Aurealis Magazine Reviews Roy Freirich’s Deprivation in their February 2024 issue and we were humbled by this in depth, glowing review.
Dynamite. A racy book with razor-edge dialogue and a big cast you can’t help but care about. Deprivation is the kind of book you read at a gobble, and then slap yourself for not having read it sooner because it’s the darkest and deadliest and gentlest and most breathtaking thing you’ve ever read in a long time.
AUREALIS MAGAZINE FEBRUARY 2024 | EUGEN BACON
Deprivation
Foreword Indies Book of the Year Finalist
On a razor’s edge between speculation and reality, Freirich’s psychological horror Deprivation tracks the spread of the next epidemic— insomnia. Over a week, as sleeplessness engulfs a New England summer resort island, the hapless Chief of Police struggles to keep order, a blurry doctor searches for the cause and the cure, and a teenage girl competes with her friends in an online game: who can stay awake the longest? Impaired judgment spirals into delusions, the island is cut-off, and hysteria descends into mob rule and murder. For some, suicide is the only way to close their eyes.
The new novella features cellist Sarah, caring for her comatose, former symphony conductor husband, Jeremiah. As sleeplessness spreads, Sarah is not immune—nor Jeremiah, who awakens, weak, hoarse, but grateful. Suspecting he will relapse into coma if and when the strange epidemic of insomnia ends, they slowly make their way through the chaos of Carratuck to the far cove where he proposed to her, to dance in the shallows and make love a last time before sleep can find them again.
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