Brainwyrms

Visceral and at times shocking, this intimate, vulnerable triumph isn’t for the squeamish, but the experience won’t be regretted. In an undated future that feels closer than not, Frankie lives with the trauma inflicted upon her after the gender-identity clinic where she works was bombed by a transphobic woman. She is in a spiral of self-medication and reckless living when she meets Vanya at a fetish club. The two are quickly entangled, their relationship intensified by Frankie’s deep desires and fantasies and Vanya’s reckoning with a painful past and their search for identity. All the while, around them an ideological war is raging, and metaphor becomes manifest with brilliantly visceral and grotesque depiction, as thought worms and literal worms infest citizens, spreading hate, fear, and bigotry. With biting, abrasive commentary, Rumfitt’s bold prose pulls no punches and refuses to relent as readers are pulled deeper into Frankie and Vanya’s fears regarding safety, love, and a darkness creeping closer and closer.