Herculine

One of the Best Books of the Year ELLE Autostraddle Debutiful Chicago Review of Books MUBI Dazed LitHub Library Journal them Loosey Devious and diabolical, Herculine is a jaw-dropping and completely unpredictable literary bewitchment about trauma, desire, and identity. Eric LaRocca, author of Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke A witty, often-chilling, compulsively readable (Vogue) horror debut following a woman who seeks refuge at an all-trans girl commune only to discover that demons haunt her fellow comradesand shes their next prey!Herculines narrator has demons. Sure, her life includes several hallmarks of the typical trans girl sob storyconversion therapy, a string of shitty low-paying jobs, and even shittier exesbut she also regularly debates sleep paralysis demons that turn to mist soon after she wakes and carries vials of holy oil in her purse. Nothing, though, prepares her for the new malevolent force stalking her through the streets of New York City, more powerful than any shes ever encountered. Desperate to escape this ancient evil, she flees to rural Indiana, where her ex-girlfriend started an all-trans girl commune in the middle of the woods. The secluded camp, named after 19th-century intersex memoirist Herculine Barbin, is a scrappy operation, but the shared sense of community among the girls is a welcome balm to the narrators growing isolation and paranoia. Still, something isnt quite right at Herculine. Girls stop talking as soon as she enters the room, everyone seems to share a common secret, and the books lining the walls of the library harbor strange cryptograms. Soon, what once looked like an escape becomes a trap all its own. While trying to untangle the communes many mysteries, the narrator contends with disemboweled pigs, cultlike psychosexual rituals, and the horrors of communal breakfast. And before long, she discovers that her demons have followed her. And this time, they wont be letting her go.