October 25, 2024
ESQUIRE included Nat Cassidy’s novella, Rest Stop, on their list of “The Best Horror Books of 2024”, commenting, “This is what a novella is supposed to be…
“…this is like a perfectly satisfying gas station hot dog—greasy, made of surprisingly complex components, and viscerally rewarding.”
—Publishers Weekly
A young musician finds himself locked inside a gas station bathroom in the middle of the night by an unseen assailant, caught between the horrors on the other side of the door and the horrors rapidly skittering down the walls inside.
"This grimy survival horror novella from Cassidy careens along with anarchic glee… The splatterpunk plot hits the ground running and maintains incredible tension throughout with fearlessly disgusting horror beats and a twist readers will never see coming. One part Stephen King’s Desperation and one part Green Room, this is like a perfectly satisfying gas station hot dog—greasy, made of surprisingly complex components, and viscerally rewarding."
—Publishers Weekly
“A blood-soaked freakout that does for gas stations what Jaws did for beaches.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“Poignant and nasty as hell, Nat Cassidy’s Rest Stop is a thoughtful and sharply written chamber drama that veers off the rails into a profoundly devastating cosmic splatter spectacle.”
—Eric LaRocca, author of Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke
“Somewhere between Saw and Sartre, there’s a detour. Nat Cassidy’s REST STOP is that roadside attraction, a funny, beautiful, and scary novella that leavens its introspection with blood-spatter and a dusting of spider legs. It’s great!”
—Adam Cesare, author of Clown in a Cornfield and Influencer
“A gleefully vicious and relentless romp, REST STOP is Nat Cassidy at his most unhinged. Seriously, I’m scared of him now. This isn’t a blurb, it’s a restraining order.”
—Brian McAuley, author of Candy Cain Kills and Curse of the Reaper
“REST STOP is an absurdist carnival, a suffocating funhouse filled with the watching eyes of nightmares and generational trauma that is equal parts gritty and witty. A fast-paced tale that wraps together hallucinatory, adrenaline-driven survival and endurance, illuminating the bloodiness of creation, and reflecting, quite literally, the desperation and struggle of humanity.”
—Ai Jiang, Nebula and Bram Stoker award-winning author of Linghun
“A little bit Stephen King’s 1408, a little bit Roger Corman visceral splatter, Cassidy’s REST STOP is a locked room nightmare that spirals into mania, giving the reader exactly what they have come to expect from Cassidy’s work.”
—C.S. Humble, author of That Light Sublime Trilogy
“A delightfully gory, witty, and terrifying rollercoaster ride that left me literally gasping—and also a poignantly affecting story of familial trauma and existential despair that creeps under your skin and stays there. From start to finish, Rest Stop hits every skillfully arranged note.”
—Sunny Moraine, author of Your Shadow Half Remains
“Nat Cassidy’s REST STOP is a lean, mean, and claustrophobic fever dream of blood and venom. It’s everything you’re afraid of (and oh so much more) when you pull into a lonely gas station in the middle of the night. As sharp as broken glass, this blood-soaked novella is equal parts slasher and self-realization. With keen insight into the pains of overtaking our former selves, and how much it can hurt to become someone better, Cassidy keeps the pedal to the metal in a unbearably tense story that rushes headlong into the unexpected. REST STOP is a punk rock guitar solo—fast, brutal, and melodic—and Cassidy is the one shredding his fingers on the strings. One of my favorite reads of the year.”
—Tyler Jones, author of Burn the Plans and Heavy Oceans
“With REST STOP, Nat Cassidy takes the locked room and MFing bugs and turns it into a breakneck pageturner of a book. It’s sick; it’s twisted, it’s going to get arachnophobes and the like recoiling in horror, yet as Cassidy continues ratcheting up the stakes, readers will quickly realize what they’re experiencing is a masterful blend of the filmic and the frenzy that can arise when the setting itself becomes a principle character. I love how Cassidy just goes for it.”
—Michael J. Seidlinger, author of Anybody Home? and The Body Harvest
Nat Cassidy writes horror for the pages, stage, and screen. He’s the author of the acclaimed novels Mary: An Awakening of Terror and Nestlings. His books have been featured in best-of lists from Esquire, Harper’s Bazaar, NPR, the Chicago Review of Books, the NY Public Library, and more, and he was named one of the “writers shaping horror’s next golden age” by Esquire.
