Andrew Joseph White is a Virginia horror writer whose fiction explores transgender and autistic identity through monstrosity, violence, survival, and rage. His young-adult novels include Hell Followed With Us, The Spirit Bares Its Teeth, and Compound Fracture.
An instant New York Times bestseller, this furious, queer debut novel about embracing the monster within and unleashing its power against your oppressors is perfect for fans of Cemetery Boys. Prepare to die. His kingdom is near. Sixteen-year-old trans boy Benji is on the run from the cult that raised him—the fundamentalist sect that unleashed Armageddon and decimated the world's population. Desperately, he searches for a place where the cult can't get their hands on him, or more importantly, on the bioweapon they infected him with. But when cornered by monsters born from the destruction, Benji is rescued by a group of teens from the local Acheson LGBTQ+ Center, affectionately known as the ALC. The ALC's leader, Nick, is gorgeous, autistic, and a deadly shot, and he knows Benji's darkest secret: the cult's bioweapon is mutating him into a monster deadly enough to wipe humanity from the earth once and for all. Still, Nick offers Benji shelter among his ragtag group of queer teens, as long as Benji can control the monster and use its power to defend the ALC. Eager to belong, Benji accepts Nick's terms...until he discovers the ALC's mysterious leader has a hidden agenda, and more than a few secrets of his own.
The INSTANT New York Times, USA Today, and Indie bestselling novel from award-winning author Andrew Joseph White! A queer Appalachian thriller that pulls no punches—following a trans autistic teen who's drawn into the generational struggle between the rural poor and those who exploit them. The limited-quantity first printing of this powerful novel features specially-designed endpapers with photos of West Virginia coal mines from The Library of Congress! On the night Miles Abernathy—sixteen-year-old socialist and proud West Virginian—comes out as trans to his parents, he sneaks off to a party, carrying evidence that may finally turn the tide of the blood feud plaguing Twist Creek: Photos that prove the county’s Sheriff Davies was responsible for the so-called “accident” that injured his dad, killed others, and crushed their grassroots efforts to unseat him. The feud began a hundred years ago when Miles’s great-great-grandfather, Saint Abernathy, incited a miners’ rebellion that ended with a public execution at the hands of law enforcement. Now, Miles becomes the feud’s latest victim as the sheriff’s son and his friends sniff out the evidence, follow him through the woods, and beat him nearly to death. In the hospital, the ghost of a soot-covered man hovers over Miles’s bedside while Sheriff Davies threatens Miles into silence. But when Miles accidently kills one of the boys who hurt him, he learns of other folks in Twist Creek who want out from under the sheriff’s heel. To free their families from this cycle of cruelty, they’re willing to put everything on the line—is Miles? A visceral, unabashedly political page-turner that won’t let you go until you’ve reached the end, Compound Fracture is not for the faint of heart, but it is for every reader who's ready to fight for a better world. Hand this story to teens pushing for radical change.
Print · 2024 · English
More About Andrew Joseph White
Andrew Joseph White grew up in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley and studied creative writing at George Mason University. He began telling stories as a child, completed multiple early novels, and used college and graduate study to develop a practice grounded in genre fiction.
White's horror focuses on transgender and autistic experience through bodies, monsters, violence, and survival. Hell Followed With Us grew from the absence he felt in straight, cisgender, and nondisabled post-apocalyptic fiction and from his own experience of dysphoria and autism.
His young-adult catalogue moves from apocalyptic body horror in Hell Followed With Us to historical horror in The Spirit Bares Its Teeth and an Appalachian political thriller in Compound Fracture. Professional reviews emphasize the books' intensity while also identifying their engagement with structural violence, queer and disabled community, and resistance.
The reach of Hell Followed With Us has extended beyond the novel. In 2024, trade reporting documented a dramatic-rights acquisition and an animated feature in development, with Lilly Wachowski and Powerhouse Animation among the announced participants and White consulting on the project.
