To be honest, every book [I write] has different origins. I remember reading a lot about recruitment videos for Al Qaeda. TikTok and Facebook were being used as recruitment tools for terrorist cells. It was rare, but there was a lot of pearl-clutching when some young suburban white woman was radicalized. To me, that was so fascinating, because on some level, regardless of where these radicalizations came from, there was always a moment where the common refrain from family members was that they weren’t like themselves anymore. They were possessed. You could start listing instances that were said about someone. It was never one thing. It was never just Fox News, or just Facebook. I’ve had family members caught up in the wellness craze that existed before Goop. There’s a mistrust in conventional medicine, where people leap over doctors into untested, unregulated [medicine]. To me, that was alarming, because it was all coming from Facebook ads and memes. It’s like a sinkhole. From doing the deep dive, it’s like wellness culture leads to right-wing extremism. It’s so apparent. There’s like a digital paper trail to maneuver. It’s easy for an outside observer to see it, but if you’re caught in that rabbit hole, it’s terrifying, because you’re just not aware of it.
It makes me think “what’s going to be MY rabbit hole?”
― Clay McLeod Chapman, Interview, Macabre Daily
What booksellers are saying about Wake Up and Open Your Eyes
- This may be Chapman’s most brutal yet! Noah is used to his Boomer parents being unreasonable about things and that they’re getting increasingly more racist and right-wing as they age – but he’s not prepared for what happens when the Great Reawakening hits. People have been turned into zombies through right-wing news outlets and social media links and the results are horrifying. Can Noah and his nephew get out of Richmond VA safely – and what will happen to them if they can? This book is tense, timely, and terrifying and it might just make you unplug forever.
― Andrea Richardson, Fountain Bookstore in Richmond, Virginia | BUY
- More orgies per page than any book i’ve ever read. absolutely insane and chilling, chapman’s best so far.
― Meagan Smith, Righton Books in St Simons Island, Georgia | BUY
- Deeply outlandish yet relatable in the scariest sense. This book will make your skin crawl and fill you with an overwhelming sense of dread that will stick around for days.
― Kassie Weeks, Oxford Exchange in Tampa, Florida | BUY
- FAX news is brainwashing our nation. Noah Fairchild no longer recognizes his parents. Literally. Did he really just unhinge his dad’s jaw by shoving the remote control down his throat sideways? “The Great Reawakening” has invaded far-right news and social media in the most terrifying way possible as family turns on family, neighbor on neighbor. Part apocalyptic but mostly slap you in the face metaphorical, this book is 1000% my jam! If I am looking for grotesque, shocking, controversial, skin crawling imagery, then I have to look no further than the modern horror master, Clay McLeod Chapman.
― Suzanne Carnes, Underground Books in Carrollton, Georgia | BUY
About Clay McLeod Chapman
Clay McLeod Chapman writes novels, comic books, and children’s books, as well as for film and TV. He is the author of the horror novels The Remaking, Whisper Down the Lane, Ghost Eaters, and What Kind of Mother. He also co-wrote Quiet Part Loud, a horror podcast produced by Jordan Peele’s Monkeypaw for Spotify. Visit him at claymcleodchapman.com.
If you talk about witches nowadays and you ask somebody to picture a witch, they’d probably say a pointy hat, a broom, a black cat. They are no longer considered malevolent.
