Suburban Hell

June 20, 2022
Kilmer’s debut, a playful but poorly executed horror send-up of suburban life, struggles to settle into a consistent tone in the lulls between some delightfully over-the-top moments. Amy Foster and her best friends, Jess, Melissa, and Liz, exist on the outskirts of the Whispering Farms subdivision’s social hierarchy. Their lives are turned upside down when the christening of the group’s She Shed opens a portal to hell and compassionate Liz is possessed by a demon. As Liz alternately shocks the neighborhood with dramatic new fashions and a don’t-care attitude, degenerates into a pallid husk of her old self, and tries to kill her friends and their children, Amy works to convince her doubtful friends that demons are real and that their friend group alone can save both Liz and the neighborhood. A melancholy subplot about the death of Amy’s sister years earlier adds little and Kilmer’s critique of suburban life lacks bite, as the neighbors are annoying at worst. The story flounders awkwardly in the space between comedy and chiller such that even the darkest scenes don’t evoke fear. There’s the kernel of a great story here, but Kilmer doesn’t quite pull it off. Agent: Holly Root, Root Literary.

August 1, 2022
Unemployed social worker Amy and her friends--exercise enthusiast Jess, mother hen Liz, and hard-working Melissa--are excited to have a clubhouse for their group's monthly movie-and-drinks nights. But when they break ground in Liz's backyard for the "She Shed," an unholy smell is released, along with an unholy presence. Soon, Liz turns listless and cruel, household items such as Roombas and weed whackers attack the women out of nowhere, and Amy's daughter is plagued by visions of a malevolent woman. Research at the historical society in their upscale Chicago suburb reveals the identity of the angry spirit, but the friends are going to need to tap into their reserves of strength and love for each other to force it to relinquish its hold on Liz. This novel about the horrors of suburbia--both supernatural and terrestrial in origin--has plenty of genuinely funny moments and relatively few real scares. More Desperate Housewives than The Amityville Horror, this is a good fit for fans of Grady Hendrix's My Best Friend's Exorcism (2016), Rachel Harrison's The Return (2020), or Junji Ito's horror manga Uzumaki (2008).

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