You’ve heard of mushroom horror? Well, make room for its new cousin: algae horror. Anyone who has experienced the notorious “red tides” off of the United States’ southern coasts knows just how harmful, creepy, and off-putting large-scale algal blooms can be. But Trang Thahn Tran (author of She Is a Haunting) takes the red tide to new supernatural heights in their latest YA horror novel, They Bloom at Night, which came out earlier this month.
In the unspecified near future, the small coastal town of Mercy, Louisiana, has been devastated by a hurricane that left a red tide of algae in its wake. After losing her father and brother to the storm, sixteen-year-old Noon now lives with her mother aboard their boat Wild Things, from which they trawl the open waters for shrimp—but more often find strange specimens of sea life that have been mutated by the unnatural algae. On one of their regular return trips to trade in their haul for fuel and supplies, they learn that the mutations are more than just little novelties: something monstrous has been stalking the drowned city of Mercy. Numerous residents and visiting scientists alike have gone mysteriously missing. And who better to hunt down an aquatic monster than those already trawling the waters? That’s the logic of tyrannical businessman Jimmy Boudreaux, who gives Noon and her mother an ultimatum: Find the monster and bring its body back for Jimmy’s emporium, or he will collect on the debts Noon’s father owed him. Noon has no intention of actually looking for the monster, but then Jimmy sends his knife-slinging daughter Covey to keep them on track. As they dig into the disappearances together, Noon discovers that Covey is much more likeable than her brute of a father. But she also uncovers a strange link between herself and whatever lurks in Mercy’s waters. If they are going to solve this mystery, Noon will have to confront the monster inside herself and come to terms with how her own life was upended one night in the Cove, months before the hurricane upended the rest of the town.
They Bloom at Night uses the concepts of monsters and monstrosity to explore issues of identity, sexual assault, and trauma. Noon has never quite felt comfortable in the body of a girl. On the one hand, the societal pressure to disregard her own discomfort leaves Noon vulnerable to others who seek to manipulate her and push past her boundaries. But on the other hand, the strangeness and alienation that Noon already feels means that her slow transformation into something not quite human is more welcome than horrifying. The transformation also allows Noon to reclaim agency over her own body after it was violated. Embracing the monster within gives Noon the power to enact vengeance while also enabling her to explore her complicated feelings about gender and sexuality while disentangling those feelings from her strained relationship with her body. And at the end of the day, the true monsters are those who seek to control, demean, and hurt others.
While this novel goes to some pretty dark places, it also celebrates moments of joy within a queer found family. Noon struggles to find comfort with a mother who seems ashamed of her darkest moment and is always fixated on her dead, golden-child brother. But when Noon meets up with her old friend Wilder who left home after his parents tried to stifle his gender nonconformity, seeing him live happily together with another trans friend allows her to imagine a happy future for herself and gives her a reason to fight for survival.
If you like YA horror that celebrates monsters and queerness while not shying away from darker subjects, then definitely check out They Bloom at Night! You can find it on shelves now at your favorite local retailer, or buy it online and support The Gothic Library in the process using this Bookshop.org affiliate link. If you read it, let me know your thoughts in the comments!