This terrifying horror novel proves: Nothing is old if you make it new

Few things have the staying power of horror tropes. Ghosts. Demonic possession. Zombies. Haunted houses. Vampires. Werewolves. Witches. Masked slashers of the human and supernatural varieties. Aliens. Tentacled monsters. Strange sounds in the middle of the night. Nonfiction narratives about the current state of the world.

The list goes on and on, and horror fiction lovers keep going back to those tropes, to that literary soul food, because it satisfies a special kind of hunger. Ah, but that staying power comes at a price: Breathe new life into these tropes with a unique voice or get thrown in the heap of the mere imitators, the writers who instead of soul food deliver the same old, tasteless soup from a can. But how do you make a cliché feel new, unique and exciting?

Nat Cassidy’s When the Wolf Comes Home is both a wildly entertaining novel and a superb answer to that question. In a nutshell, Cassidy wrote a great werewolf — or a “wolf-bear-thing” — novel by not writing a werewolf novel.

Jess is a cliché; a struggling actress with big LA dreams working as a waitress and cleaning bathrooms to get by. After an awful incident in which she stabs herself with a dirty needle while cleaning a mess in the bathroom, Jess comes home and instead of rest finds a 5-year-old runaway slithering around in the bushes outside her apartment. A few minutes later, a lot of people are dead and Jess finds herself running away from a monster with the kid in tow.

That synopsis covers the novel’s setup and stops at the right moment. When you read that, it sounds like a werewolf novel. And that’s what Cassidy wants. You know werewolf novels. You know about their smell and the painful transformations and the hunger, always the hunger. But there is no regular werewolf here. No howling at the full moon or heroes putting silver bullets in their guns. No, Cassidy made the werewolf a different creature — mainly a broken, desperate father. He also made the little boy a very special kid with an incredibly dangerous gift. Oh, and Jess is a very complex, very human character who must keep herself and the boy safe while learning as she goes — and simultaneously mourning the death of her estranged father.

Each character is much more than the archetype they would play if this were a prosaic werewolf novel: monster, gifted kid, final girl. Cassidy understands that horror only works when there is empathy, and he spends a lot of time making sure we know these characters, that we care about them and understand why they hurt. That dose of humanity — of emotion, of hope — is strong enough to make you forget about the shapeshifting and slobbering jaws for pages at a time.

While great characterization and writing that packs an emotional punch are great elements to have in any novel, what truly makes When the Wolf Comes Home stand out is Cassidy’s voice and the way he constantly balances the narrative. The writing is quick and snappy with bursts of violence and gore that are always countered by vignettes of deep emotion or introspection. And then there’s the fun. A lot of wild, bloody fun. Instead of constant dread, Cassidy likes to sprinkle in some humor. Yes, a horrible death is a possibility, but how fun is it to imagine a kid whose fears can kill people stumbling across a Halloween display at a store? Yes, horror can be a lot of fun, and that’s what makes When the Wolf Comes Home special. This novel takes elements of contemporary horror — a fresh voice, a new angle, diversity — and mixes them with a bizarro fiction approach to reality — there are no rules, reality is flexible, cartoons can come to life, and the laws of physics don’t really matter as long as the story is great.

When an author is relatively new, it can take a while to identify some of their traits, the things that may or may not give their oeuvre a sense of cohesion. After a fresh take on ghosts in Mary, his debut novel, a twist on vampires in Nestlings, and now a shapeshifting werewolf novel that’s much more than it promises, it’s clear that Cassidy wants to show that nothing is old if you make it new, and that no trope is too tired in the hands of a good storyteller.

Gabino Iglesias is an author, book reviewer and professor living in Austin, Texas.