We Are All Completely Fine

Starred review from June 16, 2014
This complex novel—scathingly funny, horrific yet oddly inspiring—constructs a seductive puzzle from torn identities, focusing on both the value and peril of fear. When enigmatic Dr. Jan Sayer gathers survivors of supernatural violence for therapy, she unwittingly unlocks evil from the prison of consciousness. Harrison, a cynical monster-hunter, wallows in lethargy. Suicidal Barbara burns to read the secret messages inscribed on her bones. Cantankerous Stan is the lone survivor of a cannibal feast. After paranoid Martin sees slithery spirits lingering around volatile Greta, a powerful young woman decorated with mystically charged scars, ancient evils usher the rag-tag survivors to a battle with the Hidden Ones, exiled deities trapped in prisons of flesh. Gregory’s beautiful imagery and metaphors bring bittersweet intimacy and tenderness to the primal wonder of star-lit legends. Isolated people, both victims and victimizers, are ghosts in a waking world, blind to their encounters with living nightmares. Blending the stark realism of pain and isolation with the liberating force of the fantastic, Gregory (Afterparty) makes it easy to believe that the world is an illusion, behind which lurks an alternative truth—dark, degenerate, and sublime.

August 1, 2014

Five damaged people attend group therapy organized by psychologist Jan Sayer. Each of them has experienced something horrific: Stan was held captive by a family of serial killers; Harrison hunted monsters at the seashore; Barbara was cut and carved by a madman; Martin never takes off his sunglasses and sees strange creatures on the street. And Greta, well, Greta might have murdered a lot of people. Each group member tells his or her story, some eager to unload, others more slowly, but they all have to face their pasts. VERDICT At just under 200 pages, this is a clever and creepy horror tale from Gregory (Afterparty; The Devil's Alphabet). The head-hopping from character to character can be an annoying narrative technique, but it works in this context. Concisely exploring the nature of fear and isolation, this short novel doesn't have time to develop into anything bigger, but it doesn't need to.

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