The Saint Sadist Sequel

Six years ago, I released a book through CV Hunt's Grindhouse Press called Saint Sadist. If any of my books are going to outlive me, it will most likely be that one. This is the book that people bring up to me the most. I've had a reader ask to have its title tattooed across her knees. It was nominated for a Splatterpunk Award. When my partner came down to Killer Con for an afternoon, readers and friends who took the time to tell her how much they loved my writing used Saint Sadist as an example.

It's my most unique work. Is it my most extreme? That's hard to say. I guess that depends on what your triggers are. There's a scene in Gods of the Dark Web that gives it a run for its money.

But still, the book's success haunts me.

It came about through a perfect storm of personal growth, reading extensively outside my genre, and having time on my hands due to a long commute and a social media blackout that lasted several months.

Earlier that year, I wound up in the hospital. I was overwhelmed with unresolved trauma, keeping my family together, substance abuse, and the state of the world. I needed to check out temporarily from reality, or I was going to check out permanently from life.

I needed to handle my shit. Part of that was getting on the right medicine. Part of that was getting out there and broadening my friend circle. Part of that was taking a long weekend to do nothing but work on myself. The hospital stay helped me do all these things.

When I got back to life, I knew logging back onto the socials was a terrible idea because I was still in a vulnerable mental state. I stayed off them from May of 2018 until January of 2019. I also re-enrolled in school.

Traveling to Texas State University from my house in North Austin provided the opportunity to consume a ton of books on audio. As a student, I had access to the university's library, and instead of looking for my usual horror titles, I dug into the classics, stuff they make you read in school. Henry Miller. William Faulkner. Ovid. John Milton. Rebecca Du Maurier. Epic poetry meshed in my brain with stream-of-consciousness prose. All of it instilled vivid imagery in my subconscious. Perhaps none more than Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury (a book that taught me how to depict the intrusive thoughts I experienced) and Milton's Paradise Lost (a poem that's heretical in its themes and beautiful in its construction).

Those works and others inspired me the way horror hadn't in a long time. Horror was and is in my heart, but at that stage of my life, I needed something else as a reader.

Because I was off social media, I took to writing on my phone instead of posting or doomscrolling. I began construction of a horror narrative written in a style uncommon to the genre. It was an organic process because of my headspace after the hospital stay and my excitement of reading books I'd never expected to read. Seriously, no one sets out to read Milton or Faulkner for fun, but I made it fun.

And I wrote my ass off. From October to December, I wrote on my phone as I walked to and from class, emailed my work to myself, and repeated the process throughout the week. Eventually, I had a book that has stuck with people like nothing else I've done.

As much as I'd like to say that such work is easily repeatable, that simply isn't true. While I do recognize myself in it, it came from a chapter of my life that is long past.

So, will I ever write another Saint Sadist? The short answer is 'no, but I can assure you, dear friends, that I will always strive to write with the same level of honesty and attention to detail that made it so resonant.' I'm just in a different chapter (or 'era,' as the cool kids say).

What chapter am I in? Well, that's a topic for another essay.