Book Review: House of Rot by Danger Slater

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“Their home was but a hovel, a tiny refuge nested within the belly of an organism much more complicated than they’d ever understand.”

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Told over the course of three days, House of Rot is a bizarro horror novella that hurtles to unforeseen and thought-provoking places in 122 pages. The story follows newlyweds Elenya and Myles DeNova as they settle into their new apartment — an affordable, rundown, and far-from-idyllic “fixer upper” surrounded by expensive high-rises. Things immediately take a turn the first evening, when Elenya hears footsteps and finds a trail of mildewy footsteps that lead the couple to discover black mold beneath the leaky kitchen sink.

The rot quickly spreads, engulfing the entire living space in grotesque, unstoppable, chemical-resistant fungi that multiplies with unmatched speed and unrivaled fortitude, sealing the doors and windows and imprisoning the couple with no means of outside communication. Isolated inside their rapidly spoiling hovel with only a strange and unsympathetic neighbor for help, Myles and Elenya soon realize that there is no escape, and the spores have infiltrated their bodies.

This book is like nothing I’ve experienced previously, and I absolutely loved its trippy, subversive, weird, hilarious, relatable, engrossing, and provocative storyline (a ton of adjectives, I know, but this book contains multitudes!). Through its use of satire and absurdism, House of Rot examines and subverts ideas and themes surrounding life, death, and the hereafter; privilege, belief, and suffering; purpose, value, possibility, and meaning; and identity, reality, and society. Chock-full of fantastic, highly quotable writing, it also contains deep philosophical musings and some of the most gnarly, vile, creative, and incandescently horrific scenes of body horror (and grossness in general) that this reader has yet experienced, all magically and masterfully conveyed with an underlying levity and Pop Surrealism that makes them not only bearable, but entertaining and, at times, outright funny.

I can honestly say that I will never hear Chumbawamba’s Tubthumping or see a bag of Cool Ranch Doritos or a Taco Bell Crunchwrap Supreme commercial without laughing to myself (and maybe gagging just a little bit). At once blackly comic, highly entertaining, extremely bizarre, and intensely dark and nihilistic, this novella is as brilliant and mind-blowing as it is gruesome, made further so by the grisly black-and-white illustrations occasionally scattered throughout. This was my first experience reading Danger Slater’s work, and it definitely won’t be my last!

❤Amanda

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