Title: We Are Always Tender With Our Dead
Author: Eric LaRocca
Publication Date: September 9, 2025
Genres: Horror
Protagonist Gender: Male
As the author's foreword warns, this is not a book to be enjoyed. There are technical aspects to be appreciated, elements that (in isolation) are worthy of being explored, but as a whole it's much like a David Lynch film in that I finished it a week ago and I'm still not entirely sure how I feel about it.
I think a big part of the problem is how the book begins. It starts with the main character being awakened by his father, who speaks of a reverse miracle and urges him to get up and head to town. It's just surreal enough to make you curious, with some interesting turns of phrase, but it takes far too many pages to make it to the front door, by which time we're numb with info-dumping and emotional baggage. Once we get to town, we're presented with a massacre that should be horrifying, but instead it feels rather bland, painted with broad strokes instead of the visceral detail the foreword warned us of. It may be a deliberate commentary on how America has become so desensitized to mass shootings, to 100 bodies strewn about a parade route, but if so, it's not explored - like so many other aspects of the story.
From there, the story gets weird. The town elders deliberately leave the bodies where they lay and delegate townspeople to stand guard against predators - which might make sense if you were waiting for help dealing with a mass casualty event, but not only are there no authorities on the way, there's not a camera or reporter in sight - which is perhaps the most unbelievable part of the story. It's like this town exists outside our world, or is maybe cut off from it by the violence, either of which could be an interesting idea to explore, but the story isn't interested in that.
From there, the story gets sad, with the introduction of a second POV character; cruel, with the introduction of an antagonist who empowers the town to acts of torture and rape; bizarre, with an unnecessarily (and unexplained) monstrous twist on the suspects; and disturbing, with an act of necrophilia that I suspect most readers saw coming from the start. The problem is, there's no reason or meaning to much of it. There's potential there, themes and questions to be explored, but for a genre that's supposed to be transgressive and confrontational, it's almost as if LaRocca is afraid to make a statement.
Stylistically, there's some interesting symmetry between abusers and the abused (albeit with no commentary), and the concept of thresholds and transgressions is prevalent throughout. I found the second POV far more sympathetic and engrossing than the first, but there's such a sudden shift late in the book that I was sure I missed something.
It may be that there are answers to be found in the next two books, but from what I've heard from early reviewers of the sequel (which takes place 10 years later), that's not likely to be the case. It's a shame, because there are some really cool ideas lying around here, including the mystery of how and why the town is so cursed and why its townspeople are so odd... but nothing is done with them. Cliffhangers are fine, but you have to throw the readers a bone, answer at least one question, even if it raises a new one.
Rating: ♀ ♀ ♀
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