Clay McLeod Chapman is at a important mass together with his output, staying present together with his novels, tales, and books is sufficient to preserve one horror fan busy… and since he’s so damned good, glad. Working example, his novella/brief novel Our bodies of Work, which examines a serial killer via the lens of his victims. How? Properly, his victims aren’t essentially absent (they is likely to be lifeless, certain, however they’re alive sufficient on this story).
At sixty-six years previous, Winston Kemper has all the time been a nonentity. Nobody notices him. His easy existence barely registers for many who come into contact with him. Some name him feeble-minded. He’s a janitor on the native church, a groundskeeper by default, and that’s it. No mates, no household. When he’s executed with work, he returns house—a distant, single room house positioned above a storage—and that’s the place his true work begins.
Winston Kemper is a collector of voices, and his magnum opus—The Butterfly Women—is a sprawling epic of untapped creativeness. It has no single canvas, no specific body. It’s in every single place—scribbled on the partitions, the ground, and numerous notebooks.
Winston is making a fantasia which exists in phrases, pictures and blood. As a part of his ‘artwork’ he has been murdering forgotten girls. Poor souls who slip via the cracks of society, who nobody’s in search of. Moms, sisters, daughters to somebody, however no extra.
Winston takes their lives, their voices.
However now he can hear them. They whisper to him. They speak of revenge.
Winston Kemper may not consider in ghosts, however he’s about to be taught they’re very actual. And they’re very, very offended.
Wilson Kemper is a janitor at a church, a nomad of types going from place to position to sleep and settle in. He finds a small house for hire above a household’s storage and that is his second “office” the place he’s really himself. He’s creating an incredible piece of artwork utilizing the lifeless ladies he’s murdered, which he calls “butterflies.” Though their our bodies are stored in previous metal drums, they presence comes via within the story as they narrate a big portion of the story. They’ve misplaced their identities, however they’ve a unified purpose, they need to free the slave kids of an imposing empire within the Neverland. The narrative builds at a propulsive price as a result of these “butterflies” know a brand new lady will likely be becoming a member of them. In different phrases, they know Kemper goes to kill once more.
This can be a fascinating novel and Chapman’s continued ingenuity within the tales he tells and HOW he tells his tales is one thing to behold. The person has a present for storytelling, for crafting characters and placing them in distinctive, darkish eventualities. These victims interacting with one another and being supportive of one another gave this brief novel a lot coronary heart. Their journey to take down these “slave masters” made for a brief, powerfully emotionally-charged journey.
Alternating between the “butterfly ladies” narrative is Kemper’s upbringing, which formed is twisted, murderous nature. Connecting the narratives is after all Kemper himself, however the potent imagery and symbolism Chapman conjures. Talismanic objects like stitching shears and fuel masks and the butterflies themselves. Via the women, the Neverland appears alive via the small bits we see and soak up.
Chapman calls out Henry Darger in a brief homage earlier than the novel begins. Darger, like Kemper, was a reclusive particular person and janitor, a real outsider artist identified for creating what is taken into account the longest novel ever written (with the longest title, as effectively: The Story of the Vivian Women, in What’s Generally known as the Realms of the Unreal, of the Glandeco–Angelinian Struggle Storm, Attributable to the Baby Slave Riot) shortened to Within the Realms of the Unreal. The story issues a riot to destroy youngster slavery like Kemper’s story. Nonetheless, Darger wasn’t a assassin. Not referred to as out is Kemper’s identify… Edmund Kemper is among the extra well-known serial killers in American historical past and a featured “character” on the good, however short-lived Netflix sequence Mindhunter. In different phrases, Chapman does the good factor of taking two issues that may not be linked and creates one thing singular and genuinely fascinating.
Time and time once more, Clay McLeod Chapman unleashes his horrific, highly effective storytelling into the world. Every story is one thing not like his earlier work or a lot of the horror on the market, however every novel/story is true to each his items as a tale-teller and horror as an entire.
Extremely suggest.
© 2026 Rob H. Bedford
Hardcover | Titan Books
April 2026 | 176 Pages
Excerpt: https://www.fangoria.com/bodies-of-work-exclusive-cover-excerpt-reveal/
https://www.claymcleodchapman.com/
Overview copy courtesy of the writer, Titan Books
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