Charlene Elsby’s The Organization is Here to Support You is not your average horror novel. It’s not about monsters (unless you count the soulless specter of corporate bureaucracy), there’s no haunted house (though cubicles are certainly their own kind of purgatory), and the killer isn’t hiding behind the door (because they’re sitting at a desk, sending you a performance review email). Instead, Elsby crafts a Kafkaesque nightmare with a razor-sharp satirical edge, tackling the existential terror of workplace conformity and the crushing weight of institutional absurdity.

Charlene Elsby has carved out a niche for herself in the realm of philosophical horror, often intertwining existential musings with deeply unsettling narratives. A Ph.D. in philosophy, she brings an academic precision to her storytelling, ensuring that every narrative thread drips with intellectual dread. If Sartre had been forced to attend daily Zoom meetings and submit quarterly reports on nothing, he might have written something like this. Elsby’s work often explores identity, perception, and the dehumanizing mechanisms of modern life, and The Organization is Here to Support You is no exception.

Clarissa works for The Organization, a soulless entity that runs on arbitrary policies and relentless conformity. Every aspect of her life is dictated by work: from the way she interacts with her colleagues to the mandated performance reviews that strip her of any individuality. Promotions mean alienation, and the only real freedom is the illusion of control over small things—like whether she logs in at exactly 8:30 AM. When an email from an academic, Dr. Dick Richards (yes, really), arrives with a cryptic and sexually charged message, the cracks in Clarissa’s carefully structured reality begin to widen. The further she delves into the mystery of the message, the more she is forced to confront the crushing futility of her existence, her lack of autonomy, and whether The Organization is really as supportive as it claims to be. Spoiler: It isn’t.

This novel is a meditation on control. The Organization dictates every aspect of its employees’ lives, stripping them of agency while pretending to offer structure and support. Sound familiar? That’s because Elsby has built a horror story out of late-stage capitalism, the kind where HR emails read like cult indoctrination, and the illusion of choice is more stifling than outright oppression. Clarissa’s growing obsession with Dick Richards isn’t just about sexual repression (though it’s definitely also about that); it’s a desperate attempt to reclaim a sense of self. When a rogue email—something that isn’t pre-approved by the Organization’s rigid structure—forces her to respond in a way that isn’t dictated by policy, she starts to unravel. It’s the digital equivalent of finding a handwritten note in a world that only communicates via corporate memos.

Elsby uses sleep and dreaming as another core symbol. Clarissa’s descent into paranoia is marked by increasingly intrusive dreams, suggesting that even unconscious thought isn’t free from institutional control. As she reflects,

“Freedom is being assured that every moment before eight thirty is my own time, and they won’t have any of it.”

Even time outside of work becomes a battleground.

Elsby’s writing is hypnotic. Her prose is dry, sharp, and unrelenting, mirroring the monotony of corporate existence but never succumbing to it. The novel thrives on repetition—endless emails, performance evaluations, and hollow workplace interactions—until the reader, much like Clarissa, begins to wonder if escape is even possible. There’s humor here, too, but it’s the kind that makes you laugh while reconsidering all your life choices. It’s pitch-black, corporate satire at its finest, the kind of book that makes you want to quit your job and move to a cabin, except you realize that even cabins probably have Wi-Fi and a login system now. Consider how Clarissa describes her superiors:

“The upper-ups start turning off their cameras, now that the meeting is underway. They express, sometimes, that they don’t want to interfere with the proceedings, only observe… I suspect, but would absolutely neither hint nor aim to demonstrate, that none of that is occurring.”

Elsby’s cutting wit spares no one.

One of Elsby’s greatest strengths is her ability to turn the mundane into the monstrous. There are no supernatural forces at play here—just the crushing weight of bureaucratic nonsense. The horror comes from the realization that this world isn’t some distant dystopia. It’s already here.

The book is also deeply unsettling in its ambiguity. The Organization is all-consuming, but it’s never fully explained. Its demands and rules shift constantly, with no real logic behind them, mirroring the surreal nightmare of working in an uncaring system where “policy” is just another word for “because we said so.” As Clarissa notes,

“It is against every rule of decency to differentiate between us, and especially if that differentiation is an attempt to distinguish a better from a worse.”

This relentless flattening of individuality is what makes The Organization feel both ridiculous and terrifying.

If The Organization is Here to Support You has a weakness, it’s that it might be too effective. The book’s oppressive atmosphere is so well-crafted that reading it feels like getting stuck in a particularly bleak workday with no lunch break. Some readers might find the repetition grating, though that’s also kind of the point. It’s not a horror novel you read for fun; it’s one you read to feel seen—and then possibly to spiral into existential dread.

Additionally, while the novel thrives in its philosophical bleakness, some might crave a more tangible climax. The mystery surrounding Dick Richards is compelling, but ultimately secondary to the novel’s larger existential crisis. If you’re looking for traditional plot resolution, you won’t find it here—but that’s probably the point.

Elsby has written a horror novel that doesn’t need ghosts, demons, or eldritch horrors to be terrifying. The real nightmare is already here: in our inboxes, in our Zoom meetings, in our “collaborative work environments.” The Organization is Here to Support You is a chilling, razor-sharp critique of modern employment culture, wrapped in prose that cuts like a paper shredder set to ‘high.’ It’s a must-read—fuck the billionaires.

Weirdpunk Books
Published March 15, 2025