Hemlock Grove: A Novel

Brian McGreevy

FSG Originals,  April 2013

An exhilarating reinvention of the gothic novel, inspired by the iconic characters of our greatest myths and nightmares. Now a hit television series on Netflix.

The Monster is Within

The body of a young girl is found mangled and murdered in the woods of Hemlock Grove, Pennsylvania, in the shadow of the abandoned Godfrey Steel mill. A manhunt ensues -- though the authorities aren’t sure if it’s a man they should be looking for.

Some suspect an escapee from the White Tower, a foreboding biotech facility owned by the Godfrey family -- their personal fortune and the local economy having moved on from Pittsburgh steel -- where, if rumors are true, biological experiments of the most unethical kind take place. Others turn to Peter Rumancek, a Gypsy trailer-trash kid who has told impressionable high school classmates that he’s a werewolf. Or perhaps it’s Roman, the son of the late JR Godfrey, who rules the adolescent social scene with the casual arrogance of a cold-blooded aristocrat, his superior status unquestioned despite his decidedly freakish sister, Shelley, whose monstrous medical conditions belie a sweet intelligence, and his otherworldly control freak of a mother, Olivia.

At once a riveting mystery and a fascinating revelation of the grotesque and the darkness in us all, Hemlock Grove has the architecture and energy to become a classic in its own right -- and Brian McGreevy the talent and ambition to enthrall us for years to come.

Now a Netflix original series from director Eli Roth and creators Brian McGreevy and Lee Shipman.

paperback | ISBN: 9780374534462 | Publication Date: April 2013

Reviews:

"Brian McGreevy's debut novel, Hemlock Grove, is a werewolf-and-vampire-replete murder mystery. But if your thoughts just veered into Twilight territory, please shut them up: This is not prepubescent catnip with an overarching abstinence message."
-- Lauren Bans, GQ

"This is . . . horror with a respect for its literary antecedents."
-- Yvonne Zipp, The Washington Post

"[Hemlock Grove] sounds like Twilight but is the farthest thing from it. McGreevy writes with a facility that recalls Jonathans Lethem and Franzen, and his short, quixotic chapters are masterworks of holding the unspeakable just far enough offstage to make it genuinely unnerving."
-- Daniel Kraus, Booklist

"It takes a rare stroke of genius to reconfigure the gothic novel within the postindustrial barrens of steel country, and another entirely to upstage this conceit with a mythic and ambitious story of adolescence and alienation. Like a collaboration between Edgar Allan Poe and J. D. Salinger, this is a real emerging talent."
--
Philipp Meyer, author of American Rust

"A wonderfully creative and twisted reinvention of classic monster archetypes, wrapped up in a mysterious thriller. I loved it. Brian McGreevy is a welcome new voice in horror literature, but be warned: it's not for the faint of heart, or stomach."
-- Eli Roth, director of Hostel

"Werewolfery is just not what it used to be."
-- Susannah Meadows, The New York Times

"Thrilling, archetypal . . . [and] profoundly American . . . Clever and written with reverence toward its genetic forebearers. McGreevy's grasp of the cannon he may someday join is astounding, leaving other writers with vampiric inclinations behind in the dust . . . A triumph."
-- Emily Goldsher, Vol. 1 Brooklyn

"Redeems monsters from literary cliche."
-- Pittsburgh Tribune-Review