“Santa Claus…How vile your name upon my tongue. Like acid, hard to utter without spitting. Yet I find myself capable of speaking little else. It has become my malediction, my profane mantra. Santa Claus…Santa Claus…Santa Claus.”

And so begins the novel Krampus by Brom.

‘Tis the season for Christmasy reads and so I finally picked up Krampus and spent the whole day reading it. It follows our main character Jesse who’s in a real deep slump. His wife has left him and taken their young daughter with her, he’s living in a run down trailer, barely scraping by, and though music is his passion, he’s too scared to really let the world see him and hear him.

It’s Christmas day when he returns home from a bar in the wee hours of the morning and witnesses what appears to be Santa running for his life, chased by a group of devils. Santa leaps into his sleigh, the sleigh takes off, the devils jump on too, a fight takes place, his Santa sack falls as he finally escapes up into the sky.

Jesse finds the sack and quickly realizes he has something magical here that could help him get out of his predicaments. But with the group of devils trying to take back the sack, a local gangster shoving him around, and his ex-wife’s new police officer boyfriend breathing down his neck, Jesse is in one hell of a bind.

Enter Krampus - and chaos, bloodshed, life lessons, and revenge, and you’ve got one hell of a good time.

“It has been long since I was terrible. I miss it dearly. It will be a great treat to see the fear in their eyes, to hear them beg for their lives, to feast on their blood and death cries.”

The first quarter of this book I was not vibing with. I loved the world building, and the scenes with Krampus in his cave just talking shit about Santa. But I found Jesse a little insufferable. I understand that this man is under a lot of pressure and not thinking clearly, but every decision he made was so ridiculous and infuriating. But around the 150 page mark, I was fully in and just sped through the last three quarters of the story, enjoying myself immensely.

Krampus is absolutely my favourite character. He is so sassy and chaotic. I know this makes no sense, but he gave me major Blackbeard vibes from OFMD. His absolute hatred for Santa Claus is fascinating to read as we learn how this rival came to be. And when they meet face to face and just start reading each other to filth….iconic. I also loved when Krampus would just start monologuing and everyone would just have to roll their eyes and sit down and wait for it to be over, it was so hilarious. Especially when Jesse was dying and Krampus kept poking him to make sure Jesse was still listening to his story.

The dynamic between Krampus and Jesse was also really funny. It was kind of sweet that Krampus saw a bit of himself in Jesse.

I loved the over-arching themes and messages of this story. One scene that hit me hard was when Krampus was finding children staring at TV’s and phones and ignoring the world around them. Krampus thinks they’re bewitched, and seeing it from the side of a very old God, it very much does feel that way. Another scene was when Krampus saw the forest destroyed by strip mining and is horrified by what humanity has done to mother earth.

“The beast rolled its eyes. ‘I am not a devil, fool. Do you ever wonder why you seek the Devil with such vigor? I shall tell you. Because you cannot face your own wickedness. The truth is there is no Devil making you torture, rape, murder, and sodomize one another, or making you destroy the very land that feeds you. There is only you. So look at yourself, for you are the only devil in this room.’”

Also, Santa Claus SUCKS.

Overall, this was a really fun story with beautiful art and themes. It has some really funny moments and dialogue, some really heart breaking decisions, and some really bloody acts. I read this in one day and was quite sad to be leaving Krampus’s world when I finished.