One of the Best Books of 2025
Elle • Autostraddle • Debutiful • Chicago Review of Books • MUBI • Dazed • LitHub • Library Journal • them • Loosey
A "witty, often-chilling, compulsively readable" (Vogue) horror debut following a woman who seeks refuge at an all-trans girl commune only to discover that demons haunt her fellow comrades-and she's their next prey!
Herculine's narrator has demons. Sure, her life includes several hallmarks of the typical trans girl sob story-conversion therapy, a string of shitty low-paying jobs, and even shittier exes-but she also regularly debates sleep paralysis demons that turn to mist soon after she wakes and carries vials of holy oil in her purse. Nothing, though, prepares her for the new malevolent force stalking her through the streets of New York City, more powerful than any she's ever encountered. Desperate to escape this ancient evil, she flees to rural Indiana, where her ex-girlfriend started an all-trans girl commune in the middle of the woods.
The secluded camp, named after 19th-century intersex memoirist Herculine Barbin, is a scrappy operation, but the shared sense of community among the girls is a welcome balm to the narrator's growing isolation and paranoia. Still, something isn't quite right at Herculine. Girls stop talking as soon as she enters the room, everyone seems to share a common secret, and the books lining the walls of the library harbor strange cryptograms. Soon, what once looked like an escape becomes a trap all its own.
While trying to untangle the commune's many mysteries, the narrator contends with disemboweled pigs, cultlike psychosexual rituals, and the horrors of communal breakfast. And before long, she discovers that her demons have followed her. And this time, they won't be letting her go. Grace Byron is a writer from the Midwest based in Queens. Her writing has appeared in The New Yorker, New York magazine, The Nation, and Vogue, among other outlets. Find her @EmoTrophyWife. Herculine is her debut novel.
