Point of No Return: Six Deaths for Spooky Season
Sometimes in life there are points of no return, moments that we look back on and realize were turning points, times when everything was suddenly different, and we might feel grief for the ways things were before or for something we didn’t know we had until it was gone. Each of these moments is a kind of small death, like the death of the person we were before that moment or the death of something that was once precious to us. No matter which milestone we’re mourning, there is a spooky book prepared to guide us like Charon crossing the river Styx. So read on to find which creepy tome to curl up with this Halloween season.
Extra Salty by Frederick Blichert
Death of your first love
The oft-maligned 2009 horror film Jennifer’s Body gets the academic treatment in this treatise that reclaims the film’s value as a queer feminist triumph. Frederick Blichert covers protagonists Needy and Jennifer’s budding romance, Jennifer’s murderous rampage, screenwriter Diablo Cody, director Karyn Kusama and star Megan Fox’s unfair treatment by mainstream media, the viewing public, and more. Revisit your first heartbreak with Extra Salty.
Tear by Erica McKeen
Death of your adolescent self
Transitioning from the safe routine of daily school going to an independent adult life is challenging at the best of times. Add to that some serious childhood trauma and a mysterious knocking coming from inside the walls, and you’ve got Erica McKeen’s Tear. Frances is trapped in the basement of her rented student house when she begins questioning her very reality. She must grapple with her past and transform into a new Frances before it’s too late.
Green Fuse Burning by Tiffany Morris
Death of your current love
What do you do when your relationship is going bad? You take a break, of course! After her father’s death and pressured by her girlfriend, Molly, Rita accepts an artist’s residency at an isolated cabin. During her time there, Rita begins producing some of her best work yet, but as she begins seeing increasingly strange and menacing figures in the woods around her, she realizes it may cost her a lot more than she bargained for.
Nothing But Blackened Teeth by Cassandra Khaw
Death of your friend group
The ever-changing relationship dynamics of a friend group are hard to navigate even when you aren’t under siege by a vengeful Japanese ghost in a crumbling mansion. In Nothing But Blackened Teeth, a drifting group of twenty somethings come together to celebrate the union of two of their friends, but their good cheer is challenged by old wounds, bad blood and rooms that bulge with ancient ghosts one second while menacing quietly another. Sometimes, moving forward means sacrificing the people you once thought were dear.
The Creep by Michael LaPointe
Death of your impostor syndrome
Journalist Whitney Chase suffers from an urge she calls “the creep,” an indescribable pull toward exaggerating or embellishing the stories she writes for respected publication The Bystander. When she encounters a story about a medical advancement that could potentially save millions of lives, Whitney believes she might have found her ticket out of fluff writing for good. But when her investigation leads her to the bizarrely gruesome results of this “miracle cure,” Whitney finds herself trapped in a much darker and more complicated story.
Helpmeet by Naben Ruthnum
Death of your independent self
The union of two people in marriage is usually a joyous occasion and for Louise and Edward Wilk, it has been for many years. But now something sinister is threatening Edward’s health and Louise must decide if she’s ready to say goodbye to the self she has always known in this slim body horror from Naben Ruthnum.
Be Scared of Everything by Peter Counter
Death of your peace of mind
Sometimes you don’t have to go looking for the bump in the night because the bump in the night comes looking for you. In Peter Counter’s pop culture criticism and narrative memoir, one horrifying event becomes the inciting incident for a lifelong obsession with all things scary. In Be Scared of Everything, prepare to learn how anything and everything is frightening and the ways in which fear can bring people together rather than drive us apart.
Jen Rawlinson is Wolsak & Wynn’s production coordinator but started as an intern in 2017. As of 2021, she is one of the acquiring co-editors for the Poplar Press imprint. She writes for the Hamilton Review of Books and various spooky publications and helps run Hamilton’s literary festival, gritLIT. In her free time, Jen can be found scaring herself with books like The Death Scene Artist and The Midnight Games Trilogy.
