"Everything the Darkness Eats" Book Review

Written by Tony Jones

Published by CLASH Books

Written by Eric LaRocca
2023, 202 pages, Fiction
Released on 6th June 2023

Review:

There has been considerable buzz around Eric LaRocca in the horror community over the last couple of years. He’s published his own collection and is featured in other anthologies and several novellas, including the widely discussed Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke and the recent You’ve Lost a Lot of Blood. LaRocca has also been nominated for the Bram Stoker Award and is a winner of the Splatterpunk Award for Things Have Gotten Worse.

Although I have read a lot about LaRocca, Everything the Darkness Eats was my first foray into his fiction and although I have issues with the book, I was still impressed enough to download You’ve Lost a Lot of Blood for a second look to balance against what I thought of this story. The action takes place in the rural New England small town of Henley’s Edge, where there are three intertwined stories. However, the lack of connection one of the narratives has to the other two is a weakness of the story. Overall, not enough happens and at around two hundred pages, it either needs to be fleshed out into a longer novel or tightened and shortened into a novella. Ultimately, this feels like a novella being stretched, and the shorter option might have been a better fit.

The first plotline concerns Sergeant Nadeem Malik, who, with his husband Brett, is relatively new to the town and early in proceedings it becomes clear they have failed to make friends, barely know their neighbours, and it is probably because they are gay. A hate crime soon follows and events quickly spiral out of control as their loving relationship is ripped apart by a current of hatred which contrasts the picture-postcard reputation. Although this is an engaging enough plot, its connection to the wider story arcs amounts to almost zero and has nothing to do with the wider supernatural direction the story heads into. It also includes a very graphic and elongated rape scene, which I would question the overall value of featuring. If this plotline, and by extension rape, has so little to do with the rest of the narrative, what is the point of it beyond using a sledgehammer approach to show gay couples are victims, or homophobia still exists?

Nadeem Malik might be a policeman but he spends very little time investigating the mysterious crime involving the strange disappearance of random locals, one of which is featured in the early stages of the book, which acts as the major backdrop to Everything the Darkness Eats. It is not exactly a mystery novel and the reader finds out too early what is going on and might expect Sergeant Malik to start sniffing around the case, but that never happens and the mystery or police investigation angle is a surprising dead end.

Heart Crowley introduces the supernatural part of the story and is clearly up to no good as he takes a smitten spinster for a drive in an early scene. With a strong Stephen King’s Needful Things vibe, the direction of this story is catchy but ultimately it lacks explanation and ‘Crowley’ is such a cliched name to give a villain one would expect to find it in a Scooby-Doo cartoon rather than a modern horror novel. Crowley also lacks the character definition which is given to Malik and one could not help but wonder why the locals had not clocked his distinctive car cruising their streets and connect it to the disappearances.

The third plotline involves a down-on-his-luck guy called Ghost, who is struggling to recover from the tragic loss of a loved one, and crosses paths with Crowley. Early in proceedings, Ghost meets Gemma and her blind daughter Piper, and after a single meeting develops an infatuation with her. I did not find this particularly believable, as there is an especially dumb kidnapping scene, and the manner in which the two plotlines converge is clunky.

Eric LaRocca is undoubtedly telling us darkness lurks in small towns and bigotry and discrimination of queer people still exist. Yes, okay. But to produce a horror novel of substance more is required than three loosely connected plots and characters which could have had more depth. Once everything connects, Everything the Darkness Eats does not add up to much beyond having a vaguely cosmic horror theme and although it is an easy enough read, it lacks the edge to really grab me.

Grades:

Overall: Cover
Buy from Amazon US.
Cover
Buy from Amazon UK.
Cover
Buy from BAM.

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Tony Jones
Staff Reviewer
Such is Tony’s love of books, he has spent well over twenty years working as a school librarian where he is paid to talk to kids about horror. He is a Scotsman in exile who has lived in London for over two decades and credits discovering SE Hinton and Robert Cormier as a 13-year-old for his huge appetite for books. Tony previously spent five years writing The Greatest Scrum That Ever Was, a history book very few people bought. In the past he has written for Horror Novel Reviews and is a regular contributor to The Ginger Nuts of Horror website, often specialising in YA horror.
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