Wake Up and Open Your Eyes 👁️

By Clay McLeod Chapman.

In Wake Up and Open Your Eyes, Noah Fairchild has spent years watching his formerly polite Southern parents fall under the sway of far-right television.

When his mother leaves him a cryptic voicemail about the “Great Reawakening,” Noah dismisses it as just another conspiracy theory. But when his calls to them go unanswered, he sets out on a tense journey from Brooklyn to Richmond, Virginia.

What Noah finds is both heartbreaking and horrifying: his childhood home is in ruins, the fridge is full of rotting food, and his parents are in a trance-like state, utterly consumed by the television. When Noah tries to intervene, the situation takes a terrifying turn as his mother violently attacks him.

Soon, Noah realises this is no isolated incident. Across the country, people are succumbing to a sinister form of possession linked to specific television channels, apps, and websites. This phenomenon transforms loved ones into unrecognisable and dangerous versions of themselves.

In Noah’s family, only he and his young nephew Marcus appear unaffected. Together, they must escape to Brooklyn, but the journey is fraught with danger as chaos engulfs the nation.

Clay McLeod Chapman’s Wake Up and Open Your Eyes delivers a harrowing blend of visceral horror and sharp social commentary. The story’s chilling depiction of possession doubles as a powerful metaphor for the polarising effects of media and ideology. Chapman's urgent, chaotic prose heightens the tension, immersing readers in a world teetering on the edge of destruction.

This gripping book is as thought-provoking as it is terrifying. Whether you find it unsettling or cathartic will depend on your viewpoint, but it is undeniably bold and timely.

Thank you so much to Bahar and the team at Titan Books for sending me a finished copy of the book!

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