WE ARE WATCHING

A QAnon-like conspiracy cult targets an unwitting family.

Hudson Valley booksellers Meg and Justin Russo are driving their 18-year-old daughter, Lily, to Ithaca College for freshman orientation when a carload of skinheads pulls up alongside them and starts taking pictures. The Russos try to change lanes, but their vehicle skids, spins, and rolls, killing Justin. When Meg returns to work, somebody posts a three-month-old video on the store’s Facebook page in which Justin glares from behind the cash register as the female videographer sings, “We are waaaatching. We are armed. We will triiiiumph. You’ll pay for her sins.” Meg then discovers the same woman is currently in the store’s kids’ section, unshelving books and pounding on walls to locate a “secret chamber.” As Meg evicts her, the woman yells, “One down, three to go.” Meg’s reclusive father, retired semi-famous musician Nathan Lerner, insists the Russos’ accident was sabotage—a claim Meg writes off to drugs and dementia. Then Lily hears a rumor that sends her down a disturbing internet rabbit hole. Posters on an anonymous 4chan-esque website maintain Nathan is a Satanist who sold his and his family’s souls for a hit single. Further, they assert that a small-press fantasy novel Meg wrote as a teen “both predicted and caused the end of the world.” To stop the rapidly approaching apocalypse, Nathan, Meg, and Lily “must either repent—or die violently on film at the hands of the true believers.” This tense, horror-tinged domestic thriller unfolds via a swiftly cycling third-person-present narrative, the protagonists’ mounting fear and paranoia so palpable as to be contagious. Gaylin writes perceptively about grief, guilt, and the complexities of parent-child relationships, while also spotlighting the dangers of misinformation and the allure of conspiracy theories in times of chaos.

Timely, terrifying, and all too plausible.