Leviticus (Adrian Chiarella, 2026)

Abomination

Year is only about halfway done and I'll say it: Adrian Chiarella's Leviticus is the best horror of the year.  I mean-- something better might come in October (Eggers' Werwulf comes out December), but can't imagine what that might be, or how it can be.

Lingua Franca (Isabel Sandoval, 2019)

'Merika

Isabel Sandoval's achievement in Lingua Franca I submit isn't so much the breaking of boundaries or the allusion to current events (transgendered-directed film on transgendered relationships, and the perils of undocumented immigrants) but her plainspoken way of creating a mood, a feeling, the ambiance of an eerily depopulated subtly menacing New York just this much more hostile to the marginalized.

Patay na si Hesus (Jesus is Dead, Victor Villanueva)

One happy family

Tolstoy started Anna Karenina with the statement: "Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." I'll take that as permission to like Victor Villanueva's darkish family comedy Patay na si Hesus (Jesus is Dead), about a family taking the four or so hours trip down the coast of  Cebu, from the island province's capital to Dumaguete City to attend the wake of their estranged father, the eponymous Hesus. The setup is obviously Little Miss Sunshine--dysfunctional family piles into van to take cross-country trip--but the ingredients and resulting dish are so distinctly Filipino I'd call this a valid variation on the original.