To immerse yourself within a form of art typically feels like a gratifying experience laden with revelations, comfort, and exploration. Some art is daring, pushing the boundaries of comfortability in the name of self-discovery and vital performance. But what if this very practice of immersion is hijacked? The controls relinquished to those with a harmful agenda? What happens to the vulnerable partakers, the willing enthusiasts, and the art itself? Mike Bockoven provides a stomach-churning, deeply unsettling answer to this dramatic predicament as one theatrical experience takes a turn for the absolute worse with his novel, Come Knocking.
Told through a series of interviews, we are made privy to the horrific realities of “Come Knocking,” an interactive, transfiguring play that occupies multiple stories of a singular building with a choose-your-own-path style of progression. As you can fathom, feelings on this type of performative art vary wildly with some individuals claiming the trajectory of their lives have been forever changed by this performance to others who loathe such a ridiculous, pompous affair. Yet, multiple acts of violence mark the end of the performance leaving a wake of dead bodies, traumatic injuries, and unfolding stories of horror. The lingering question is one of how such a travesty could unfold, a question that is answered with bone-chilling clarity.
While Come Knocking works as an effective novel that preys upon every sense of social anxiety, it feels as though Bockoven created the fictional play of “Come Knocking” as a reflective microcosm of our national state of current affairs. Given the prevalency of chronic online-ness and readily made information, radicalism has never been more devout, more extreme, more accessible. The negative feelings fostered by some towards “Come Knocking” within the novel’s premise organize and prove to be the igniting force for so much violence that somehow unfolds within a few hours. If this doesn’t read as a symbolic take on our state of terror within our country, I don’t know what does.
Stepping away from the big picture, Come Knocking is one of the most effectively horrifying novels I have read in some time. Now, I should caveat this statement with the realities of my own preexisting social anxiety, but Bockoven has created a nightmare of claustrophobic, viscerally frightening circumstances that tragically lead to disaster. Reading the scenes of unfolding misfortune and manipulated destruction resulted in breathless bouts of panic, punctuated by grotesque body horror and psychological malfeasance. Perhaps most frightening of all is the clear reality of logic that is uncovered with each interview, demonstrating how such a situation arises within the deeply, seemingly chaotic, unruly nature of this violent beast. In other words, this novel is remarkably intense on every front.
A novel that capitalizes on every sense of social terror in a country shaped by mass violence, Mike Bockoven’s Come Knocking functions both as a remarkably effective horror story and as a representation of organized radicalism matched with violence. Layers of symbolism (loss of self, exploration of the taboo, and role reversals to name a few) exist within the context of the play “Come Knocking,” but the glaring, unforgettable aspect of blood-chilling social horrors takes center stage. Unsettling, horrific, and sadly logical, Come Knocking is a horror novel that provides more than a performance. No, Come Knocking is a concentrated, harrowing reality, much to our frightened understanding.
Come Knocking by Mike Bockoven releases on July 1, 2025 from Skyhorse Publishing (a huge thanks to them for sending this ARC my way).
