When it comes to the horror genre, ambience is everything. It’s not only the setting of a place but a character in its own right–and it affects the story intimately. There’s a reason why subgenres of horror have different goals. Suburban horror is set in the suburbs and seeks to highlight the dichotomy of safety being threatened. Period horror informs how specific time periods give rise to certain fears and monsters. Urban horror can make one feel small and insignificant in a large, overwhelming city.
And specific cities come with its own personality due to their unique history, demographics and physical layout. New York City, for example, is well known for its grid system, its public transportation, and playful rivalry with the other four boroughs. But if you were to consider a horror tale set within this island, the story could be very different depending on where exactly one is located.
Don’t believe me? Consider jumping into these five Big Apple horror novels to get a taste of what expansive terrors you can find in just one city:
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Victor LaValle, The Changeling
Though this novel tells the tale of first-time father Apollo Kagwa–starting from his own childhood and all the way to the birth of his very own son–the story doesn’t really start there. It starts on a sloop, carrying fearful immigrants across an unforgivable sea to a new world. That new world later becomes New York City. This is the start of many people. Their history, culture, hopes and dreams intertwines, imbuing the city with a magic that is as unfathomable as it is transformative.
But as the Brothers Grimm are apt to tell you, not all magic is good. When tragedy strikes Apollo’s household, robbing him of both his wife and child, he comes to know the city’s sinister enchantments intimately. He travels all over, from Manhattan to Queens and even North Brother Island.
He meets both suspicious allies and honest enemies and learns how that little sloop did not just carry immigrants. It carried something powerful. Something that promised safe passage over an impossible ocean. Something that would come to collect its bloody due, time and time again.
Apollo’s story doesn’t really start from himself–it starts from those who came before him, a long chain of people who have laid the foundations he walks upon. It takes him time to dig deep inside and find his own great power, and when he does, it’s a reckoning that was always a long time coming. Beware–this gothic horror is one that would rival any Grimm’ fairytale.
Nat Cassidy, Nestlings
Nestlings has less to do with the expanse of an entire island, and more to do with a particular building, one designed so beautifully that tourists clamor around it to catch sight of the celebrities who are sure to live inside. Reid and Ana, however, are far from celebrities.
As first time parents who have had a rough year–from dealing with a death in the family and a terrible landlord to a difficult pregnancy that leaves Ana disabled–it feels like their luck is starting to turn when they win a lottery to live in the upscale Deptford apartment building. The building staff are ever so helpful, installing just about anything Ana needs to help her navigate the building with her wheelchair, and Reid is struck by the beauty and history of the architecture.
Yet, something strange seems to be happening to their 1 year old daughter, Charlie. She’s found with odd needle-like punctures in her skin, becomes zombie-like during the day, and wakes her parents with awful shrieks at night. Ana is certain it has something to do with the gargoyles that stand guard around the building, but Reid refuses to hear anything of it. He’s instead entranced by an actual celebrity that lives within the building, an elderly actress whose connection to the Deptford runs far deeper than Reid could ever imagine.
If you thought there could be nothing particularly haunting about an apartment building, Cassidy invites you to think again.
Ryan La Sala, Beholder
To take a break from the usual adult horror novels, let’s talk about Ryan La Sala’s Beholder. This Young Adult novel follows a teen named Athan with an extraordinary power–the ability to turn back time by looking in a mirror.
For that reason alone, he avoids mirrors entirely, something that is certainly a feat in a city as reflective as Manhattan, with its glassy skyscrapers and demand to shine always. Despite living an impoverished life with his elderly grandmother, Athan’s good looks and charming personality often leads him to upscale art scenes among the wealthy elite.
Unfortunately, after a night ends with the unnatural deaths of those elites and his grandmother going missing, Athan is desperate enough to team up with another secretive teen who carries his own baggage. The two work together to penetrate an upper-class occult society and uncover the dark rituals that take place in New York City penthouses and banquets. Soon enough, they come face to face with the creature that is pulling the strings and find out exactly why it wants Athan and his new friend very much.
Beholder is a fascinating study in how wealthy elites will foolishly attempt to control an eldritch horror–and La Sala does not shy away from the tragedy that causes.
Zakiya Dalila Harris, The Other Black Girl
There are a number of high-end industries that New York City is so well-known for, there are endless stories about trying to “make it” in any particular one. The Devil Wears Prada deals with fashion, the Wolf of Wall Street is about finance. One specific industry that doesn’t quite get a lot of attention (in my opinion) is the publishing industry. Maybe that’s because it’s not quite as flashy as fashion or finance, but that doesn’t give it any less of a potential for drama.
Or horror.
In The Other Black Girl, we follow Nella, the only Black employee–and editorial assistant at Wagner Books, a publishing company in New York City. This is no small feat, as any publishing professional can tell you, and yet Nella is consistently overlooked and under-appreciated at her job.
She fields microaggressions daily and walks on eggshells so as not to rock the boat among her less-melanated coworkers. When white authors create racially-offensive archetypes within their stories, she tries to gently steer them away, only to be accosted for offending them.
So imagine how overjoyed Nella becomes when the company finally hires Hazel, another Black woman. It’s a chance for her to feel less alone in a homogenous office, a chance to find some camaraderie. At the very least, it’s a chance to have backup when it comes to white authors who take offense at the slightest criticism.
And yet…there’s something very off about Hazel. The stories she tells Nella doesn’t add up, her relationship with the founder of Wagner books is suspect at best and worst of all, Hazel begins to sabotage Nella professionally.
This horror satire paints a startling picture of what it means when not all skinfolk are kinfolk.
Kylie Lee Baker, Bat Eater and Other Names for Cora Zeng
Anyone can agree that the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic was at its very start, when people could not understand what was causing their loved ones to die suddenly and the government gave confusing–if any–answers. Systemic failures aside, a more acute horror was felt by Chinese Americans everywhere, as propaganda painted them as the villains, responsible for the creation of this virus. Baker’s novel then, set in Chinatown, gives the reader a taste of what the kind of horror such bigotry can inspire.
After Cora Zeng loses her sister in a hate crime, she finds herself adrift and spends her time picking up jobs as a crime scene cleaner. While bloody murders and suicides do little to unsettle her, it gets harder to ignore that many of the recent victims happen to be Chinese Americans, left behind with a dead bat nearby…
If you’re looking for a visceral horror that is equal parts mystery and ghost story, look no further than Bat Eater and Other Names for Cora Zeng.
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