Philip Fracassi never fails to shock and surpise use with each new release, constantly delivering work that’s as unsettling as it is emotionally grounded so as to pack that always essential punch of authentic dread.
In his latest novel, Sarafina, Fracassi marches to the beat of a military drum, creating a seemingly safe haven amidst the ongoing civil war; a pocket where grief, buried guilt, and repressed memories are allowed to manifest in ways the battlefield didn’t permit.
The novel focuses on three war-scarred brothers who, choosing to risk execution rather than die in a losing war, desert and set off on a long, arduous journey home. Starving, injured, and hunted, they eventually stumble upon a remote farm in the woods, where a woman named Sarafina and her young son, Titus, offer them shelter and care. But the youngest brother soon starts to question their safety when he discovers a strange creek and a hidden cavern that suggest unimaginable horrors are lurking beneath the land.
The siblings’ struggle with duty, loyalty, hidden guilt, and very real demons escalates to a frenzied, deeply satisfying climax, offering a tense, unflinching & heartfelt meditation on how far survival can push the human spirit, and how much it can break it.
To celebrate the book’s release today, April 7th, CinemaChords’ Howard Gorman sat down with Fracassi to discuss why he considers this his most frightening work yet, and why setting this Grimm-esque fairy tale against the Civil War provided the ideal backdrop for a story to explore themes of patriotism, reliability, liability, and family loyalty.
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