Alison Rumfitt’s Tell Me I’m Worthless is a dark, unflinching haunted house story that confronts both supernatural and real-world horrors through the lens of the modern-day trans experience.

“Ambitious, brutal, and brilliant.” —Gretchen Felker-Martin, author of Manhunt

Three years ago, Alice spent one night in an abandoned house with her friends, Ila and Hannah. Since then, things have not been going well. Alice is living a haunted existence, barely keeping herself afloat by selling videos of herself cleaning her apartment, and drinking herself to sleep. She hasn’t spoken to Ila since they went into the House. She hasn’t seen Hannah either.

Memories of that night torment Alice’s mind and her flesh, but when Ila asks her to return to the House, to go past the KEEP OUT sign and over the sick earth where teenagers dare each other to venture, Alice knows she must go.

Together, Alice and Ila must face the horrifying occurrences that happened there, must pull themselves apart from the inside out, put their differences aside, and try to rescue Hannah, whom the House has chosen to make its own.

Cutting, disruptive, and darkly funny, Tell Me I’m Worthless is a vital work of trans fiction that examines the devastating effects of trauma and the way fascism makes us destroy ourselves and each other.

ALISON RUMFITT is a writer and semi-professional trans woman. Her debut pamphlet of poetry, The T(y)ranny, was a critical deconstruction of Margaret Atwood’s work through the lens of a trans woman navigating her own misogynistic dystopia. It was published by Zarf Editions in 2019. Tell Me I’m Worthless is her debut novel. Her work has appeared in countless publications such as SPORAZINE, datableed, The Final Girls, Burning House Press, SOFT CARTEL, Glass Poetry and more. Her poetry was nominated – twice! – for the Rhysling Award in 2018. She loves her friends.

Praise for Tell Me I’m Worthless

“A gripping, hallucinogenic haunted house novel as righteously angry as it is horrifying, Tell Me I’m Worthless unflinchingly lays bare the personal and cultural scars we wear, endure, and inflict.” —Paul Tremblay, author of The Cabin at the End of the World and The Pallbearers Club

“Chilling, bone-deep horror as humane as it is hideous. Tell Me I’m Worthless is ambitious, brutal, and brilliant.” —Gretchen Felker-Martin, author of Manhunt

“An utterly harrowing experience. Like all iconic masterworks of horror fiction, Tell Me I’m Worthless rips you apart and then tenderly pieces you together until you’re something entirely new.” —Eric LaRocca, author of Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke

“An important book, as transgressive and trans as they come.” —Isabel Waidner, author of Sterling Karat Gold and We Are Made of Diamond Stuff

“A sharp and visceral novel which bends the horror genre to its will. Tell Me I’m Worthless holds a gruesome mirror up to the way it feels to live now. I absolutely tore through this book” —Julia Armfield, author of Salt Slow and Our Wives Under the Sea

“Punk in every sense of the word, this is a debut unlike anything you’ve read before. Rumfitt’s horrifying talent shrieks out from every page and rings in your ears for days.” —Eliza Clark, author of Boy Parts

“The most startlingly original haunted house story I have read, this is intense, multi-layered and very, very creepy.” —Lucie McKnight Hardy, author of Water Shall Refuse Them

“Gripping, unsettling, compulsive, spicy, and, in the end, deeply moving. I loved it.” —Molly Smith, co-author of Revolting Prostitutes

“An exquisitely terrifying journey…. Alison Rumfitt’s astute observations of today’s violent cultural landscape work only too well as a tale of gothic horror. But Tell Me I’m Worthless is also full of beauty, empathy and, ultimately, love. I’ll never forget this book.” —Frankie Miren, author of The Service

“A deeply affecting and sharp-eyed book, Tell Me I’m Worthless collages and distorts the horror genre to create something truly unique, vastly compelling and very, very frightening.” —Alice Ash, author of Paradise Block

“Alison Rumfitt’s superlative trans horror picks a fight with the poisonous state of modernity and fearlessly attacks it head on. Vital, thrilling, utterly alive.” —Gary Budden, author of London Incognita