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Slaughterhouse High
It's prom night in the Demented States of America. A place where schools are built with secret passageways, rebellious teens get zippers installed in their mouths and genitals, and once a year, on that special night, one couple is slaughtered and the bits of their bodies are kept as souvenirs. But something's gone terribly wrong at Corundum High, where the secret killer is claiming a far higher body count than usual . . . Slaughterhouse High is Robert Devereaux's slicing satire of sex, death, and public education.
285 pages, Paperback
First published July 15, 2010
4 people are currently reading
181 people want to read
About the author
Robert Devereaux
36 books75 followersRobert Devereaux made his professional debut in Pulphouse magazine in the late 1980's, attended the 1990 Clarion West Writers Workshop, and soon placed stories in such major venues as Crank!, Weird Tales, and Dennis Etchison's anthology MetaHorror.
Two of his stories made the final ballot for the Bram Stoker and World Fantasy Awards. Robert has a well-deserved reputation as an author who pushes every envelope, though he would claim, with a stage actor's assurance, that as long as one's writing illuminates characters in all their kinks, quirks, kindnesses, and extremes, the imagination must be free to explore nasty places as well as nice, or what's the point?
His first novel Deadweight interweaves a King-like plot, penile implants, and splatterpunk extremes of sex and violence, managing all the while to be a sensitive, spot-on portrayal of an abused woman incapable of relinquishing her role as victim.
Walking Wounded, his next novel, explores the dilemma of a good woman able to heal with her hands, but also to harm even unto death, whose discovery that her husband is cheating on her moves her, against her every humane impulse, to activate his Huntington's Disease and take him down.
Robert went on to shock the bluenoses with Santa Steps Out, in which Santa Claus's gradual recall of his prior existence as Pan leads to an affair with the Tooth Fairy, while a voyeuristic Easter Bunny tries to twitch and wiggle his way into Mrs. Claus's good graces. Santa Steps Out, which won much praise for its mythological underpinnings and the breathtaking sweep of its transgressions, also had the honor of being banned in that cultural backwater of intolerance and censoriousness known as Cincinnati.
Robert's fourth novel, Caliban, borrows a page from John Gardner's Grendel to retell Shakespeare's Tempest through Caliban's eyes.
Robert lives in sunny northern Colorado with the delightful Victoria and their melodious cat Sigfried, making up stuff that tickles his fancy and, he hopes, those of his readers.
Two of his stories made the final ballot for the Bram Stoker and World Fantasy Awards. Robert has a well-deserved reputation as an author who pushes every envelope, though he would claim, with a stage actor's assurance, that as long as one's writing illuminates characters in all their kinks, quirks, kindnesses, and extremes, the imagination must be free to explore nasty places as well as nice, or what's the point?
His first novel Deadweight interweaves a King-like plot, penile implants, and splatterpunk extremes of sex and violence, managing all the while to be a sensitive, spot-on portrayal of an abused woman incapable of relinquishing her role as victim.
Walking Wounded, his next novel, explores the dilemma of a good woman able to heal with her hands, but also to harm even unto death, whose discovery that her husband is cheating on her moves her, against her every humane impulse, to activate his Huntington's Disease and take him down.
Robert went on to shock the bluenoses with Santa Steps Out, in which Santa Claus's gradual recall of his prior existence as Pan leads to an affair with the Tooth Fairy, while a voyeuristic Easter Bunny tries to twitch and wiggle his way into Mrs. Claus's good graces. Santa Steps Out, which won much praise for its mythological underpinnings and the breathtaking sweep of its transgressions, also had the honor of being banned in that cultural backwater of intolerance and censoriousness known as Cincinnati.
Robert's fourth novel, Caliban, borrows a page from John Gardner's Grendel to retell Shakespeare's Tempest through Caliban's eyes.
Robert lives in sunny northern Colorado with the delightful Victoria and their melodious cat Sigfried, making up stuff that tickles his fancy and, he hopes, those of his readers.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
December 1, 2010
Slaughterhouse high by Robert Devereaux
Deadite Press
For most people high school is a painful experience, I am Keenly aware of this not just because I endured it myself but my day job as a para-educator in a high school gives me a daily view. It is a hard gauntlet that seems impossible to survive. When you are facing the four years of daily education and social indoctrination getting out alive can feel like struggle to survive a slasher movie. And what about the cream of the crop? The prom queen and king have mastered the bullshit that is high school. Worse yet those assholes often take a nosedive and end up crashing into a life of mediocre tedium.
This to me is the brilliant heart of the satire that is Slaughterhouse High by Splatterpunk’s saintly uncle Robert Devereaux, the man behind a pre-bizarro but very clearly bizarro classic “Santa Steps Out.” This book is four parts bizarro and one part horror but is an all around visceral and deadly satire.
It takes place in the Demented states of America, where the greatest spectator sport is the serial killing of the prom queen and king across the country. The plot circles around the functioning of a small town and the big night at Condrum high school.
Devereaux has wicked and dangerous imagination and this novel exists in fictional universe every bit as real and fully formed as the world in science fiction novels like Dune or fantasy like Lord of the Rings. But it’s demented take on our own world similar but messed in that sense to Phillip K. Dick’s “Flow My Tears the Policeman Said.” But this not like putting goatee on Spock, this is a deeply fucked-up alternate universe. Don’t enter this world unless you are ready for blood and guts dripping down the walls.
Now I have given you lots of reasons to get this book. All valid, is there a weakness? A small problem but the only one I had with the novel was a lack of strong POV. There is no character that I felt I could relate to strongly, and there are so many characters and shifting Point of views that I think the novel suffered a bit for it. The invention of the universe it takes place in more than makes up for this minor shortcoming.
In the scope of the whole novel that is a minor complaint. Slaughterhouse High is master work socio-political bizarro satire.
Deadite Press
For most people high school is a painful experience, I am Keenly aware of this not just because I endured it myself but my day job as a para-educator in a high school gives me a daily view. It is a hard gauntlet that seems impossible to survive. When you are facing the four years of daily education and social indoctrination getting out alive can feel like struggle to survive a slasher movie. And what about the cream of the crop? The prom queen and king have mastered the bullshit that is high school. Worse yet those assholes often take a nosedive and end up crashing into a life of mediocre tedium.
This to me is the brilliant heart of the satire that is Slaughterhouse High by Splatterpunk’s saintly uncle Robert Devereaux, the man behind a pre-bizarro but very clearly bizarro classic “Santa Steps Out.” This book is four parts bizarro and one part horror but is an all around visceral and deadly satire.
It takes place in the Demented states of America, where the greatest spectator sport is the serial killing of the prom queen and king across the country. The plot circles around the functioning of a small town and the big night at Condrum high school.
Devereaux has wicked and dangerous imagination and this novel exists in fictional universe every bit as real and fully formed as the world in science fiction novels like Dune or fantasy like Lord of the Rings. But it’s demented take on our own world similar but messed in that sense to Phillip K. Dick’s “Flow My Tears the Policeman Said.” But this not like putting goatee on Spock, this is a deeply fucked-up alternate universe. Don’t enter this world unless you are ready for blood and guts dripping down the walls.
Now I have given you lots of reasons to get this book. All valid, is there a weakness? A small problem but the only one I had with the novel was a lack of strong POV. There is no character that I felt I could relate to strongly, and there are so many characters and shifting Point of views that I think the novel suffered a bit for it. The invention of the universe it takes place in more than makes up for this minor shortcoming.
In the scope of the whole novel that is a minor complaint. Slaughterhouse High is master work socio-political bizarro satire.
August 4, 2015
If you're into dark, gory horror that actually has a story behind it (or two or three) you will want to grab this one. But know that it is not for those who pass-out at the thought of blood. There will be a lot of it, and details of how the blood appeared.
it's an abstract version of the USA, now the Demented USA. I shouldn't have to say anymore than that. In addition to all this there is a lot of sex, violence, mixed relationships and more.
Devereaux has done it again.
it's an abstract version of the USA, now the Demented USA. I shouldn't have to say anymore than that. In addition to all this there is a lot of sex, violence, mixed relationships and more.
Devereaux has done it again.
May 1, 2024
I like the little details of stuff that you don't understand that worm there way into the understanding of the story, lobe bags anyone?
March 29, 2012
Robert Devereaux, Slaughterhouse High (Deadite Press, 2010)
There is no way I can turn in an unbiased review of this book. I've been a BobDev fan for over twenty years now, ever since Dell's short-lived, unreasonably fantastic Abyss line released his first novel, Deadweight, in the nineties. At the time, it was the most extreme thing I'd ever read. (And it stayed that way for almost ten years, until I was hit with the double-barrelled attack of Matthew Stokoe's Cows and Charlee Jacob's Haunter in 2003; it's still a good solid third.) And as time went on, Devereaux's books got, well more nuts. So when the bizarro movement started co-opting authors, he was a pretty natural fit. Enter Bob's first novel for nasty upstarts Deadite Press: Slaughterhouse High. (Side note: Deadite are also in the process of re-releasing Devereaux's old stuff. So if you never got a chance to read the brilliant, scurrilous Santa Steps Out, you have the chance again!) It's got all the charm, and I use that term loosely, of the classic Devereaux canon, the kinds of way-off details that make for good bizarro fiction, and more than enough gore to satisfy all your cannibalistic urges. In short, how can you possibly go wrong?
Set in an alternate-universe USA known as the Demented States of America, where the President is a wooden puppet (and a Committee to Assassinate the President is a celebrated cabinet department) and a pair of high school students is slaughtered every year at each high schools prom, Slaughterhouse High takes place over the course of prom night at Corundum High School, a pimple on the backside of the nothing town of Corundum, Kansas. But this is no ordinary prom night in Corundum: as a gesture of defiance, the prom committee have chosen the Ice Ghoul as a theme for the first time since it was used twenty years before, on the night principal Futzy Buttweiler's daughter Kitty was a member of the slaughtered couple. Futzy is not a happy camper. And neither is someone else—someone who decides to murder the Designated Slasher, take his place, and start piling up far more bodies than the school is prepared to deal with.
If this were a fifties mystery film, I can just imagine the trailer as the music swells each time we're introduced to a character who might, just might, be the killer, with big text at the top of the screen: IS IT...? And that's how Devereaux sets it up: as we meet each progressively more unhinged character who just might be the killer, more red herrings start flying, until we're thrashing around in a blizzard of scales. A lesser author might use this as a way to cloud a lack of plot or less than mastery over the elements of the core mystery. Not so Devereaux, who manages to keep both on a tight leash while acting rather like the alpha monkey in the monkey house, flinging poo and satire at American society, eighties slasher flicks, the entire state of Kansas, prom culture, the Tupperware corporation (by the by: a chance aside at one point in the book makes me think that if Devereaux is going to continue on in this universe, we need a book about the rise of the Futter family and their Kitchen Storage Container empire), sexual mores, body modification, and, well, pretty much anything else you can think of. It's funny stuff, but it's the darkest kind of funny—much uglier than the comedy in Santa Steps Out. I get the feeling Devereaux almost wanted to play this one as a straight horror novel. If you're not sure whether you're supposed to be laughing at the satire, well, by cracky, that's the best kind, no?
My only real qualm with the book is that sometimes the pace flags (usually when we move away from the prom and focus on the doings at the top of the political food chain). But that never happens for long, and we get back to the action quickly enough that it should be a minor niggle at best for most readers. Established Devreaux fans will want to pick this one up posthaste; I'd suggest new folks get themselves converted with Deadweight or Caliban and Other Tales before diving into this one. But you'll want to pick it up eventually. *** ½
There is no way I can turn in an unbiased review of this book. I've been a BobDev fan for over twenty years now, ever since Dell's short-lived, unreasonably fantastic Abyss line released his first novel, Deadweight, in the nineties. At the time, it was the most extreme thing I'd ever read. (And it stayed that way for almost ten years, until I was hit with the double-barrelled attack of Matthew Stokoe's Cows and Charlee Jacob's Haunter in 2003; it's still a good solid third.) And as time went on, Devereaux's books got, well more nuts. So when the bizarro movement started co-opting authors, he was a pretty natural fit. Enter Bob's first novel for nasty upstarts Deadite Press: Slaughterhouse High. (Side note: Deadite are also in the process of re-releasing Devereaux's old stuff. So if you never got a chance to read the brilliant, scurrilous Santa Steps Out, you have the chance again!) It's got all the charm, and I use that term loosely, of the classic Devereaux canon, the kinds of way-off details that make for good bizarro fiction, and more than enough gore to satisfy all your cannibalistic urges. In short, how can you possibly go wrong?
Set in an alternate-universe USA known as the Demented States of America, where the President is a wooden puppet (and a Committee to Assassinate the President is a celebrated cabinet department) and a pair of high school students is slaughtered every year at each high schools prom, Slaughterhouse High takes place over the course of prom night at Corundum High School, a pimple on the backside of the nothing town of Corundum, Kansas. But this is no ordinary prom night in Corundum: as a gesture of defiance, the prom committee have chosen the Ice Ghoul as a theme for the first time since it was used twenty years before, on the night principal Futzy Buttweiler's daughter Kitty was a member of the slaughtered couple. Futzy is not a happy camper. And neither is someone else—someone who decides to murder the Designated Slasher, take his place, and start piling up far more bodies than the school is prepared to deal with.
If this were a fifties mystery film, I can just imagine the trailer as the music swells each time we're introduced to a character who might, just might, be the killer, with big text at the top of the screen: IS IT...? And that's how Devereaux sets it up: as we meet each progressively more unhinged character who just might be the killer, more red herrings start flying, until we're thrashing around in a blizzard of scales. A lesser author might use this as a way to cloud a lack of plot or less than mastery over the elements of the core mystery. Not so Devereaux, who manages to keep both on a tight leash while acting rather like the alpha monkey in the monkey house, flinging poo and satire at American society, eighties slasher flicks, the entire state of Kansas, prom culture, the Tupperware corporation (by the by: a chance aside at one point in the book makes me think that if Devereaux is going to continue on in this universe, we need a book about the rise of the Futter family and their Kitchen Storage Container empire), sexual mores, body modification, and, well, pretty much anything else you can think of. It's funny stuff, but it's the darkest kind of funny—much uglier than the comedy in Santa Steps Out. I get the feeling Devereaux almost wanted to play this one as a straight horror novel. If you're not sure whether you're supposed to be laughing at the satire, well, by cracky, that's the best kind, no?
My only real qualm with the book is that sometimes the pace flags (usually when we move away from the prom and focus on the doings at the top of the political food chain). But that never happens for long, and we get back to the action quickly enough that it should be a minor niggle at best for most readers. Established Devreaux fans will want to pick this one up posthaste; I'd suggest new folks get themselves converted with Deadweight or Caliban and Other Tales before diving into this one. But you'll want to pick it up eventually. *** ½
July 2, 2015
It’s prom night in an alternate United States. Each year on this night, in high schools all over the country, the kings and queens are slaughtered and dismembered in a ritual sacrifice. Only something has gone wrong at Corundum High. In the small Midwestern school a killer — traditionally a teacher specially chosen for the role — ignores the rules and goes on a killing spree. Only a few know the identities of the designated killer and king and queen, and no one knows who stalks the secret passageways, popping out and slashing staff and student body alike. That’s the hook in Robert Devereaux’s horror novel, Slaughterhouse High.
Often in extreme horror tales such as this, a regime that is already bad is overtaken by a party or force much worse, and that’s what happens here. The story becomes a gory whodunit in which everyone, even the survivors, in a sense, dies. Prom night becomes a rite of passage beyond even what it was intended to be. The price these people pay to see tradition torn apart justifies, in my view, the graphic depictions of sex and killing — the logic of prom night itself is slaughtered and dismembered. At times I found the many character viewpoints hard to keep up with, but they serve as multiple lenses into this distorted version of our own society where young men and women are turned into deities… In some cultures, deities are sacrificed.
There’s another tilt here. Devereaux uses figurative language freely in a way that helps create this alternate world. And even other body parts become metaphors of genitally based sexuality in our world. We feel sideways to this Other United States, the way similes and metaphors make us feel sideways to what they describe, it’s like but is not, we know it’s not really, and yet people really are dying and really do think ears are erotic. And they really do believe in high school sacrifice. The school itself is a metaphor of how awful many of us remember high school. To me that’s the book’s payoff: The satire of the whole high school experience and the paradox of the teen mind that turns every situation into a do-or-die drama and yet assumes it will live forever. By turning the clichés of high school inside out, Devereaux gives us something like what it was to be a teenager again, and one of the most powerful feelings I remember was always feeling like an outsider. Beneath the primal chaos, the gore and the lust, is a powerful note of unease that is sustained to the very end. I found this to be a challenging book, with the many characters and rich figurative language woven into its deviations, but compelling.
And I’m really glad I got through high school.
Often in extreme horror tales such as this, a regime that is already bad is overtaken by a party or force much worse, and that’s what happens here. The story becomes a gory whodunit in which everyone, even the survivors, in a sense, dies. Prom night becomes a rite of passage beyond even what it was intended to be. The price these people pay to see tradition torn apart justifies, in my view, the graphic depictions of sex and killing — the logic of prom night itself is slaughtered and dismembered. At times I found the many character viewpoints hard to keep up with, but they serve as multiple lenses into this distorted version of our own society where young men and women are turned into deities… In some cultures, deities are sacrificed.
There’s another tilt here. Devereaux uses figurative language freely in a way that helps create this alternate world. And even other body parts become metaphors of genitally based sexuality in our world. We feel sideways to this Other United States, the way similes and metaphors make us feel sideways to what they describe, it’s like but is not, we know it’s not really, and yet people really are dying and really do think ears are erotic. And they really do believe in high school sacrifice. The school itself is a metaphor of how awful many of us remember high school. To me that’s the book’s payoff: The satire of the whole high school experience and the paradox of the teen mind that turns every situation into a do-or-die drama and yet assumes it will live forever. By turning the clichés of high school inside out, Devereaux gives us something like what it was to be a teenager again, and one of the most powerful feelings I remember was always feeling like an outsider. Beneath the primal chaos, the gore and the lust, is a powerful note of unease that is sustained to the very end. I found this to be a challenging book, with the many characters and rich figurative language woven into its deviations, but compelling.
And I’m really glad I got through high school.
April 7, 2015
Prom in the Demented States of America is an important event watched by the entire nation. The sacrifice of the young is a rite of spring, and an honor to their Lord. On prom night the chosen couple is slaughtered and bits of them are kept as souvenirs.
This year’s Designated Slasher at Corundum High is straying from tradition, and the bodies are starting to pile up. Once the students & faculty realize that everything about the night is going very VERY wrong – it might be to late for them all.
Full review posted on BBB.
This year’s Designated Slasher at Corundum High is straying from tradition, and the bodies are starting to pile up. Once the students & faculty realize that everything about the night is going very VERY wrong – it might be to late for them all.
Full review posted on BBB.
May 15, 2011
I found the first half of the book very confusing - too many people with weird names, didn't understand the society or culture. By the second half though it all made sense and I was able to enjoy the mystery, nuances and finale
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews