We chat with author Eric LaRocca about At Dark, I Become Loathsome, which is a grim yet gentle, horrifying yet hopeful, intense tale of death, trauma, and love.
Hi, Eric! Can you tell our readers a bit about yourself?
Hi! Thank you so much for having me. I’m very excited to chat with you. I guess I would describe myself as an author of transgressive queer body horror. Most of my work has been labelled as “transgressive” or “Splatterpunk.” I suppose a lot of my published material so far has focused primarily on trauma, loss, and sexuality told through an explicitly queer lens. I’m especially fascinated with violence and human brutality. More specifically, the very human urge to hurt someone, something. I feel as though so much of my work is a bit nihilistic as it primarily revolves around the inevitability of human suffering.
When did you first discover your love for writing and stories?
I first discovered my love for writing and telling stories at a very young age. Probably too young to remember the exact moment when I found myself overwhelmed with the urge to imagine, to actually put pen to paper with the intention to create. If I had to say an exact age, I would probably say around the age of eight or nine. The childhood preoccupation with the fantastical and the fictional is still in full swing at that tender age and the blight of teenage decay hasn’t set in quite yet. Luckily, for me, I had incredibly supportive parents who encouraged my artistry over the years and never attempted to smother my creative whims.
Quick lightning round! Tell us:
- The first book you ever remember reading: Either Coraline by Neil Gaiman or Cirque du Freak by Darren Shan
- The one that made you want to become an author: Books of Blood by Clive Barker
- The one that you can’t stop thinking about: The Discomfort of Evening by Marieke Lucas Reijneveld
Your latest novel, At Dark, I Become Loathsome, is out January 28th! If you could only describe it in five words, what would they be?
Grotesque, unsettling, fetishistic, gruesome, harrowing
OR
More simply put:
“A book for the freaks.”
What can readers expect?
Readers can expect a thoughtful monologue about sorrow and trauma that eventually devolves into a nightmarish fever dream of utter depravity. I certainly don’t want to spoil anything for potential readers; however, this book does examine highly upsetting material. Therefore, I wholeheartedly encourage folks to look up trigger warnings on GoodReads or Storygraph before reading.
Where did the inspiration for At Dark, I Become Loathsome come from?
The premise of the book centers around a man who suffers a considerable amount of loss in a short period of time. In order to cope with such crippling trauma, he perfects a strange ritual to aid those who are similarly afflicted and contemplating suicide. This ritual includes an “imitation death” burial. He buries his clients alive in order to cure them of their sadness and afford them the privilege of a transformative rebirth experience. I’m afraid I cannot take credit for the ritual of burying others alive with the intention of “curing” them as it’s a practice that has been skilfully executed in many other cultures for centuries. In fact, the main source of inspiration for this novel came from an article I read about an organization somewhere in Asia that performed a similar resurrection process for those who were afflicted and contemplating suicide. As a character study about one man’s descent into madness, I was also heavily inspired by the incredible Czechslovakian film, The Cremator (1969) written and directed by Juraj Herz. I highly recommend folks check that film out as soon as possible!
Were there any moments or characters you really enjoyed writing or exploring?
It might be such a cliché answer; however, I really enjoyed writing the main protagonist’s, Ashley Lutin, character. It was a truly illuminating and rewarding experience to write from the perspective of someone so broken, so irrevocably damaged. In fact, I would go so far to say that I feel a kinship toward Ashley. Ashley feels as though he’s monstrous. He feels like an outcast, a nameless enemy in a room filled with doubters and naysayers. Growing up as a queer kid in rural Connecticut, I, too, often felt like an pariah. Others knew my “awful secret” before I had the opportunity to share my name with them. The word is not kind to things that are small, frail, and different. I was all of those things, unfortunately. In a way, writing this book felt like an exorcism—a purging of all the darkness, all the unhappiness I had suffered at the hands of others for so long.
Did you face any challenges whilst writing? How did you overcome them?
I suppose the greatest challenge while writing this novel was trusting my intuition and knowing when to restrain myself from going for the “gross out” or the shock factor. I’m very uninhibited when I write and sometimes I quite enjoy going as far as possible with a scene, to test the limits and gag reflexes of my readers. That said, there’s an art to shocking audiences. In fact, I would argue that it’s prudent for a creator to be as subtle as possible when crafting certain obscenities in a narrative. Less is often more. I’ve learned that to be true since publishing some of my early novellas. I’m very fortunate that I was able to work with a brilliant editor (Melissa Ann Singer, former Senior Editor of TOR) on this novel and she guided me quite a bit when I had lost my way.
What led you to the horror genre?
My fascination with the dark and the macabre inevitability led me to the horror genre. I’ve always been fascinated by the harm, the transgressions that humans exact on their fellow man. There’s nothing quite as horrifying as watching or reading about the worst possible things human beings can do to one another. In fact, we’re watching many of these brutalities play out on the political stage at this very moment. That said, interacting with the horror genre is incredibly cathartic for me. To be transparent, it’s a remarkably joyful process to be able to purge my darkness on the page and then safely walk away from the misfortune, the corruption. Moreover, horror is a genre for the freaks, the exiles, the others. I feel like a freak most of the time and it feels so liberating to be able to enter a community where I know I won’t be judged and instead I’ll be accepted with open arms. I desperately want to provide that safe space for my readers, too.
What’s next for you?
I have a very busy publishing schedule with several original novels of mine slated to come out between now and 2028. That said, I’m very much looking forward to seeing the first book of my series, Burnt Sparrow, published by Titan Books on September 23, 2025. The novel is titled We Are Always Tender with Our Dead. This is the first book of The Burnt Sparrow Trilogy and the novel is centered around a fictional town in New Hampshire that suffers a shocking massacre on Christmas morning in the year 2003. Spanning several decades over the course of the trilogy, the series follows the exploits and misfortunes of a peculiar cast of characters while the town of Burnt Sparrow struggles to grieve and emotionally recover from such a deeply traumatic event.
Lastly, what books are you looking forward to picking up in 2025?
I’ve already had the distinct honor of reading so many exceptional horror titles scheduled to be published in 2025. I highly recommend everyone pick up a copy of Christopher Golden’s upcoming The Night Birds. It’s a sharp, utterly bleak supernatural thriller with so much bite. I also highly recommend Hailey Piper’s A Game in Yellow which is an extraordinarily unsettling Lynchian fever dream about queer obsession and desire. As for books I haven’t read yet, I’m very excited for Chuck Wendig’s The Staircase in the Woods and Daniel Kraus’s Angel Down. Both novels include extremely inventive concepts and feature dazzling cover art.
