6/12/26
Took all of the afternoon off yesterday, and Mary, myself, and my youngest son did a double feature — Obsession and Disclosure Day. It was a tonally jarring experience, watching them back to back with literally five minutes of breathing room between the two. (Enough time to run to the bathroom and then down the hall to the other theater).
Loved Obsession. Thought it was flawless and brilliant and a masterpiece. Was massively disappointed with Disclosure Day. Given the subject matter and the director, I was hoping for a dense, layered, nuanced treatise on humanity and history and our place in the universe. Instead, it’s a dull, lifeless, by-the-numbers car chase movie drowning in New Age psychic macguffins that trots out an alien for the last two minutes of the film.
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Women In Horror Year: Day 56
Manhunt by Gretchen Felker-Martin
STARRED Reviews in Library Journal and Booklist!
A Most-Anticipated Title in CrimeReads, BookRiot, Tor.com, Electric Lit, and more.
Featured in Autostraddle, Apartment Therapy, Goodreads, and more.
Gretchen Felker-Martin's Manhunt is an explosive post-apocalyptic novel that follows trans women and men on a grotesque journey of survival.
“A modern horror masterpiece.” —Carmen Maria Machado, bestselling author of In the Dream House
“Keeps up a relentless velocity while just being plain fun as hell.”—Torrey Peters, author of Detransition, Baby
Beth and Fran spend their days traveling the ravaged New England coast, hunting feral men and harvesting their organs in a gruesome effort to ensure they'll never face the same fate.
Robbie lives by his gun and one hard-learned motto: other people aren't safe.
After a brutal accident entwines the three of them, this found family of survivors must navigate murderous TERFs, a sociopathic billionaire bunker brat, and awkward relationship dynamics—all while outrunning packs of feral men, and their own demons.
Given Gretchen’s proclivity for making controversial public socio-political takes, I anticipate getting some shit from some parts of the internet for including this novel here. And to be clear, there have been some things Gretchen has said that I very much disagree with. But that’s the beauty of America. Until the advent of social media, we had a little something called Free Speech. Protecting that right didn’t mean protecting the words you agree with. It meant protecting the words you vehemently disagreed with. This is something neither “side” seems to understand anymore, for the most part. To put it more simply, I don’t agree with everything Gretchen says, but I support her right to say it. If you don’t, then you don’t have to read this book. See how easy that is?
But — regardless of whether you agree with everything she says or not — you should read this book, because it’s fantastic. Upon release, I described it as sort of a spiritual trans successor to Jack Ketchum’s Ladies Night, and I still stand by that. Thematically — and viscerally — it firmly falls into that territory. Is it political? Absolutely. It’s also ruthless and darkly comedic and surprisingly emotional. An important release that, decades from now, will be a marker in the history of horror fiction. Manhunt is available in paperback, eBook, and audiobook from Tor Nightfire.
