Brat by Gabriel Smith is an experimental horror novel that follows a narrator experiencing strange events while attempting to sell his parents’ house after the loss of his father. He moves into the house after a breakup, and he begins to experience weird occurrences. He finds manuscripts that belong to his demented mother that change every time you read them, strange people appearing outside, and an obsessive need to pick at his skin, which has begun to peel off in massive pieces. Our narrator, Gabriel (after the author), attempts to explore the new oddities in his life while attempting to grieve over the loss of his beloved father.
The novel is written in a mixed style composition. While narrating his life to us, Gabriel stumbles upon multiple manuscripts, screenplays, and journal articles written by the people in his life, and they are presented to us in the same way that Gabriel reads them. Later on in the novel, Gabriel discovers a mysterious, haunting manuscript written by his late father about a cryptic television episode that changes every time he watches it. However, when you read this in the novel, it is set up in screenplay format, breaking up the monotonous nature of the narrative. In my opinion, it works very well.
While I do see this work and its primary language very divisive (along with its contents), the way that Smith intertwines different writing formats proves that it was intentional. The way he is able to expertly change tone and voice between the different characters’ written works shows that if you are not a fan of his style for the main part of the novel, it is an artistic disagreement rather than his ability as a writer. In fact, even though I thought the way that he wrote throughout the main narrative was slightly repetitive and vague, the mixed styles were interesting enough for me to understand the choice.
While not necessarily scary, the novel leans heavily into horror themes and motifs. This is absolutely the most interesting and compelling part of the novel. The story itself is enjoyable and thought provoking, but the inclusion of horror mixed into the text elevates the story. Instead of a typical story of grief and loss, Smith explores those feelings in a surrealist way to fully encapsulate what it is like to lose someone you adore.
The novel itself is just under three hundred pages, and it reads even quicker. Because of the mixed writing format, there are a lot of page breaks and empty spaces that take up a lot more room than the story actually does. It is incredibly feasible to read this novel in one sitting, and I may even recommend it. The constant flow between chapters works really well on a never-ending read throughout the book. I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to branch out more in the horror genre and doesn’t want to particularly read something scary, but rather uncomfortable. I do want to give a minor warning to those who are uncomfortable with body horror, as there is quite a bit in Brat.
