In high school, decidedly not-with-it Art Barbara is befriended by a girl who's the epitome of chic when she joins the volunteer pallbearers club he has formed to assist at funerals. That she takes pictures of the corpses is one of many unsettling things about her that boil over decades later when Art writes a memoir about the club. From Bram Stoker/British Fantasy winner Tremblay; with a 75,000-copy first printing.

"I am not Art Barbara," declares the narrator of this ambitious, metafictional pseudo-vampire thriller set in 2007 from Tremblay (Survivor Song), but he adds he'll be calling himself that throughout the memoir that follows. In 1988, Art began the Pallbearers Club in high school in Beverly, Mass., to serve as attendants at funerals that would otherwise be without mourners. One member of Art's club is the pseudonymous Mercy Brown, named by Art after a late 19th-century New England vampire. Mercy contributes to the "manuscript" that is this book, sniping at Art's characterizations of her and appending extended remarks to each chapter. Art, an unsuccessful musician who's constantly doubting himself, comes to believe that Mercy is a vampire, subtly leeching life from him, and that he's a vampire as well. Eventually, Art has recurring sightings and visions of jackets with faces draining the life from victims. Tremblay has a way with words ("Time is not linear but a deck of cards that is continuously shuffled"), and Mercy's snarky commentary contrasts nicely with Art's often maudlin narrative. This one will find a certain readership, but its overall oddness will keep it niche. Agent: Stephen Barbara, InkWell Management. (July)

In his brilliant new novel, Tremblay (Survivor Song, 2020) takes on the well-mined small-town, coming-of-age horror trope, transforming it into something so original, it elevates the entire genre. From the title page, readers are introduced to the unsettling memoir (or is it a novel?) by Art Barbara, a stand-in for the troubled man Tremblay could have become, as text is crossed out and replaced by the story's other protagonist, Mercy, who also caps off each chapter with her own commentary and context. Art recounts his life from 1988--2017, beginning when, as an awkward high-school senior, he created a club to assist at poorly attended funerals and met vampire-obsessed Mercy, his only club mate. He grows into a man with prematurely declining health and a passion for punk rock. The intimate and playful nature of their conversation on the page draws readers in immediately, but as the novel continues, the chapters get longer and more immersive as an intense unease envelopes the narrative. Everyone's reliability is questioned--reader included--and all are held captive until the extremely disquieting conclusion. For fans of thought-provoking, pervasively creepy horror that crawls under the skin and won't let go, like works by Grady Hendrix and T. Kingfisher.