Sarafina by Philip Fracassi

An atmospheric historical horror examining the dynamics of evil through mysticism, religion, and the gothic

How many different shapes can a monster take? And how long will they deceive you until they’ve revealed themselves? Phillip Fracassi’s Sarafina asks this and more through explorations of folk horror and familial dynamics in Sarafina.

Ethan Belle and his two older brothers, Mason and Archie, desert the Confederate Army during the American Civil War rather than face their death. Despite his size and young age, Ethan is the most levelheaded and kindest of the trio at 17, using the idea of seeing his twin sister Ellie as motivation. 

Their path as deserters is treacherous, involving injury, hunger, and killing of men they might have fought alongside at one point or another. The atmosphere is bleak and hopeless in nature with vivid depictions of the blood and gore common on a battlefield. Here is a stark reminder that no one wins in war. Fracassi highlights the common misconception many have that fighting makes you brave, before reality sets in. 

“We humans are nothing but ever-traveling pilgrims, blindly seeking passage to something greater, more often finding something worse.”

After days on the run, with men hot on their tracks and on the brink of death, the brothers come across a cottage where a woman named Sarafina and her son Titus live. Many aspects of their home raise red flags—fruit that’s ripe despite being out of season or clothes from Sarafina’s “husband” that fit all three brothers despite their significant size differences. The brothers are eager to catch the eye of their host, whose mystery increases with each passing day they spend at her cottage.

There is great emphasis placed on how young and inexperienced Ethan is, with descriptions of the things he’s not allowed to do at home like run his father’s tobacco shop. His age, however, has not stopped him from enlisting like his father wants and killing when it’s necessary to do so. He describes himself as calm and kind where his brothers are quick to anger, crediting this to his sister, who would not allow him to “be that way.” Sarafina similarly describes the brothers as “fighting against progress.”

“Less than a year ago, I was sixteen years old and my worst fear was my father’s hand…Now I stare at a landscape blown apart by hate and mortar, drenched in blood and the flesh of countless men.”

The novel shifts completely as it reaches the end, resulting in what feels like a dark, twisted, enrapturing folk tale. Much is hidden until it becomes necessary to be revealed. There’s genuine surprise and intrigue here.

The concise descriptions of historical elements expand on the gothic genre by pulling from a time ripe with true horror.While this builds suspense, it also hinders the narrative at times due to the unlikeable characteristics of the brothers, who are hard to root for because of their confederate beliefs. These ideals are very much engrained in the boys and felt wholeheartedly.

The novel is split into four parts with one chapter in each dedicated to Ethan’s twin sister, Ellie. Her complexities are not expanded on until much later, but Fracassi plays this into great favor. Everything is intentional, but it takes time for the pieces to fit together into a haunting, cohesive whole.