Scowler
By Daniel Kraus
(Delacorte Books for Young Readers, Hardcover, 9780385743099, 304pp.)
Publication Date: March 12, 2013
Other Editions of This Title: Compact Disc
Categories: Social Issues - Physical & Emotional Abuse, Horror & Ghost Stories, Family - Parents
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Imagine your father is a monster. Would that mean there are monsters inside you, too? Nineteen-year-old Ry Burke, his mother, and little sister scrape by for a living on their dying family farm. Ry wishes for anything to distract him from the grim memories of his father's physical and emotional abuse. Then a meteorite falls from the sky, bringing with it not only a fragment from another world but also the arrival of a ruthless man intent on destroying the entire family. Soon Ry is forced to defend himself by resurrecting a trio of imaginary childhood protectors: kindly Mr. Furrington, wise Jesus, and the bloodthirsty Scowler.
DANIEL KRAUS is a writer, an editor, and a filmmaker. He is currently working on an adult novel with Guillermo del Toro, scheduled for late 2013. Daniel lives with his wife in Chicago.
"Daniel Kraus writes raw and deft and dangerous. Consider yourself warned."
—Adele Griffin, two-time National Book Award Finalist and author of All You Never Wanted
“Marvin Burke is one of the great monsters of literature, a figure of immense, credible terror and savagery.” —Cory Doctorow
BoingBoing.net, March 12, 2013:
"This isn't gross-out horror: the terror comes as much from piano-wire taut tension and spectacular characters as from viscera...Kraus's masterful raising-of-stakes makes this into the sort of disaster you can't possibly look away from."
School Library Journal, May 2013:
"This book has the pacing of a Stephen King movie...The metaphor of the meteorite countdown enhances the tense, dark, and creepy chill factor of this gritty, well-written thriller. It’s a perfect choice for mature horror readers who are looking to bridge the gap between YA and adult selections."
Publishers Weekly, January 21, 2013:
"Ry’s desperate journey into manhood is gripping, with Kraus skillfully amplifying a sense of tension and claustrophobia."
Kirkus Reviews, February 15, 2013:
"A Midwestern gothic family saga that will hook readers."
Bloody-Disgusting.com, March 6, 2013:
"Kraus’s story also functions as a look at how intense trauma can fracture and eventually break the human psyche, as seen through the eyes of the fragile, tormented Ry and his three imaginary friends. But above all, Scowler is a hard-edged tale of teenage survival, told with a grim-faced respect for the real life horrors that lurk behind closed doors."
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