#BookReview ‘Wake Up And Open Your Eyes’ by Clay McLeod Chapman

About the book…

The Americans meets The Exorcist as a suburban family are radicalised by a demonic force, seeping through social media and twenty-four hour news cycles. Perfect for fans of Delilah S. Dawson, Gretchen Felker-Martin and Jordan Peele.

Noah Fairchild has been losing his formerly polite Southern parents to far-right cable news for years, so when his mother leaves him a voicemail warning him that the “Great Reckoning” is here, he assumes it’s related to one of the many conspiracy theories she believes in. But when his own phone calls go unanswered, Noah makes the long drive from Brooklyn to Richmond, Virginia. There, he discovers his childhood home in shambles, a fridge full of spoiled food, and his parents locked in a terrifying trance-like state in front of the TV. Panicked, Noah attempts to snap them out of it and get medical help.

Then Noah’s mother brutally attacks him.

But Noah isn’t the only person to be attacked by a loved one. Families across the country are tearing each other apart-–literally-–as people succumb to a form of possession that gets worse the more time they spend watching particular channels, using certain apps, or visiting certain websites. In Noah’s Richmond-based family, only he and his young nephew Marcus are unaffected. Together, they must race back to the safe haven of Brooklyn–-but can they make it before they fall prey to the violent hordes?

This ambitious, searing novel from “one of horror’s modern masters” holds a mirror to our divided nation, and will shake readers to the core.

Published by Titan Books in January 2025, ‘Wake Up And Open Your Eyes’ is available in paperback and e-book formats, and has the most amazing title as you will genuinely be struggling to sleep after reading this book.

Split into 3 parts, the first introduces us to Noah, our protagonist, his wife and child and their current situation of estrangement from his side of the family.

This is a situation many of us can relate to, especially over the last few years where certain people gaining power, have ushered in a post-truth reality (an oxymoron if ever there was one…) and families, even communities, have been riven by attitudes and acts of violence based on war, class, immigration status and religion,

Many of us would recognise the necessary distance Noah has taken to keep his parents at arm’s length as they become more radicalised by what they feel is ‘the news’, and the constant calls from his mother with the latest thing to be scared of, courtesy of Fax News Network (‘just the fax!’) have been both annoyance, and a source of entrenching his deeply liberal viewpoint. As long as his mother keeps espousing these so called facts, then he is safe in his world, paradoxically reinforcing his morality and further pushing them apart.

So when the phone calls stop coming, the entreaties to ‘Wake Up And Open Your Eyes!’ as well as forewarning Noah of the impending ‘Great Reawakening’ stop, it takes a minute for panic to set in.

A nightmarish journey begins when he leaves his fam behind to go and work out firstly, what the hell has happened to his parents and secondly, to hold his brother who lives mere miles away, to accountability for their wellbeing. He is, to quote my teen children ‘cooked’.

What follows is a nightmare of epic proportions, involving household implements I may never regard in the same way again , and situations no child, no matter their age should be involved with their parents in.

In many respects it is way worse than finding them dead and home and living with unassailable guilt that anything, something, could have been done to save them.

For Noah arrives in time for the Reawakening to happen in front of his disbelieving eyes, the television which dominates his parents living room and all the smaller ones all over the house are broadcasting one channel and one only-Fax.

A weird symbiosis has occurred-I am treading carefully to avoid spoilers-between human and the smart tvs, resulting in body horror unlike any I have read, and wave after wave of assaults on the streets of America.

The second part takes the average, all American family, in the form of Noah’s errant brother, Asher, his wife Devon sons Marcus and Caleb.

They are each trapped within their own world of want, for Asher it is the ginormous tv in his living room which he has accidentally purchased, where the filters are so good he can see the reality of every single person on it-they look just like real people which completely destroys the illusion of perfection he was hoping for. Unable to resolve this himself, he becomes completely entranced by the news anchor on Fax, Paul Tammany, and the way in which he deconstructs the world they live in , in a manner that absolves Asher of any responsibility in fixing it. Before he knows it, an identical chair to the one which has haunted the corner of his childhood home has arrived and he is spending hour, after hour, after hour in it…

Wife Devon, is sucked into the world of Insta reality, and her mission to become a yummy mummy results in some really odd herbal supplements arriving at their house, a blender which is permanently on the go, and as for Family Night? Well let’s just say meal times will never be the same again…In pursuit of a perfection which will never be realised, she infatuates over a woman named Larissa, leading an army of ‘yummy mummies’ to live their best life by basically centering themselves and not the families which gave them the title, wife and mother.

Oldest son Caleb both wants to be seen and also invisible, his teen acne and lack of social standing leading him to retreat literally and metaphorically into his shell. Validation via likes, retweets and followers on a certain social media site create a monster which begins to go down some very dark alleys on the internet…

Youngest son Marcus, the only one without access to a tablet, or other electronic device other than a strictly monitored session watching his favourite animation, is the one who shows us what is happening in his home as all forms of structure-including physical structure-begin to warp and go awry. He is the lone witness to te carnage around him and it is on him that our hope lies for escape and the future.

Which takes us to Part 3, where Noah and Marcus, battered survivors of the unthinkable have to go forth into a hellscape unlike anything I have read , anywhere, where society, and the reality of what is in fornt of our eyes are so disconnected so as to think you are going insane…and yet… it seems absolutely and entirely plausible.

The use of social media and platforms without accountability from platform providers on the content which is uploaded and disseminated through it, does not create togetherness and community, rather, it creates division, encourages hatred towards minorities and , as recent research illustrates., has done nothing to tackle the rise in loneliness experienced by both young and old alike. For the older generation, this reliance on gadgetry has left them behind so the tv which is often left on as a kind of ‘white noise’, becomes a part of their day when they have nothing else around.

I work as a nurse and you would not believe the way people just switch the tv’s on at the start of each shift, without asking patients or staff alike, and a steady diet of ‘news’ , ‘magazine style chat shows’ and consumer programmes fill the whole 12 hour shift like some kind of Dante-esque punishment (and yes I do tend to turn them off and try to find music channels or radio instead as a respite ).

For the younger generation, as Clay points out through Caleb, if your parent is on a platform , then that is a clear invite to leave it (hello teen daughters, still waiting for you to accept my follow requests!) so tackling them is a different matter. Naming no names, but maybe a site rhyming with ‘Shitter’, is a current cesspool of some of the worst examples of racism, homophobia, and sheer nastiness and yet people vie for validation on it (yes I will be posting my review on there later,so maybe, yes I am a hypocrite as I wheedle out trigger words , and narrow the niche of people I follow to create an echo chamber of book love and support for artists). For Devon, the visual is all, the Insta reality encompasses a vision of yourself you want to portray and then that facade becomes a coccoon against the filter free real world we all live in.

What Clay has done here is ask both readers and the public at large to consider our own responsibility in the creation and maintenance of these electronic devices which are dividing generations and families apart in the way which we use them, without boundaries. Outsourcing our facts to news outlets without thinking of the consequences, portraying a reality which cannot be possibly maintained as well as being so isolated in the real world that you retreat online, not knowing how is behind the random string of numbers , are dangerous pursuits of validation in a world we feel does not recognise, our acknowledge, our unique contribution to it.

And so, in the gaps between, a consciousness has arisen that will take that place and in this novel, the Reawakening is a Renaissance, a warning to our future selves to maybe slow things down a little and not put so much faith and power in systems that only serve those who create them…

Is it a demonic possession by a force created by loneliness, insecurity and deeply held radical right opinions with humans as the receiving vessels for it?

No clear and specific answer is given, the same with the ending which is deliberately obtuse, but this is not a novel to love you and leave you, it is one to chew on, to ponder and think about personal culpability , as indeed I am doing whilst typing up a blog post in the vain hopes someone will a)read what I have written and b)borrow a copy from their library or buy a copy if they are in a position to do so.

This is not a doom and gloom book, however, I don’t think Clay is capable of such a thing as he adds in such layers of humour and warmth that give it a distinctive style and taste which is entirely his own and entirely wonderful

As I send these words off into the ether, if you have stayed this long then thank you and please, consider getting a copy!

About the author…