantalizing promise that “it won’t affect us— our main characters,” only to chuckle and thrust us with them into the action. Devilishly funny, scary but with a happy ending, it’s a story about shitty parents, mass hysteria, profiting off of tragedy, buried treasure, and, as the introduction reads, “about what it’s like to grow up next to a river.”

Grey Dog Commentary

Canadian speculative fiction writer Elliot Gish’s trot into horror, Grey Dog, sets her apart as a tension-building master with a bold voice and a lot to say. Gish’s wise pace and biting commentary exhilarate. Grey Dog follows 29 year old Ada Byrd, a school teacher, arriving to a new posting in a Canadian small town, where strange things happen in the woods. Ada’s journal documents a story full of queerness and crushes, unmet expectations, betrayals of friendship, miscarriages and lost children, the trials of teaching in Christian towns, witches, and the tantalizing thrill of what you’ll find in the woods.

Our Share of Night Commentary

Mariana Enriquez’s highly acclaimed novel Our Share of Night is a rich, lengthy, family saga, horror story about a young man and his inheritance: an estate, a cult, and a magical strength all his own. Set in Argentina from the 1960s to the late 1990s, just before, during, and after military dictatorship, Enriquez’s sweeping novel is a dedication to disappeared people and the violence they face, wrapped around the story of a family and the terrifying God they worship.

Her Body and Other Parties Commentary

Carmen Maria Machado’s debut short story collection Her Body and Other Parties is an ingenious read about boundaries and betrayals, queer desire and intimacy, stories with forgotten endings, strange contagions, the doubts of parenthood, invasion of the body, and our smallness in the universe.