If you’ve heard the familiar grungy sound of Smashing Pumpkin’s Bullet with Butterfly Wings, if you know the rage behind the iconic chorus only prefaced by the grim assertion that the world is indeed a vampire, then you probably also know what it feels like to read Keith Rosson’s latest, Coffin Moon. A blood-soaked, emotionally laden nightmare, this is a novel that is built upon the foundation of trauma, hurt, anger, revenge, and what may seem like irony (but I can assure you, is not), love.
In simplest terms, Coffin Moon follows Duane Minor and his niece, Julia, on a revenge-fueled tear to find the man, or maybe not a man, who stole any sense of peace from them in 1975. Even before the traumatic events that bonded Duane and Julia together in blood, each character has dealt with their fair share of violence, Duane serving in the Vietnam War, returning a very different man, and Julia bearing witness to her mother killing her step-father, resulting in a life torn to shreds. Enter John Varley and the blood begins to flow in earnest.
It’s no secret that Coffin Moon is a vampire story. Just take one look at the cover and those iconic fangs with a road running through that unhinged skeletal jaw let us know immediately what we’re in for, lots and lots of blood. But the particular road traveled by Duane Minor, Julia, and John Varley is one paved in anger, an insatiable appetite for vengeance, no matter the cost. It’s in this way that Rosson reimagines vampires into figures of unhinged violence without an ounce of sex appeal to be found. Gone are any notions of seduction, leaving only grit, intensity, and violence to frolic in the ruins of murder. And from this, we see that the life of a vampire is bleak, an unfathomable existence that not all can hack.
Beyond the existential grimness of this setup, Rosson makes a strong argument for Coffin Moon not only being a revenge story, but rather a possession story. In the wake of so much hurt and loss, multiple characters grip onto the only thing they can find, revenge. This notion takes hold, consuming each character’s every action and decision, yielding unfathomable, heartbreaking results. Possessed by ideas of retribution, it’s in these dark corners we find these characters making impossible choices, leaving them in a wasteland like no other. Coffin Moon is very Western in this way, through the merciless atmosphere Rosson constructs through sheer, needless death.
Yet, this death hurts so much for the love instituted in the first place. Dare I say, Coffin Moon offers some of the warmest, coziest vignettes of a family who is choosing to choose each other, to try to find love in an unconventional space marred by less than ideal circumstances. Duane and Julia’s love for Heidi, for Joanne, and for Ed feels like a kindling fire that grows into a full blown blaze when stripped away from them, burning down any notion of normalcy for the duo. It’s baptism by fire, rage induced by blood, and gritty as hell, all for love.
Intense, bleak, and bathed in gore, Coffin Moon is the kind of novel that will carve out your chest cavity with a blunt silver spoon. Rosson writes a novel that reads like that Smashing Pumpkins song I mentioned to start, but eases more into the notes of Disarm rather than Bullet with Butterfly Wings once things are said and done. It’s bloody, it’s violent, it’s concentrated vengeance in novel-length format, and damn, does it hurt so good.
Coffin Moon hits shelves on September 9, 2025 from Random House. The audiobook, narrated by Pete Cross, is available for pre-order at Libro.fm!
