Refracting the bleakest of lights upon ourselves, Wretch by Eric LaRocca reads like a jagged, fractured mirror, its shards digging deep into the truth of ourselves, not just the parts we wish to hold true. In the context of grief, depravity directed towards others and the self seems to run rampant, a raging bull in a fragile shop filled with gleaming porcelain and delicate mirrors. This is very true for Simeon Link after he loses his husband, a loss with seemingly unending reverberations through Simeon’s life. Enter The Wretches, a grief “support” group that searches for meaning in the mundane now tainted by loss. But Simeon needs more than what The Wretches have to offer, a fact that leads him to the doorstep of the puzzling Porcelain Khaw, a man who can allegedly bring the departed forward for one last encounter. Driven by an all-consuming desire to rid himself of sorrow and fill himself with his beloved, Simeon finds what unsettling reality lies at the end of this macabre road, one paved in anguish and suffering.
Eric LaRocca pens Wretch with an incredible amount of poetic precision, unraveling the story of Simeon Link with an atmosphere of subjective realism through unique perspective. From the very first page, readers are made to feel drawn in to Simeon’s struggle for closure amidst a sea of grief, an experience that is wholly universal to the human condition. Yet, as the chapters progress, the realities behind Simeon’s state become known at the perfect times, layers unfolding to create deep dread and undoubted unsettledness. With such unease spreading like wildfire, it’s hard to fathom a conclusion that ends in neatness.
However, LaRocca delivers one of the most complete, horribly harmonious endings made possible through a cacophony of stark revelations, cycles with no end, and concentrated horror. Any sense of footing within this plot is absolutely obliterated thanks to the way this novel unfolds, an artful decay of notions previously believed to be fact. Wretch is the kind of novel that asks looming questions regarding hunger, desire, entitlement, and contaminated perception. LaRocca provides answers in earnest, taking the form of all we wish to push away.
Penned with prose that aches with hurt and desire, Eric LaRocca explores the demented repetition of despair perpetuated by grief with Wretch. Such a story elicits deep contemplation surrounding the endless nature of sadness, the contamination it seems to so easily breed under the best (worst) conditions. Possession no longer only belongs to demons or the dead in these pages; no, the living are more than capable of this kind of ruthless hold with little regard for care. Gruesome, gutting, and grotesque, Wretch is a harrowing union of possession and grief, forming a monstrously gorgeous modern horror story.
Wretch: or, The Unbecoming of Porcelain Khaw hits bookstores everywhere on March 24, 2026 from Saga Press. The audiobook is available for preorder via Libro.fm!
