At Dark is lonely. It follows a deeply flawed man who has lost his wife and son in a relatively short amount of time, who runs a Burial Ritual service wherein he buries clients alive for 30 minutes in order to induce, at best, a renewed desire to live. What follows is a perverse and dark dive in to desire, loss, pain, loneliness, and myriad other complex and strangely mixed emotions and subjects that may leave the reader feeling bereft and even upset. Painfully, I saw my own father in the point of view character Ashley, and myself in his missing son. I have never felt so painfully seen, and never have I related so deeply or seen my parent-child experience in a book at this magnitude.

I've been having difficulty putting words to it since I finished it. Spiritually, it feels like a companion to Exquisite Corpse by Poppy Z. Brite, in so many ways: the writing style, the subject matter, the execution, how beautifully but realistically, rawly queer it is. In others, it feels so uniquely itself, so individual, so set apart, it really shines as itself rather than feeling derivative.

As with Exquisite Corpse, At Dark is not for the faint of heart. It is at times graphic and painful, and deals with subject matter a lot of us would rather left in the dark. However, it handles it rawly and in my opinion the only way you should, without minced words and as honestly as possible.

Trigger warnings, if available, should absolutely be utilized. This book is going to live with me for a long time, and it's now one of my favorites.

A HUGE thank you to NetGalley and Blackstone Publishing for this free e-ARC copy in exchange for my honest review. I loved this book beyond words.

As a self proclaimed Eric LaRocca fan, this has by moved up to top three in the works they have written. It was dark, gruesome, horrifying...but my god was it also beautiful. I finished it in three hours unable to put it down and was engrossed immediately after the first chapter and could not put it down. Eric LaRocca continues to improve in their writing and complex storytelling and the way they navigated grief, trauma, and love through through his writing is beautiful. As long as Eric LaRocca continues to write, I will continue to read his work!

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing an advance copy in exchange for honest feedback.

Maybe LaRocca just isn't for me. Really fought to the end of this one and wish I hadn't. Sometimes just seems like he has eight or nine great ideas but rather than flesh out one, they all make it into one short read.

I did really enjoy this one, I loved how grief was portrayed. I do think that I enjoyed the two little stories within the story a little more than the overarching plot line, but in the end I found it really thought provoking.

Strangely emotional but grotesquely terrifying, as LaRocca usually does. Horrible themes and perversions written about with…style? Its definitely unique, and for the gore lovers.

My first read by Larocca and I was extremely impressed. Will definitely check out his other work

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an ebook copy in exchange for an honest review

I expected something amazing and was still blown away by this book. LaRocca is definitely my second favorite author, but I think he might be getting closer to that number one spot after this!

The plot was intense and interesting, if not a bit bizarre (as I've come to expect from LaRocca). The characters were so realistic, few that there were. The narration, the dialogue, the descriptions, everything was perfectly on point. But the best part, the one thing that will always make this author stand apart from the rest, was the writing. LaRocca knows how to work magic with words. Every time I read something by him, I find myself trying to read faster, pulled in to the story and the language in a way that is absolutely addicting.

Off I go, to somewhat impatiently await the next Eric LaRocca masterpiece. Hats off to you, sir.

Eric LaRocca is one of the most unique horror writers out there, today. The beauty with which he writes the most shocking and disturbing scenes you've ever read pulls you in, even when you want to look away.

"At Dark, I Become Loathsome," is a heavy hitting gut punch to add to LaRocca's growing body of expertly crafted, devastating, work. This story follows a grieving husband and father down a dark path to see just how far he'll go to try and find some sense of wholeness and healing.

The "stories within a story" approach to narrative often misses the mark for me and can feel tedious to try and follow, but it really worked well here. As with most of LaRocca's work, there were some really rough scenes in this book and trigger warnings should definitely be checked before diving in.

I would recommend this book to fans of horror who are looking for a very dark ride, with twists and turns that lead to a destination as bleak as the journey it took to get there.

Holy fuck was this bleak.

Eric LaRocca is on another level with this one and I still don't entirely know how I feel about it. This has all the classic hallmarks of a LaRocca horror book - gore, sex, psychological trauma but there is such an overwhelming blanket of despair and hopelessness draped thrown over it all that, at times, felt almost unbearable to keep reading. You HAVE to be in a proper mental head space to read this one. Ultimately, this is an exploration into loss and grief and true emotional agony that will leave you with so many unanswered questions and ruminating thoughts on loneliness. I think this book was well done but the overarching themes could have been explored a little more thoroughly and it felt like there were too many added extra side stories that took away from the emotional pull of our main character.

Eric Larocca has written a very dark and heavy book dealing with grief.

It's not an easy read, but it's not unenjoyable. There's a reason Larocca won the Bram Stoker Award. Ashley is an unlikeable man, but I still wanted the best for him, and for the grief to pass.

It's a dark, dark word, and sometimes coming into the light is painful.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the opportunity to read and review this book.

You are not going to be okay. It's not a particularly revelatory realization when you stand back and consider it. Struggle as you may, the longer we live, the more loss we encounter until eventually meeting our end. Despite what anyone tells you, dignity probably has very little to do with it. If this is news, well, sorry kid. Thems the breaks, as they say. For many, this simple fact becomes cursed knowledge and ignites insanity. For others, it’s loss that breaks them, swallowing them in a blanket of darkness.


Eric LaRocca is an author known for crossing lines. Having a knack for pairing gripping titles with gorgeous covers. In a few short years LaRocca has carved out a distinct corner for themselves on the wonderfully crowded shelf of contemporary horror greats. Their debut novella Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke and novel Everything the Darkness Eats along with his short stories establish a reputation for transgressive, dark horror.


If the sophomore slump is a thing to believe(I don't) LaRocca skirts it delivering a triumphant, unique, obsidian jewel of a novel with a relentless, clear sighted tone and vision. At Dark, I Become Loathsome wants to infect you like a bad idea. It wants to crawl under your skin and flay you open to reveal what a disgusting thing you really are. Many authors aim for humanity's darkest impulses but LaRocca writes to kill. They invite you with their repetitious, poetic refrains, and measured philosophical ruminations to take part in the circus or revulsion reminding you of every bad idea, cruel thought, or any secret part of you that might let the darkness win.


Ashley Lutin is a loathsome thing. Struggling to cope with the death of his wife to cancer and loss of his kidnapped son, he has taken to an unusual vocation. Lurking online in forums, he finds the suicidal and aids them in a fake death ritual that includes being buried alive among other things. His clients find the experience liberating, akin to a rebirth. Try as he may to convince himself he remains on earth for this project and that it is doing some good, Ashley cannot fight the intrusive thoughts that worm into his brain like a sickness every night. Ashley repeats the refrain, “At dark, I become loathsome,” as he ruminates on how meaningless life truly is. Death is the end in Ashley’s mind, he takes no comfort in an afterlife and many pages are spent with him raging at the indignity that once he dies, there will be no reunion with loved ones. “Heaven is a dark room… There’s nothing for us there.” This thought, taken from one of the many bleak and disturbing stories Ashley ruminates on, is his reason to keep living. It’s not that he wants to, but he’s too afraid of the death he so dearly craves.


Ashley has good angels of course, hallucinatory memories of his dead wife and son try to steer back from the loathsome brink, but Ashley is too far gone. He’s transformed by his grief, literally, modifying his body and face with piercings and surgeries until strangers are uncomfortable with his appearance. As his hope of being reunited with his lost son diminishes, Ashley sinks further. Soon he entertains harming people, justifying it to himself as setting them free.


At Dark, I Become Loathsome is preoccupied with the way a person can be changed by environment, people, and experience. Ashley’s loathsome face is a manifestation of these things, his pain, his rage, the fucked up stories he reads online, the weird clients he deals with day in and day out that want death and are desperately looking for something to stay their hand. What’s most interesting to me about this book is the way Ashley’s pain makes him vulnerable to bad actors, but also the way he seizes on other’s pain and the way his rage and self loathing distorts that all and turns it into something horrifying. Ashley is a queer man, closeted and having spent a chunk of his life in a seemingly loving, genuine, heteronormative relationship and the psychology of a closeted queer man is rarely so intimately explored. Intentional or not, much of the way the internet brings the worst of the world to our fingertips and mind comes up in this book a lot as Ashley is multiple times presented with debaucherous stories seen online that further meld his warped psychology.


Cancer becomes a recurring symbol, as some secret twisted part of us, eating away until we're unrecognizable and lost.

Beneath the ruminations on death, the lack of an afterlife, and the sinister things people are capable of is a character unwilling to accept himself. This is less about grief and more about the corrupting influence of self-pity and more importantly, self loathing. Cruelty can be infectious, often, like a cancer, that disease is made by the host it destroys.


A book like Loathsome pushes readers to the limits. In enduring it you’re forced to see the wonder in the hideous, the way beauty can be grotesque, and the humanity in monsters. You’re forced to wrestle with the pitless void that exists within you and every living person. Good horror requires empathy, but it's truly special to get something so unwaveringly honest with subjects this bleak. Catharsis isn't all Loathsome has to offer. If you are brave enough to gaze into the abyss, you might come out the other end knowing yourself better. For the uninitiated, transgressive stories present a challenge, but for those of us that can't get enough, it's like a ritual, an exorcism. Like I said at the top, we're not going to be okay, but compassion, especially towards ourselves, might be the only thing to help us through. For that, you must know yourself.


Do not become loathsome.

I absolutely loved this book. I really liked LaRocca’s first one, but I think this one is even better. It’s such an intense, unsettling look at grief and self-loathing, and it really sticks with you. LaRocca has a way of making emotional horror feel as visceral as physical horror, and this story lingers long after you put it down. The writing is beautiful but also really brutal at times. I honestly can’t wait to see what he writes next because he just keeps getting better.

A wild, macabre, perverse look at grief and self-loathing. There are moments in this book that have remained with me, images that haven’t left my minds eye, and a short story that made my skin crawl. If the absolute atrocities of horror are your cup of tea, then prepare for your cup to runneth over with this one.

At Dark, I Become Loathsome is a twisted meditation on grief. It explores the degrees, depths or depravity we are capable of as our responses to loss cross over from healthy to unhealthy. Something that might not be under our control. Who's to say what a healthy response is anyway?

We begin with our narrator, Ashley Lutin, giving us the title as the opening line of the book. This will become the mantra for our meditation. As Ashley repeats it throughout the text it takes on a hypnotic quality. At first, the repetition is jarring, but you either get used to it or it burrows into your skull. It becomes a chant in the back of your brain. Much like grief can be or do.

As a reader you should always question repetition. What's the purpose? Why this phrase? Why now? Why so often?

Is Ashley trying to convince us that he becomes loathsome after the sun goes down? Is he trying to convince himself? Or, is it like a recently discovered truth of the self that he's now getting used to? Perhaps it is a combination of the above, either way it feels like a warning. And it feels like something we shouldn't get comfortable with.

What's a proper response to the death of your wife and the disappearance of your child? Would you cover yourself in piercings until you hardly recognize the monster in the mirror? Would you create a ritual, a rebirth of sorts, where people pay to be buried alive for a short amount of time? Because that's what Ashley does. On some level the ritual makes sense but we feel its danger and risk, we feel its power.

Sometimes you sink into grief. Sometimes you grab the reins to speed things up and see how deep it goes. This book feels like the latter. By the end you might find it loathsome or you might find it beautiful, they seem to go hand in hand in this book.

I don't know how we're supposed to feel about Ashley, I imagine each reader will respond in their own way. But I do know the underlying emotions are easily identifiable and just as easily something we can connect with.

Grief is a helluva thing. So is this book. Pick it up dear reader and do your daily meditation.

Holy hell this was SO DARK. I absolutely LOVED this book. Eric LaRocca can write brutality like none other but make it sound like beautifully poetic. This is definitely a must read.

Thank you to Eric LaRocca, Blackstone Publishing, and NetGalley for this early read ARC. Pub Date: January 28, 2025.

Few things thrill me more than diving into a book blind, especially one by Eric LaRocca, whose work never fails to leave a mark. This novel is no exception—a devastating, visceral masterpiece that grabs hold and doesn’t let go.

This is the story of a man consumed by grief. After losing his wife to cancer, his world is obliterated when his young son is abducted during a mundane grocery run. Unable to cope with the enormity of his pain, he retreats into body modifications, reshaping himself into the “monster” he feels he’s become. As he spirals further into self-loathing and isolation, his battle with his bisexuality and his encroaching darkness becomes both horrifying and achingly human.

LaRocca’s prose is hauntingly vivid, peeling back the layers of grief to expose its raw, unrelenting reality. This isn’t a traditional horror story; it’s something far more unsettling—a harrowing exploration of how loss can unmake us, leaving nothing but emptiness in its wake. The protagonist’s pain is suffocating, his journey into darkness as gripping as it is heartbreaking.

What makes this story so powerful is its brutal honesty. It doesn’t shy away from the fragility of life or the crushing isolation of grief. The horror here lies in its truths—the way a single moment can forever alter us, how despair can consume us, and how the worst monsters are often the ones we create within ourselves.

Eric LaRocca has crafted a story that’s equal parts devastating and unforgettable. It’s a chilling reminder of how loss can reshape us in unimaginable ways, forcing us to confront the deepest, darkest parts of ourselves. This book broke my heart and left me haunted.

Content Warning: This book contains depictions of animal abuse, cannibalism, murder, and suicide.

This novel really fell short for me. I wanted to give LaRocca another shot after seeing a lot of potential in Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke, but this was an overall disappointing read.

I will say that the prose is absolutely beautiful with poetic undertones and vivid imagery. But ultimately it has no substance. The story feels aimless with no real plot and the character development is so disjointed it starts to feel completely nonsensical. A huge portion of the book is just gruesome and depraved anecdotes that do nothing to advance or deepen the plot as their only goal is to shock the reader. But once again there is no real substance behind the gory facade.

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review!

Thank you to netgalley and Blackstone for allowing me to read an earc of this book!

At Dark I Become Loathsome by Eric Larocca is a very dark, raw story that follows Ashley Luftin, a dad who describes himself as monstrous and loathsome after losing his wife and son very close to one another. Ashley performs rituals on strangers to give them a near-death or deathlike experience that gives them a new lease on life.

This book is very dark and has times of being depraved. I say that not as a condemnation of the book but has a warning, as I wouldn't want anyone to be upset picking up this book without knowing. Larocca's writing style is very dark but also descriptive. The writing itself is beautiful and very evocative, in a way that completely sucked me in and made this book impossible to put down. I really enjoyed this book, however I wish that the side stories connected to the main story a bit more. Even so I think the mystery made me think deeper about both the side and main stories. Overall, definitely a recommended read for anyone looking for something dark and gut-twisting.

3.75☆ rounded to 4☆

"At night, I become guilty of crimes I haven’t committed, much less even contemplated. I become a caricature of my former self—a creature to be persecuted, loathed, reviled, detested. At nighttime, I’m something to be tortured until condemned—someone completely and forever misunderstood."

it took me so long to process my thoughts about this novella. i enjoy heavy, disturbing reads, and it delivered big time in that regard. ashley's feelings of grief and regret were fully palpable from the very beginning of the story, and the writing was so evocative. i was hooked from page one.

despite a fantastic start, i finished the story with mixed feelings. i found the repetition of certain phrases and sentiments to be much. for example, the phrase, "at night, i become loathsome" was repeated ad nauseam throughout. (no, i did not forget what book i was reading, thank you!)

i wasn't a huge fan of the chat message format either. it works in some stories, but i didn't like it in this one. it was distracting and took away from the narrative, imho.

all told, the story was a win for me tho. after reading things have gotten worse since we last spoke, i wasn't sure about reading more by this author, but i'm glad i gave him another shot as it's convinced me to check out more of his work.