Wake Up and Open Your Eyes by Clay McLeod Chapman: A Masterclass in Horror Writing

Wake Up and Open Your Eyes by Clay McLeod Chapman: A Masterclass in Horror Writing

Wake Up and Open Your Eyes by Clay McLeod Chapman, A Horror Book Review by Debra K. Every

If you ever get a chance to watch a live performance of Clay McLeod Chapman, grab it. There is no one who exudes the energy and pure joy – yes, joy – of horror. You will find that same breakneck, rollercoaster ride of terror in his newest novel, Wake Up and Open Your Eyes, a political commentary on who we are and what we are in danger of becoming. And man, the way Chapman tells it will get your pulse racing and put your imagination into overdrive. Wake Up and Open Your Eyes is a primal scream of social angst told in a frenetically paced novel aimed at the core of where we are in the world today. 

For weeks Noah Fairchild has been getting increasingly panicked calls from his mother in Virginia. Noah lives in Brooklyn and as far as his politically conservative mother is concerned, Noah and his wife and daughter are in terrible danger from a threat she can’t even name. But the trouble doesn’t really begin until her calls end. To make matters worse, his parents stop answering their phone. Being the good son that he is, Noah climbs into his car and makes the seven-hour trip down south, imagining ever-worsening scenarios along the way.

But nothing could have prepared him for what he finds when he gets there.

His parents’ home is in disarray; shattered pictures on the floor; rotted food in the fridge. And every television in every room is on, tuned to the same cable news network. Fax (yes, Fax) News. There’s a slick anchorman named Paul Tammany peppering his commentary with the hypnotic mantra, WAKE UP. OPEN YOUR EYES. As luck (luck?) would have it, Noah has arrived on December 20th—the very day of the Great Reawakening. (Get ready, people. One hour to go-time). The countdown has begun. When it reaches zero we’re shoved into an accelerating train barreling toward a tale of possession, terror, and madness.

In just a few opening chapters, Wake Up and Open Your Eyes has it all. Worry, moving to shock; then fear and, finally, unimaginable violence. Chapman doesn’t wait. He pulls out all the stops and, in the hands of a less gifted writer, the narrative at this point would have had nowhere to go. Not so, here. In the chapters that follow, right up until the end, Chapman casts an ever-widening net—concentric circles grabbing everyone in its path. Men, women, kids of every age—everybody gets sucked into what is, essentially, demonic possession taking over half the country.

At first blush, Wake Up and Open Your Eyes is a damning indictment of conservative media.

But before you start feeling all warm and fuzzy that Chapman has focused on one group, one political persuasion, keep reading. He eventually sets his sites on the other half. The fact that he waits, makes his indictment that much more effective. It comes at the very moment many of us will be sitting back, sagely nodding our heads saying, “See. They are headed for a cliff.” (Ah, the powerful ‘they’.) 

Bottom line? This is no horror novel for liberals. This is a social horror parable that examines the schism we are all experiencing. The cognitive dissonance at Thanksgiving dinners. Friends severing ties over political differences. Angry social media rants. Fear at what the future holds. Wake Up and Open Your Eyes explores what happens when information comes at us so quickly, we don’t know what to believe, so we cling to our chosen clan, fighting anything and anyone that threatens its sanctity. 

If we haven’t felt this schism directly we’ve certainly heard about it. No one is immune. But what makes Wake Up and Open Your Eyes unique is Chapman’s voice—an unhinged stream of consciousness; an inner monologue, rife with what-ifs gone awry. If you’ve worried about it, Chapman has co-opted it, turning your worst fears into the unimaginable. He has done what great writers do. He has gauged the power of our collective boogeyman and twisted it, mutated it. He’s grown it into a monster. Then he shoves a brightly lit mirror into our face to show us that, yes, the monster is us.

One of the great things about Clay McLeod Chapman is the breadth of his writing.

He has explored multiple horror subgenres and has made forays into nearly every permutation. Novels, short stories, chapbooks, comics, plays. His work has even been adapted onto film. Chapman’s output is a kind of all-you-can-eat buffet of everything that horror can be. And to think it was fifth grade summer camp that started it all. 

As Chapman tells it on The Nerd Count Podcast, he was sitting around a campfire listening to the counselors tell ghost stories, completely immersed in a sensory experience that only a story heard live can provide. He was surrounded by the woods, the crickets; sensed the feeling on the back of his neck. As he puts it, “Every nerve was on point.” It was a seminal moment.

Many of us may remember a time when a door opens, showing something new, something special.

But Chapman took that moment and ran with it. What I find particularly interesting is that, twenty-five years ago, he widened his scope to include his own brand of performing. The Pumpkin Pie Show was a showcase featuring Chapman and a cadre of actor friends sharing short stories in the black box theaters of lower Manhattan. Nothing is more effective at teaching pacing than performing in front of a live audience. And that’s the point. Chapman understands pacing and drama at a deep level, bringing that same sensibility into his writing. It’s what sets him apart. It’s the reason his novels hit home. 

Wake Up and Open Your Eyes feels like the culmination of it all. His early years teaching, his writing, and his performing. A triple threat that hits its mark, dead on.

There will be people who will love this book and there will be people who will be disturbed by it. But no one will come away with a shrug. And that is the best kind of literature. Something that makes us feel, deeply. That hits us where we live. Something that begins a conversation at a time when that conversation is essential for survival. Wake Up and Open Your Eyes is that book. And, folks, it’s one helluva ride.

Wake Up and Open Your Eyes by Clay McLeod Chapman

The Americans meets The Exorcist as a suburban family are radicalised by a demonic force, seeping through social media and twenty-four hour news cycles. Perfect for fans of Delilah S. Dawson, Gretchen Felker-Martin and Jordan Peele.

Noah Fairchild has been losing his formerly polite Southern parents to far-right cable news for years, so when his mother leaves him a voicemail warning him that the “Great Reckoning” is here, he assumes it’s related to one of the many conspiracy theories she believes in. But when his own phone calls go unanswered, Noah makes the long drive from Brooklyn to Richmond, Virginia. There, he discovers his childhood home in shambles, a fridge full of spoiled food, and his parents locked in a terrifying trance-like state in front of the TV. Panicked, Noah attempts to snap them out of it and get medical help.

Then Noah’s mother brutally attacks him.

But Noah isn’t the only person to be attacked by a loved one. Families across the country are tearing each other apart-–literally-–as people succumb to a form of possession that gets worse the more time they spend watching particular channels, using certain apps, or visiting certain websites. In Noah’s Richmond-based family, only he and his young nephew Marcus are unaffected. Together, they must race back to the safe haven of Brooklyn–-but can they make it before they fall prey to the violent hordes?

This ambitious, searing novel from “one of horror’s modern masters” holds a mirror to our divided nation, and will shake readers to the core.

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