Philip Fracassi's Altar was published in January 2016 and Mother in December 2015. Both of them were published by Dunhams Manor Press.
Information about Philip Fracassi:
Philip Fracassi, an author and screenwriter, lives in Los Angeles.
He has worked in the entertainment industry for over 20 years and was the founder of Equator Books, a publishing house and rare, out-of-print bookstore in Venice, CA.
Prior to publishing, he spent seven years as a live music producer for House of Blues Entertainment, producing concert DVD’s for The Psychedelic Furs and Public Enemy and more than 3,000 live internet broadcasts with bands such as The Cure, Motley Crue and Depeche Mode. He also produced the first live streaming concert ever broadcast over the internet.
Philip currently works full-time in the film industry and on his writing. His screenplay credits include “Girl Missing,” distributed by Mar Vista Entertainment (2015) for Lifetime Television and “Santa Paws 2: The Santa Pups,” distributed by Disney Home Entertainment (2012). Films in development include “Escape the Night,” “The Boys in the Valley,” “Gothic,” and “Vintage.” Visit his IMDB page for more on his film projects.
His horror novelette, “Mother,” is currently available through Dunhams Manor Press.
His literary novel, “The Egotist” is available online. His new horror novelette, “Altar,” is currently available via Amazon.com and Dunhams Manor Press.
Click here to visit his official website.
Information about Altar:
Altar is a story about a young boy, his sister and their mother, who decide to visit the community swimming pool for an afternoon of leisure and play in the warm summer sunshine, only to have things go... well, it is a horror story, after all.
Information about Mother:
Like the universe itself, the world of relationships can be mysterious, terrifying, beautiful, and ever-expansive. Within the cocoon of a marriage, the bond between two people can become predatory, often selfish. Emotions become conniving, thoughts turn deadly. And if that swirling organism of love and anguish blurs into the dark realm of the supernatural, anything can happen...
A REVIEW OF PHILIP FRACASSI'S ALTAR AND MOTHER
This is a joint review of Philip Fracassi's two horror stories, Altar and Mother.
I'm glad I had an opportunity to read and review these stories, because they're well written and intriguingly unsettling horror stories. They're among the best new horror stories I've ever read, because the author's dark imagination has produced something that is not easily forgotten.
After reading these stories, I can state that I consider Philip Fracassi to be one of the most promising and talented new horror authors to emerge during the recent years. He has his own writing style and he's capable of blending classic and modernt elements in a satisfyingly original way. His stories have a fascinating touch of creepiness found in old-fashioned horror stories and classic weird fiction. Along with Clint Smith, Livia Llewellyn, Michael Wehunt, Scott Nicolay, Laird Barron and Nathan Ballingrud, he's one of the best new authors of horror fiction, because his stories contain addictive weird fiction elements.
Because I've been a dedicated fan of weird fiction for a long time, I was impressed by these stories. I found them fully satisfying and wonderfully creepy, and I was positively surprised by their quality.
Here's a bit of information about the stories:
- Altar: A young boy called Gary visits a swimming pool with his mother, Martha, and his sister, Abby. Soon something goes horribly wrong and the visit to the pool turns into something terrifying and unexpected...
- Mother: Howard and Julie get married, but after a while their marriage begins to decline. Howard notices that something strange is going on with Julie, because she seems to change...
In Altar, the author writes perfectly about Gary's life and feelings. He also fluently refers to Martha's drinking problems and what happened to her marriage. What happens at the pool is memorable and terrifying, because when a crack appears at the bottom of the pool, the story slowly turns into a cosmic horror story.
In Mother, the author's vision of marriage and parenthood is truly something to behold, because he writes insightfully about these issues and scares his readers with well-chosen supernatural elements. The author writes excellently about marriage and its decline, because it was fascinating to read about Howard's feelings towards Julie. I also enjoyed the ending, because it was brilliant.
When I read Mother, I got the feeling that the author wrote surprisingly honestly and viscerally about the marriage between Howard and Julie, because their slowly disintergrating marriage felt hopeless and doomed to fail, but a child changed it for a while. I liked this very much, because I've always been drawn to nuanced writing that reveals what goes on beneath the surface. Many authors merely scratch the surface, but Philip Fracassi goes beyond it.
Altar features one of the best descriptions of childhood happenings I've read in a long while. The author pays attention to what Gary feels and how he reacts to things. I also want to mention that what is revealed about the pool is impressive, and what happens to Gary's sister is quite nasty.
One of the most important reasons why I enjoy these stories is that they feel simultaneously familiar yet strange, and they gradually develop into unsettling stories filled captivating weirdness. I also enjoy the author's way of writing about the characters and their lives.
The atmosphere is perfect and intriguingly menacing in these stories. I love the way the author creates a feeling that something's not right. When you read these stories, you'll quickly notice that you get a feeling that something bad is about to happen, but you can't quite put your finger on what's going to happen.
What makes these stories especially effective is Philip Fracassi's uncanny ability to blur the line between the supernatural and the reality. His vision of supernatural and surreal happenings feels genuinely disturbing, because it's partially connected to reality. In these stories, everyday happenings suddenly take a turn for the macabre.
These stories are perfect examples of how to combine quiet horror, brutality, emotions, creepiness, intimacy and weirdness in a successful and unforgettable way. Not many authors have the ability to make this kind of stories interesting, but Philip Fracassi has this ability and he uses it wonderfully. He's a gifted storyteller who weaves a web of strangeness and dread over his readers and lures them on a terrifying journey towards a memorable and terrifying climax.
I like the author's raw and striking prose, because it fits the stories. His writing is in equal parts beautiful, lyrical, brutal and haunting. If he were to write different kind of prose, his stories wouldn't be as powerful as they are. His prose emphasises the strange atmosphere and his descriptions of the happenings make readers uncomfortable.
I sincerely hope that Philip Fracassi will continue to write this kind of horror fiction, because he clearly has a talent for writing memorable stories. I look forward to reading more stories written by him. I have a feeling that we can expect great things from him.
If you're looking for new horror fiction to read and are fascinated by weird fiction, I highly recommend taking a look at these two amazing stories. You won't regret reading them, because they're amazing and captivating in their strangeness. They're wonderful weird fiction.
Highly recommended!