The Man of Wind and Moss

The Blair Witch Project meets Cabin in the Woods by way of Grady Hendrix in this gruesome, mythology-inspired storm of witchcraft, demon curses, and millennial-age angst all wrapped in a folk horror tale about six college friends who go on a weekend getaway in the woods—and the supernatural deals they make to survive.

“A dark demented delirious delight. Readers are about to discover the finest and wildest horror novel of the year.”  —Junot Díaz, Pulitzer Prize-winning author

Marco Wonder is about to turn 30, and he hates it.

Without job prospects, without a girlfriend, without a sustainable future, he desires something to anchor him, to give him direction in life. Unlike his brother, who found his purpose by returning to Puerto Rico to discover himself, Marco has no such aspiration to return to his roots. Instead, Marco decides to risk it all and confess his love for his best friend Pansy during the last hurrah before their college friend group continue on their separate ways through life.

Except, he’s worried Pansy isn’t interested. She’s also pregnant, and an item with her on again, off-again
boyfriend Dean. But as Marco joins his friends for a weekend getaway to a cabin in upstate New York, they will soon discover a demonic creature older than forest, waiting to give direction to those who find
themselves lost, for a bloody cost.

As the group crumbles apart because of sexual escapades, misplaced confessions, and eerie mishaps, they soon find themselves at the mercy of the Man of Wind and Moss. After a heinous and tragic ordeal, only Marco, Pansy, and their friend Sasha, a witchy and headstrong academic, survive.

But their trauma does not end when they are released from the forest. Unbeknownst to Marco, Sasha may have made an impulsive decision to save them all. Because Dean also returns from the woods… Only he’s a little tweaked …missing some fingers…missing his eyes…and driven by the Man of Wind and Moss to enact its bloody purpose.Praise for Alex Gonzalez

“The Man of Wind and Moss is a dark demented delirious delight. Alex Gonzalez is unstoppable and readers are about to discover the finest and wildest horror novel of the year.” —Junot Díaz, Pulitzer Prize-winning author

“Gonzalez is a talented author who delivers solid character development and sharp writing about grief and guilt, but what sets this novel apart is its unflinching brutality. It's tough to read a book filled with horrific accidents and vicious murders, but Gonzalez makes the price of entry worth it with his sharp assessment of human nature. He highlights our gluttony for pain; explores how algorithms can pull people, like a strong underwater current, to terrible places; and shows, unforgettably, how the internet can desensitize us to atrocity." —The New York Times Book Review on rekt

“Like clicking links online, Gonzalez’s world is addictive, compulsive, and impossible to leave—precisely because it could be our own.” —Booklist, STARRED REVIEW for rekt

“Perhaps my favorite horror read so far this year, delivering a timely cautionary warning for the digital era and establishing Gonzalez as a talented author who has important stories to tell.” —Locus Magazine for rekt

“Gonzalez fearlessly plumbs the depths of our present and future online hell and the result is a visionary book that is at once pensive, rollicking, and truly, bone-deep unsettling.” —Paul Tremblay, New York Times bestselling author of Horror Movie and A Head Full of Ghosts on rekt

“As dark as 3 a.m. despair, rekt is the depraved, bleeding edge of the genre, combining the intimate, personal dread of Paul Tremblay with the merciless grotesquerie of Eric LaRocca.” —Christopher Golden, New York Times bestselling author of Road of Bones and The House of Last Resort

“rekt goes past the 'dark web' and into online corners that pose a threat to life and sanity. Oddly enough, it also makes me want to visit these corners. A great exploration of the dangers and seductions of the internet.” —Poppy Z. Brite, author of Exquisite Corpse

“There are two versions of you: Before you read Alex Gonzalez’s rekt and after you read it. Like Danielewski’s House of Leaves and Palahniuk’s Haunted, rekt feels like a spiritual successor to those masterpieces with the frightening ability to actually harm the reader—to eviscerate them with such a singular style, such masterful prose, and such utter mercilessness. This is a bleak, vicious, and harrowing examination of grief, internet lore, and one young man’s descent into the depths of depravity.” —Eric LaRocca, Bram Stoker Award-nominated and Splatterpunk Award-winning Author of Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke

“A nihilistic annihilation of the senses, a David Fincher-directed Faces of Death for the digital age, a novocaine 120 Gigabytes of Sodom by a debut de Sade that leaves the reader uncomfortably numb. This book takes just as much from you as you take from it.” —Clay McLeod Chapman, author of What Kind of Mother and Ghost Eaters on rekt

“A terrifying eruption of voyeuristic internet bloodlust into the physical realm.” —Beth Morgan, author of A Touch of Jen on rekt

“Masterfully captures every f*cked up thing undulating in the subconscious, collective dark of the internet. If you’ve ever been that kid digging deeper and deeper to shock yourself into feeling something—read this book, traumatize yourself all over again, it's a great time!” —Em. X Liu, author of The Death I Gave Him on rektAlex Gonzalez is a WGA screenwriter and horror fiction writer. Born and raised in Florida, he now lives in Brooklyn and is the co-founder of the horror zine You Are Not Alone. His screenplays have been optioned, and a feature of his is in development with Ulladulla Pictures and Extra A Productions (Little Woods, The Giant). He currently teaches horror writing workshops with Catapult.co., and his most recent short story “Die Cuban” was published on the Catapult website. You can find him online at alex-gonzalez.me.