Neil McRobert has been a constant in horror readers’ ears for the last five years. He’s taken the pulse of the horror community, shared conversations with the brightest voices in the industry, and been a guiding force for every kind of reader walking into the untamable forest that is the horror genre. McRobert’s interview style works in a way that is a bit hard to describe, academic yet conversational, but more than anything, Neil knows his way around stories. He knows the value of them, the importance of voice, and how to evoke sentiments from those who create. A person like McRobert also knows how to tell a story as evidenced by his debut novella, Good Boy, the tale of the world’s bravest dog and his devoted owner.
Summarizing Good Boy in this way feels lacking, to be very blunt, because Good Boy is about so much more than a man and his dog. No, Good Boy is about love. Love for ourselves, love for our fellow creatures, love for man, and the duty we feel to keep the world going against all the darkness that comes to our doorsteps. This is a novella with more empathy and bleeding emotion than any one story has a right to hold, pulling on the deepest sentiments to depict a love like any other. A love that is unconditional, magical.
A woman sees a man digging a hole in an unusual setting following the disappearance of a young boy from that very spot. And like any good woman, she’s determined to figure out what this peculiar behavior could mean, for better or for worse. Margie, the good woman in question, confronts Jim, this strange man, and opens the door to a story she could have never fathomed, one filled with horror, heart, and unpredictable realities even for herself.
McRobert’s storytelling is nothing short of masterful. It is one thing to tell a story that entertains, but telling stories that make us feel on the level in which Good Boy accomplishes is something else entirely. Neil’s is a lived-in voice that is steeped in personality that demands all of your head and heart, a voice that delivers a story that matters. Margie and Jim and Riot, while only occupying approximately 115 pages of space and around 3-4 hours of uninterrupted reading, burrowed deep within my heart to make a home. Their lives prove to be fully formed emotional ventures into humanity, made possible through palpable care. McRobert elevates a notion that has fallen by the wayside in today’s day and age, the value and responsibility of giving witness, of being present.
And isn’t that what deep love, and ironically fear, boils down to? When we love fiercely and unconditionally, we are devoted beings. We are there every day giving ourselves, our attention, our essence. We cultivate meaningful bonds and sacrifice ourselves in the name of all that we believe in. The absence of all of these things is ignorance, turning a blind eye, and allowing fear to fester. This is where horror thrives, and why the “big bad” of Good Boy is so thoroughly haunting.
These are the deep-rooted sentiments that McRobert unearths with a tremendous amount of ease, a graceful, warm style of writing that delivers equally in horror and heart. Good Boy instills feelings of hope on the darkest of days through the small things we recognize, wet noses, tennis balls, and unstamped dog tags. Neil McRobert writes with love. He shows us that bravery comes in many forms; monsters need not be slain with gore, rather devotion. Darkness wanes in the light of this kind of love, in this kind of raw storytelling. Good Boy is far more than a novella; it’s a hand on a shoulder, a wet dog kiss.
Good Boy publishes on October 9, 2025 from Wild Hunt Books and is available for preorder.
