Starred review from November 30, 2020
Chapman (The Remaking) evokes the “satanic panic” that convulsed schools and day care centers in the 1980s, destroying reputations and lives, in this spellbinding psychological thriller. In 1983, five-year-old Sean Crenshaw is goaded by seemingly concerned adults into fabricating accounts of ritual abuse of students by teachers at his school. Thirty years later, with the resulting witch hunts behind him, Sean has renamed himself Richard Bellamy and works as an art teacher at the upscale Danvers School in Virginia. But a series of disturbing incidents pulls him back into the nightmare of his past: a school pet is found ritually slaughtered, and kids in his class begin blaming bruises on their bodies on a fellow student named “Sean”—even though Richard has no student of that name. Chapman skillfully toggles between 1983 and 2013, tantalizing readers with the possibility that Richard’s suppressed past self might somehow be expressing itself in the present, and he laces the text with interviews between young Sean and manipulative authorities who are horrifying in their own right. The result is a suspenseful tale of paranoia that will keep readers riveted until the last surprise is sprung. Agent: Emily Dayton, Gotham Group.
February 15, 2021
The ritualistic disembowelment of Professor Howdy, the school rabbit, opens Chapman's (The Remaking, 2019) deeply unsettling and unputdownable latest, which mines for inspiration the real trials that launched the Satanic Panic of the 1980s. Told from two alternating first-person perspectives--Richard in 2013 and Sean in 1983--the novel follows the gut-wrenching experiences of one of the defendants in those trials, and one who is living with the repercussions of those events in the future, repercussions that are coming back from the grave to rear their demonic head and punish him. Readers can tell from the start that Richard is hiding important information, and yet he will draw them in, urging an uneasy and discomfiting emotional participation in both stories. When the dots between the narratives begin to connect, that's when the terror unspools, spilling all over the page. Creepy and engaging, this is a tale for readers who enjoy true crime like We Believe the Children by Richard Beck (2015), horror like Grady Hendrix's My Best Friend's Exorcism (2016), and intensely disorienting psychological suspense like Fever Dream by Samanta Schweblin (2017).
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March 5, 2021
Richard has a good life: a satisfying job as an elementary school art teacher, a happy marriage, and the impending adoption of his stepson, Elijah. But Richard has a secret, and it concerns Sean, a boy who was five years old in 1983, 30 years before the book's action. Sean told an innocent lie that sparked a devastating witch hunt in his Virginia town. Now someone wants to remind Richard of the price of Sean's lies. And since Sean isn't around anymore, Richard is expected to pay. With the satanic panic of the 1980s as a backdrop, Chapman's latest is a full-throttle, twisty (and twisted) horror mystery. Alternating between Richard's living nightmare in the present and the storm of accusations that surrounded Sean in 1983, Chapman explores the lifespan of a lie and how it curdles over time. Here, the past is restless. You can try to erase it, but it's coming for you, claws out, with revenge on its mind. VERDICT This clever, creepy roller-coaster ride is perfect for fans of fast-paced horror with the flavor of true crime.--Cody Daigle-Orians, Hartford, CT
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