Elizabeth Broadbent doesn’t just waltz up to trauma—she stomps in with a lit cigarette dangling from her lip, a box of gasoline-soaked matches in one hand, and a middle finger raised in the other. By the time she’s done with Blood Cypress, the seventh gut-punch in the Selected Papers from the Consortium for the Study of Anomalous Phenomena series, you’re either sobbing into your beer, reeling like you’ve been slapped by a wet gator, or sniffing your bathroom tiles wondering if that mildew’s hiding your grandma’s pissed-off ghost. This Southern Gothic novella is a swampy, vicious bastard—blending emotional wreckage, family fuckery, and a stench of terror so thick you’ll want to gargle bourbon just to clear your sinuses.

If that’s your bag, strap in, you sick freak. If not, run like hell before the cypress knees snag your dumb ass and drag you under.

Broadbent’s a goddamn Southern Gothic witch with an MFA from the University of South Carolina and a résumé that screams “I’ve seen some shit, and I’m here to ruin your day.” Her debut Ink Vine already had us hooked like catfish on a line, and Blood Cypress proves she’s not about to lighten up on our fragile little souls. Whether she’s dredging haunted swamps or reality-TV-soaked plantations, she cracks the South open like a rotting pecan and lets the maggots wriggle out with style. She’s funny as shit online, dabbles in speculative weirdness, and seems to have a PhD in how royally fucked families can get. In short: she’s a terror, we’re obsessed, and we’re begging her to keep the pain coming.

Blood Cypress pretends it’s about Beau, a missing ten-year-old who’s nonverbal, developmentally delayed, and a total inconvenience to his trainwreck of a Southern clan. But let’s be real—it’s not just about where the kid wandered off to; it’s about why nobody gives a flying fuck he’s gone. When he vanishes into the swamp behind their Lower Congaree, South Carolina shithole, his twin sister Lila’s the only one who doesn’t shrug and crack a beer. The sheriff’s too busy ogling her tits, her mom’s a catatonic mess, and her older brother’s a sexist prick who’d fit right in Faulkner’s dumpster. So Lila grabs her imaginary machete and charges into the swamp’s slimy green guts. What she finds isn’t just creepy—it’s rot, the kind that’s been festering in her family’s bones since Jesus was a toddler.

There’s also some barroom chick listening to Lila spill her guts, which ties into the Consortium’s archival, oral-history bullshit. It’s a weird little frame that makes you wonder if the spooky stuff’s real or just swamp gas screwing with your head. Either way, Blood Cypress is a Southern Gothic wet dream: crumbling houses, queer vibes stuffed in the closet, Bible-thumping hypocrisy, and a town so cruel it’d make a snake blush. Broadbent doesn’t just play the hits—she stabs ‘em in the throat with a rusty spoon and carves out something bloody and raw.

The swamp? Land and water blur together like love and guilt, care and control, truth and bullshit. It’s where the masks come off and the ugly steps up to say howdy, feathers and all.

Beau’s “otherness”—call it autism, brain damage, or just “fucked by small-town standards”—is served up raw and uncomfortable. The town screws him over. His family screws him over. You’re left sitting there, squirming like you’ve got swamp mud in your shorts. Broadbent wants you to feel that failure, and if you don’t, you’re probably dead inside.

Lila’s a closeted bi girl in a hellhole where folks still think Jesus hates dancing and dicks in equal measure. Her queerness is her armor and her Achilles’ heel, and it’s damn real.

Broadbent writes like Flannery O’Connor’s ghost possessed her and brought a grudge. Her prose is lush, nasty, and sticks to you like swamp slime. You can feel the gnats buzzing your neck and smell the mildew on Lila’s curtains—it’s poetic without being some pretentious ass-kiss, gritty without wallowing in cheap grimdark. Take this gem:

“Stand on the edge of that swamp, right where water and land become uncertain brothers, and that soupy air turns scum-sweet.”

That’s not just writing—that’s a sucker punch to the senses. You’ll want to scrub your soul with bleach and maybe cry into your whiskey. But she doesn’t overdo it. The horror’s not cheap scares or guts—it’s a slow, soul-fucking creep, folk horror with a magnolia-scented shank.

Blood Cypress drowns you in its vibe. It’s immersive like waking up in a coffin full of mud. You’re not just reading about a swamp—you’re knee-deep in it, slogging through a busted family, a busted town, and a busted girl trying to hold it together. Lila’s a badass protagonist: fucked-up but not weak, pissed-off but not stupid, tough without turning into some gritty trope. Her voice hauls this novella like a cypress limb about to snap.

The good shit:

• Pacing’s tight as a gator’s jaw—tense, not rushed.
• Horror’s a slow simmer that’ll wreck you.
• Emotional punches land like a tail-whip to the tits.

The not-so-good shit:

• That barroom frame? Kinda feels like literary garnish that didn’t cook right. Not a dealbreaker, but it’s like finding a fly in your gumbo—meh.
• Tropes? If you’ve binged Southern Gothic, you might roll your eyes. Rotting houses? Check. Queer repression? Check. Creepy family vibes? Oh hell yes. Broadbent nails ‘em, but they’re not exactly fresh off the vine.

Blood Cypress is a fever dream where the sweat’s dripping from the swamp, not you. It’s about being unwanted, invisible, and ignored, and one girl saying “fuck that” anyway. It’s brutal, tight, and toxic as hell—in the best damn way. It’s near-perfect, and it’ll make you feel something ugly and true. That’s horror done right, motherfucker.

Raw Dog Screaming Press
Published April 3, 2025