String Follow: A Novel

Written by Simon Jacobs

Narrated by Amanda Dolan and James Patrick Cronin

Simon Jacobs's String Follow is a darkly comic suburban Gothic about a malevolent force that targets a group of Ohio misfits, harnessing their angst for its sinister designs.

Something strange is happening to the teens in Adena, Ohio.

A mysterious force is seeking inroads: vulnerabilities to exploit, friendships to hijack, untapped rage to harness toward its own ends. Who will serve it best? Claire is abrasive and aimless, embarrassed by her privileged upbringing. Weak-willed David is consumed by a recent breakup and harbors fantasies of violent, cultish orgies. Greg silently wages war against the voices in his head, while his sister Beth goes quietly mad, surrounded by lights. And at the center is the empathetic, naïve, sensitive Sarah. The force wants her most of all. The question is whether she will be the key to its success or to its destruction.

Eerie, hypnotic, and shot through with dark comedy, String Follow is a razor-sharp suburban Gothic that cuts deep, exposing the sweating, bleeding truth of how kids become adults in twenty-first-century America. In spellbinding, incisive prose, Simon Jacobs blends the startlingly original and the uncannily familiar, revealing the dark chaos that lurks under the surface of Midwestern suburbia.

A Macmillan Audio production from MCD x FSG Originals.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Macmillan Audio
• Release date: Feb 1, 2022
• ISBN: 9781250841186

Simon Jacobs

Simon Jacobs is the author of the novel Palaces, and the short fiction collections Masterworks and Saturn, a collection of David Bowie stories. His fiction has appeared in Tin House, Black Warrior Review, and Joyland. He’s from Dayton, Ohio.

Reviews for String Follow

[Dorielys · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

The narrators were great, the story was just a mess of ideas.

[Chris Metcalfe · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

If you ever wondered to yourself "What would it be like if a schizophrenic meth-head wrote a 'If You Give A Mouse A Cookie' book with a horror theme" while 100% tripping balls, look no further than this uncoagulated mess. The first part started off well enough, but the plot wheels fell off like the Ron White joke about Sears. Not sure if the author was trying to be the next Tarantino, but he may turn out to be the next Ed Wood. Avoid.