Brainwyrms

“Smart, seething social horror…Rumfitt gives her worms the grotesque and triumphant glory they demand.” ―The New York Times Book ReviewFrom Alison Rumfitt, the author of Tell Me I’m Worthless ― “a triumph of transgressive queer horror” (Publishers Weekly) ― comes Brainwyrms, a searing body horror novel of obsession, violence, and pleasure.A Shirley Jackson Award finalist • A Best Book of 2023 (Reactor)“Alison is like the twisted daughter of Clive Barker and Shirley Jackson.” ―Joe Hill, New York Times bestselling author on Tell Me I'm WorthlessWhen a transphobic woman bombs Frankie’s workplace, she blows up Frankie’s life with it. As the media descends like vultures, Frankie tries to cope with the carnage: binge-drinking, sleeping with strangers, pushing away her friends. Then, she meets Vanya. Mysterious, beautiful, terrifying Vanya.The two hit it off immediately, but as their relationship intensifies, so too does Frankie’s feeling that Vanya is hiding something from her. When Vanya’s secrets threaten to tear them apart, Frankie starts digging, and unearths a sinister, depraved conspiracy, the roots of which go deeper than she ever imagined.Shocking, grotesque, and downright filthy, Brainwyrms confronts the creeping reality of political terrorism while exploring the depths of love, pain, and identity.“[An] intimate, vulnerable triumph.” ―Library Journal, STARRED review“Rumfitt’s talent for portraying the deplorable, disgusting, and grotesque shines throughout her masterful sophomore horror outing.” ―Publishers Weekly, STARRED reviewAlso by Alison Rumfitt:Tell Me I'm Worthless

The New York Times Book Review

“Hogg.””

Library Journal, STARRED review

“[An] intimate, vulnerable triumph.…With biting, abrasive commentary, Rumfitt’s bold prose pulls no punches and refuses to relent....Rumfitt’s tour-de-force work of queer body horror is a must-read for fans of Gretchen Felker-Martin, Eric LaRocca, and Hailey Piper.”

Publishers Weekly, STARRED review

“Rumfitt’s talent for portraying the deplorable, disgusting, and grotesque shines throughout her masterful sophomore horror outing.”

Gretchen Felker-Martin, author of Manhunt

“Filthy, searing, and hideously intimate – a modern classic.”

Andrew Joseph White, New York Times bestselling author of Hell Followed With Us

“The literary equivalent of swallowing a mouthful of maggots and liking it. Rumfitt is a master of disgust, twisting the horrors of transphobia into a hellish masterpiece, and you won’t be able to look away.”

Pride.com

“Brainwyrms solidifies Alison Rumfitt as one of the most stunning voices in modern queer lit.”

Hailey Piper, Bram Stoker Award-winning author of No Gods for Drowning

“A gut-churning infestation mixing extreme depravity with a hive of obsessive violence. Rumfitt consistently has her finger to the societal pulse.”

Eric LaRocca, author of Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke and Other Misfortunes

“Brutal and terrifyingly visceral, Brainwyrms will slither inside unsuspecting readers and lay eggs there―an infection that can never be cured, a book that refuses to be ignored.”

Booklist

“Rumfitt’s follow-up to Tell Me I’m Worthless is positively filthy. It is also angry, hateful, sexual, heartbreaking, and searingly relatable.”

Ally Wilkes, author of All the White Spaces

“Brainwyrms cements Rumfitt's reputation as horror's rising star of the dark, disgusting, and subversive. She writes with compassion and lyricism about the most fucked-up subjects, making her readers complicit in the vile and uncanny.”

Tor.com Praise for Tell Me I'm Worthless

“Rumfitt’s work is extreme body horror that expertly wields the genre like a ritual knife….a challenging but wholly captivating example of how perfectly horror is a vehicle for transformation and self-realization.”

Joe Hill, New York Times bestselling author

“Alison is like the twisted daughter of Clive Barker and Shirley Jackson. Tell Me I’m Worthless is an intense read full of shocks and buckets of gore. It’s brilliant.”

Publishers Weekly, STARRED review

“A triumph of transgressive queer horror.”

Booklist, STARRED review

“Easily one of the strongest horror debuts in recent memory.”

Paul Tremblay, author of The Cabin at the End of the World and The Pallbearers Club

“A gripping, hallucinogenic haunted house novel as righteously angry as it is horrifying, Tell Me I'm Worthless unflinchingly lays bare the personal and cultural scars we wear, endure, and inflict.”

Hailey Piper, Bram Stoker Award-winning author of Queen of Teeth

“A lush masterpiece. Each page crackles with unnerving texture and unsettling sensation, and I felt chewed and digested by the end. Albion is the scariest haunted house since Hill House.”

Gretchen Felker-Martin, author of Manhunt

“Chilling, bone-deep horror as humane as it is hideous. Tell Me I’m Worthless is ambitious, brutal, and brilliant.”

Eric LaRocca, author of Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke

“An utterly harrowing experience. Like all iconic masterworks of horror fiction, Tell Me I'm Worthless rips you apart and then tenderly pieces you together until you're something entirely new.”

Vulture

“Horrifying, provocative, and empathetic yet unflinching.”

Locus

“A hallucinogenic, powerful, transgressive novel that uncompromisingly goes into uncomfortable territory and then wallows there, digging deeper and deeper into the things that make us human, and eventually posits that love might be the way out of the things that trap us the hardest.”

Book Riot

“This amazing work of trans fiction about houses, hauntings, and horrors is going to be the horror book everyone is discussing next year.”

CrimeReads

“Intense…Rumfitt uses body horror and the tropes of the haunted house skillfully to explore the trans experience in an England full of terfs.”

Maya Deane, author of Wrath Goddess Sing

“Tell Me I'm Worthless is a defiant love letter to the lost, reminding us that win or lose, live or die, we can still save our souls by choosing love.”

Library Journal

“This debut is a fantastic and disorienting take on the haunted house trope, but it is also a compelling and emotional story about trauma, fascism, and the hard truth of living an openly trans life in the 21st century.”

Isabel Waidner, author of Sterling Karat Gold and We Are Made of Diamond Stuff

“An important book, as transgressive and trans as they come.”

Julia Armfield, author of Salt Slow and Our Wives Under the Sea

“A sharp and visceral novel which bends the horror genre to its will. Tell Me I’m Worthless holds a gruesome mirror up to the way it feels to live now. I absolutely tore through this book”

Eliza Clark, author of Boy Parts

“Punk in every sense of the word, this is a debut unlike anything you’ve read before. Rumfitt’s horrifying talent shrieks out from every page and rings in your ears for days.”

Lucie McKnight Hardy, author of Water Shall Refuse Them

“The most startlingly original haunted house story I have read, this is intense, multi-layered and very, very creepy.”

Molly Smith, co-author of Revolting Prostitutes

“Gripping, unsettling, compulsive, spicy, and, in the end, deeply moving. I loved it.”

Frankie Miren, author of The Service

“An exquisitely terrifying journey.... Alison Rumfitt’s astute observations of today’s violent cultural landscape work only too well as a tale of gothic horror. But Tell Me I’m Worthless is also full of beauty, empathy and, ultimately, love. I’ll never forget this book.”

Alice Ash, author of Paradise Block

“A deeply affecting and sharp-eyed book, Tell Me I’m Worthless collages and distorts the horror genre to create something truly unique, vastly compelling and very, very frightening.”

Gary Budden, author of London Incognita

“Alison Rumfitt’s superlative trans horror picks a fight with the poisonous state of modernity and fearlessly attacks it head on. Vital, thrilling, utterly alive.”

About the Author

ALISON RUMFITT is a writer, semi-professional trans woman, and the author of Tell Me I'm Worthless. Her debut pamphlet of poetry, The T(y)ranny, was a critical deconstruction of Margaret Atwood’s work through the lens of a trans woman navigating her own misogynistic dystopia. Tell Me I’m Worthless is her debut novel. Her work has appeared in countless publications such as SPORAZINE, datableed, The Final Girls, Burning House Press, SOFT CARTEL, Glass Poetry and more. Her poetry was nominated for the Rhysling Award in 2018. She loves her friends.

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