Reading Vicariously

**Review originally published in SCREAM Magazine**

The Breathlands are like any other family from the backwoods. You know, like those in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Hills Have Eyes, and Wrong Turn. Sephorina has her hands full trying to take care of everyone. Her mama is nine years pregnant with twins and about to burst. Her daddy lives in a bathtub trying to regrow all four recently lost limbs. Her grandma consorts with the supernatural and brews regenerating blood potions. And her brother Hughie is a jerk. It’s up to Sephorina to seduce and kill young men so their “milk” can be drained for her daddy’s restoration.

This is one of those books I will never forget. It reads at a blistering pace with jaw-dropping moments around every corner. It’s bizarre, hilarious, and repulsive in the best way possible. In other words, pure entertainment. So many scenes – such as the disgusting birthing of the twins or their terrifying transformations later on – are seared into my brain forever. In addition to the overall strangeness and vulgarity, I love the world that author Andrew Post built: the cult-like nature of the family, the various rituals and folk horror deities, and so on.

With a story like this, Post could easily have stayed in the extreme horror territory and relied on shock value alone, but he’s smarter than that. Yes it’s campy, gory, shocking, and gross. But, it’s also a story about family dynamics and misfortune that is very well written. Apart from all the murder and pacts with demons, the Breathlands could be any old family trying to make their way in life. You find yourself rooting for the big sister who murders men to protect her family, and that tension between sinister audacity and sympathetic authenticity is part of what makes this novella so great.

Milk Teeth is a nonstop thrillride of unnatural oddities and quirky characters; a horrifying story that also has a lot of heart. It’s equal parts redneck Lovecraft and Rob Zombie, but it also feels like its own unique entry in the hillbilly/cosmic/folk horror genre. There is much left to be explored in the world of the Breathlands, and I sincerely hope the author will grace us with a sequel in the near future! 

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

MILK TEETH is available now from Snow Capped Press. If you’re interested in buying a copy of the book, go HERE. If you read it, even if you didn’t love it, please leave a review on Goodreads, Amazon, etc. It really goes a long way in helping the author’s gain exposure/future readers!

About the Author

Andrew Post was born in Erie, Pennsylvania (imagine Eraserhead but in color). While he was honing his craft as a writer (those early stories were awful) he worked in a gift shop in one of the scuzziest hotels in the Midwest, he cleaned rental cars (also gross), he was a butcher (despite being a vegetarian), and in 2013 his first novel, the cyberpunk thriller, Knuckleduster, was published. No one really seemed to care much but he kept at it and has since published a handful of other works to varying degrees of resulting public interest with a few seeing translations and one almost became a movie (that lit agent has since been fired).

Andrew lives in a sleepy river town in Minnesota where he may or may not be planning aquatic “accidents” to befall the many other authors who live in the area and he has been mistaken for Rob Zombie on no less than ten separate occasions.

If you want to learn more about Andrew and his work then follow him on Instagram.