The Wasp Factory is an insightful, instructive example of the increasingly transgressive horror movement that characterized the 1980s. Given its unsparing look at sadistic animal torture, the murder of children, and the bizarre darkness of its narrator’s mind, it was a controversial novel, particularly for its time. Interestingly, The Wasp Factory was not the first novel Iain Banks wrote, although it was the first that he had published. After receiving rejections for several science fiction novels, he wrote The Wasp Factory in an attempt to lure publishers with what he hoped would be its greater commercial appeal. Stephen King’s novel Pet Cemetery had emerged one year prior, and its grim tale, which included a child who murders his mother after returning from the dead, was a commercial success despite its horrors.

The Wasp Factory was published in 1984, the same year as the majority of Clive Barker’s Books of Blood series, a collection characterized by grotesque characters, visceral body horror, and repugnant and increasingly specific depictions of violence. Two years later would see the release of Stephen King’s novel It. It contained a disturbed character named Patrick Hockstetter, who has much in common with Frank Cauldhame, including a delight in harming animals.