Wretch: or, The Unbecoming of Porcelain Khaw

GOODREADS MOST ANTICIPATED HORROR 2026

Wretch takes Isherwood’s A Single Man and sends it down the raw, thrilling path of body horror, combining a classy read with shudders galore.-Chuck Palahniuk, bestselling author of Fight Club

Unnerving, baroque, and deliciously grotesque, Wretch is a journey to the dark heart of grief you won’t soon forget.-M. L. Rio, bestselling author of If We Were Villains

In a few short years Eric LaRocca has already established himself at the vanguard of horror and transgressive fiction.-Paul Tremblay, New York Times bestselling author of Horror Movie

Inviting, astounding, sinister. Desperation bleeds with love through the pages of Wretch until the two become inseparable, and by the time you notice their tide, you’re already drowning. LaRocca presents grief thrown down twisted passages with no exit, only an ultimate black-hole center of universal collapse. A gripping, mesmerizing descent.-Hailey Piper, Bram Stoker Award-winning author of A Game in Yellow

Reading Wretch is akin to discovering the gospels of a cruel god, where suffering bleeds into the sublime. LaRocca’s new testament is equally sacrilegious as it is transcendent, and I for one will forever consider myself an acolyte of his brutal body of work.-Clay McLeod Chapman, author of Wake Up and Open Your Eyes

Calling Eric LaRocca a horror writer kind of misses the point. He’s not telling simple horror stories to scare his readers. Instead, he digs into the hidden places in their minds and brings the dark, wet things he finds there into the light. Wretch does that and more, creating a seamless brew of dread and beauty. He’s a master of both body horror and elegant prose, which makes his tales even more unsettling, and Wretch pushes that even further. The book doesn’t just pull you in, it ensnares you and doesn’t let go until it’s ready. And you’ll love every shuddering moment of it.-Richard Kadrey, author of the Sandman Slim series

A novel about the exquisite pain of suffering in the face of loss, Wretch is a chiaroscuro masterpiece which captures the nature of what it means to be longingly, abjectly human. A dark song, which is nevertheless filled with flecks of genuine light.-Brian Evenson, author of Last Days and Father of Lies

The speed with which wondrous and horrifying ideas and concepts come up is as startling as the immersive and compelling body horror sprinkled throughout…a deeply compelling and thought-provoking read.-Library Journal, starred review

Hallucinatory, fiendish, and destructively beautiful, Wretch transports us to a world where not everything is as it seems, and those we love may be the ones who haunt us most.-Capes and Tights

Eric LaRocca (he/they) is a 3x Bram Stoker Award® finalist and Splatterpunk Award winner. He was named by Esquire as one of the “Writers Shaping Horror’s Next Golden Age” and praised by Locus as “one of the strongest and most unique voices in contemporary horror fiction.”

LaRocca’s notable works include:

• Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke
• Everything the Darkness Eats
• At Dark, I Become Loathsome

He currently resides in Boston, Massachusetts, with his partner.

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