The Trees Grew Because I Bled There: The Horror Of Being Human

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The Trees Grew Because I Bled There is horrific and evocative. A well-earned compliment that applies not only to the title but to every story in this horror anthology. Though, I almost hesitate to use the word “horror” to describe this work. The word seems saddled these days with connotations of a far less subtle breed of fear. It brings to mind the sorts of emotions evoked by a jump scare paired with a shrill violin. That sort of horror has its place, but you won’t find it in any of these short stories.

Instead, within The Trees Grew Because I Bled There, you’ll find one thing in overwhelming abundance: dread. Lovingly crafted, carefully cultivated, all-consuming dread. You’ll feel it building while you’re reading, and it will stay with you long after you’ve put the book back on the shelf.

With that being said, you’d think that reading through the anthology would be taxing. That you’d have to pace yourself as though you were participating in a marathon. Taking frequent breaks to recover before bracing yourself to wade through the remainder of each work. This is far from the case. By necessity, each story in this anthology needs to immediately grab you and then keep you immersed throughout the runtime of the work. It needs to let you feel the dread pooling without allowing you to surface and realize just how close it came to suffocating you in it. Through a considerable amount of skill and talent, I am happy to say that Eric LaRocca entirely succeeded in accomplishing this.

Their unbelievably evocative descriptions are certainly one of the ways they keep you immersed in the story. Their use of similes and analogies is as effective as they are completely bizarre. The incredibly detailed and utterly repulsive descriptions that feature within the short story “Bodies are for Burning” are, perhaps, exemplars of this style. Within about a page’s worth of words, the narrator compares intrusive thoughts to the clawing feet of armored insects, flesh to running candle wax, and human eyes to the yolk of an egg. Then you get to the next page and realize you just read what should have been an utterly sickening description of a man’s face being burned from the inside out, and you almost didn’t notice. That story, as told from the perspective of a potentially homicidal pyromaniac (though that limited description really does not do the premise justice), takes the crown in terms of horrifying descriptions. Although the title work, “The Trees Grew Because I Bled There,” and its almost casual “cannibalism” certainly give it a run for its money.

On the subject of perspectives, Eric LaRocca made the choice to, as often as not, put us in the heads of people who could be (either in the clinical sense, the colloquial sense, or both) described as “sick.” The aforementioned potentially homicidal pyromaniac is just one such example and one of the tamer ones, in my opinion. That, coupled with the decision to keep each story firmly within the first-person perspective, allowed them to write some truly unique internal dialog. Not to mention that I just could not have imagined some of these stories being nearly as effective without the inherent biases and unreliable nature of the perspective through which we experience them.

All that being said, no work is perfect. I found that while the vast majority of the analogies and similes used were very effective, a small few of them used such bizarre comparisons that reading it immediately booted me right out of the story and into a state of bemused confusion. That aside, this anthology is focused on exploring some of the darker aspects of the human condition, often through the eyes of those whose thoughts, feelings, and morality are so far removed from the expected “normal” as to be almost entirely alien in comparison. The beautifully crafted prose, immediately engaging premises, and near-perfect pacing make reading this anthology as easy as it can. But it is not an easy read. 

The works within this anthology cover a wide range of potential phobias and scenarios that some people will find harmful to consume. I do not feel qualified to even begin to collate the list of potential trauma triggers that could be contained within these works. Please exercise discretion before reading this collection if you are at all susceptible. 

The Trees Grew Because I Bled There is disgusting, horrific, and dreadful in the most literal way. Its characters can be about as far from relatable as you can get, often making indefensible decisions with incomprehensible justifications that, nonetheless, make perfect sense to that character. The stories contained within pull no punches and are not afraid to delve into the utter depths of humanity to shine a light on whatever they may find there. It’s not despite those reasons, but because of them, that I can recommend this anthology to any who have the chance to read it.

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