- Format
- Paperback
- Pages
- 140
- ISBN
- 978-1-951971-25-0
- Price
- $18
- Publication Date
- March 25, 2025
Root Rot
Saskia Nislow
Come meet The Liar, The Secret Keeper, The Crybaby, and the rest.
Nine children travel with their families to their Grandfather’s vacation property, where strange things begin to happen: eyes blink from the bottom up, mushrooms ooze blood, people's faces don’t hang right anymore—except they do, once you look more closely. Transformations warp the children’s sense of time and place, the very land itself seeming to encroach upon them.
As The Liar watches the children succumb one by one to an unknown fate, she must make sense of absent stars in the night sky, vials of amber liquid that taste of milk, a funny little rope tied in knots. She’s faced with a choice: join or resist, only the choice is not so simple.
Set in The Grandfather’s Lake House as he continues to extend his property lines and told in the eerie we of the children, Root Rot explores predatory family dynamics, the boundaries of bodies and home, and how individuals choose to participate in or push back against structures that would harm them.
Praise for Root Rot
“Dysfunctional family dynamics find a potent natural outlet in Nislow’s eerie and lush body-horror debut. The writing is elegant and focused as it delineates a large and complex cast, and the grimy rot that underlies the story pays off with several enjoyably nasty scenes and images that will haunt readers. Dense, atmospheric, and creepy, this marks Nislow as a writer to watch.” —Publishers Weekly
“Is there no limit to the eerie power of Saskia Nislow’s mind? Root Rot is a feral garden of uncanny pleasures, each one more freshly, creepily imagined than the last. This visceral work of ecohorror gripped me so thoroughly I fear some part of me will always be there, at the Lakehouse, searching for The Baby and tromping across the wet lawn. Spellbinding.” —Megan Milks, author of Margaret and the Mystery of the Missing Body
“Surreal, fable-like, yet eerily recognizable, this tale of a haunted family vacation evokes childhood memories even as it twists them into strange and nightmarish shapes. A singularly uncanny and artfully insinuating book.” —Dan Chaon, author of Ill Will
“Captivating and compelling…Root Rot is a horror novel filled with suspense and unsettling images as it traces the strange occurrences at a family lake house.” —Foreword Reviews
“Saskia Nislow’s Root Rot is an eerie and enchanting tale that wraps its grimy fingers into your very heart and refuses to let go. Through uncanny, lyrical prose and a delightfully folkloric story, Nislow spins a fairy tale that will linger in your mind long, long after the book itself is finished.” —Dori Lumpkin, author of Antenora
“A fairy tale that uses body horror, unnatural happenings, and unreliable adults to perfectly capture the unique horrors of childhood. Root Rot creeps around the edges of your mind, then grabs you and plunges you into a kaleidoscopic nightmare where creatures scurry in shadows, siblings transform into strangers, and adults are monsters. A truly terrifying novel.” —Mark Harris, co-owner of Stanza Books
“Atmospheric, captivating, and haunting! Nislow has created a curious novel that lets you enter into this family’s life in a series of kaleidoscopic vignettes that bleed seamlessly from one to the next. I could not resist the desire to pick away at what exactly was happening with this family and if anything nefarious or necrotic was hidden under their metaphorical (or potentially literal) floorboards. You won’t want to miss this unsettlingly eerie and emotional exploration into family dynamics and the fear of not fitting in.” —Chesli Lobue, Murder by the Book
“Saskia Nislow’s entrancing debut novella is a gothic fever dream, filled with a sense of creeping dread and longing that oozes from every page. Root Rot ’s rhapsodic folk tale seizes you as it blooms into a nightmare fantasia. Beautiful and engrossing!” —Lauren Komer and Jason Mellow, co-owners of The Twisted Spine
