Because I'm one of those assholes who likes to think... Take them for what they are: those annoying questions at the back of the book that teachers in school force you to answer in the form of an essay. But, you have to admit--begrudgingly perhaps--they do make you think. And thinking's good! Excellent for reading group discussions, that sort of thing. Discussion Questions Jake is clearly an imaginative protagonist. How much of his experience do you think is a product of his imagination and how much is really happening? Who is the Melting Man? What does he want? Is his domain within the ancient tree real or a part of Jake's imagination? What is the role of television in The New Flesh? What does the television set symbolize? How is Jake's family's history important to the novel? How much to you think Jake's grandfather knows? Where do you think Jake is going at the conclusion of the novel?
1 Comment
They put up flyers all over town, several hundred full-color prints from the Kinko’s, and they returned soon after--unsure what else to do, needing something they could do--for another several hundred. The police would not consider their son missing until seventy-two hours had passed, and when it had there was little information for them to go on, knocking on neighbor’s doors, asking if anyone had seen him. Identical papers flickered from every light post and stop sign:
Missing! Rosebud “Bud” Thompson Have you seen our son?! Please call... Bud looked happy, smiling, innocent, in his class picture from the year before, echoing every few feet down the streets. They returned home and immediately went in separate directions. Bud’s mother took the bedroom, closing the door and locking it so she would not be bothered as she lay on the bed and numbly rocked herself in and out of sleep. And Bud’s father sat on a grimy chair in the garage, dust spinning in the filtered sunlight about his face, unshaven, trying to breath and not think about what he really wanted to do. Meeting briefly in the kitchen several hours later, Bud’s mother said, “Hungry?” “We’re going to find him,” Bud’s father said. “Yes.” “We can’t give up hope.” “Yes.” Bud’s father could tell his wife had numbed herself on Xanax from the bottle she kept pushed all the way to the back of the medicine cabinet. But he couldn’t do the same. Someone had to stay sharp. What if the police called? When the police did call a couple of days later and told him over the phone they’d found his son’s body, that his son was dead, he couldn’t believe it--how could he believe something like that? He was asked to come down to the police station to identify the body and he went without a jacket and without a word to his wife, driving with his jaw clenched and his eyes fixed only on what was straight in front of him. When he got home several hours later, he went directly to his workshop in the garage, flicked the table saw to life, and dropped his wrists over the spinning blade. He couldn’t get the image of his son’s body out of his head, even as the world began to pulse away to the beat of the blood pumping from his mangled stumps. Bud had been covered with blood, globbed in his hair, caked on his face, filling his throat so he had choked to death. Bud’s father was thankful when the throbbing hot redness finally began to relax, and he could escape into darkness. In the bedroom at the other side of the house, Bud’s mother smiled. She knew better. Sometimes Bud came to her, slipped into the bed next to her while she slept. She cradled his tiny boy’s body. She ran her hands down his cold back. She patted the back of his sticky head. She loved her son--she loved Bud so much! Stickiness filled her hands. Gradually, over the past couple of days, she’d realized she was not dreaming, that her son was actually here. Bud’s eyes began to open. She had a choice, she knew. Her son was giving her a choice. She could join him if she wanted, and she wanted to join him more than anything ever in life. Later, Bud’s father came with them as well, and their bodies’ were never found. --From novel in progress, now called THE LAND BENEATH After a while, her head began to spin and she found herself opening a door at the end of a hallway. Her heart stopped, her breath caught in her throat. For a moment, she thought she saw something, something bulging and bubbling beneath the sheets on the bed, staining it dark. Then she was hurrying down the hallway and was consumed once again by the crowd. She found herself going down the stairs, pushing through the laughing people, and thrust outside into the cool night. A tray of drinks floated toward her and she lifted another with her hand. A Wynton Marsalis track she recognized was blaring from the speakers. She made her way out to the dancing area on legs that no longer felt like her own. She downed her drink, stepped out onto the tarp, and could hear the gasps of recognition as she began to dance. --From my novel in progress, currently titled UNDERWORLD DREAMS (but I think I'm going to change it again, have to get the title just right).
An interesting and important exercise in these days of internet communication, to know what you're getting yourself into and to what you might be inadvertently connecting yourself, is to do a quick Google search of your book title. Although I'm pretty sure there has never been another book entitled "The New Flesh," there are some other things: The band Nine Inch Nails has a song: Then there is the band itself with the same title: And, of course, the famous line from the David Cronenberg film, Videodrome: Brilliant ending! And there are probably others, but these are the ones that get the biggest hits when you do a search. It's interesting. A very good thing to do before you commit to a title. ;)
"House of Rain" made me want to blow my brains out...in a good way! It is relentless, depressing, and moving. Gordon's heartbreaking experiences are rendered beautifully. We're never quite sure if Gordon is in touch with true demonic forces or simply his personal demons. But the brilliance of the book lies in the opening and closing sections--excellent! The atmosphere is engaging and the prose vivid. This one, as I have found others of Gifune's works, lingers. I do hope, however, that Greg does not feel that old. ;) Also, this has been stuck in my head for days now, but with the lyrics 'house of rain.' Ahh! When he got home, Paul smashed the trash can with the front of his car and staggered over the dusty ground towards his trailer. Lying on its side, by the door, was an empty bottle of antifreeze, a small pool of luminous green soaking into the dirt. The entire trailer seemed to be rocking, expanding and contracting. Magpies with their beady eyes lined the top of his home. He needed to lie down and rest his head. He pushed open the door and stepped inside. A sickly curtain fell over the world. The floor swayed beneath him. He could hear something like breathing and moaning. He crossed the trailer toward the bedroom. At the closed door he hesitated. The sounds seemed to be coming from the other side and he wasn’t sure he wanted to see what was making them. His hand reached out, his arm elongating on its own, grasping the doorknob. He flung the door wide and stepped into his bedroom. There was movement on the bed. Something was on top of his wife and she was bucking and moaning beneath it. He could see her face, pale, sweat glistening on her skin, back arched. The thing on top of her was a glossy black, flexing and shifting. His wife was mumbling something, words were spilling from her lips: Poisoned boss, now I’ll poison you. Poisoned birds, to make an ugly stew. Over and over again, these words from her lips. The thing on top of her began to makes sounds like laughter, then it turned, its large, black and beady eyes staring accusingly at Paul, and its feathered wings opened. Paul screamed. He flailed from the room. He ripped drawers open in the kitchen, pulling them free, spilling their contents clattering to the floor, until he found what he was looking for. He snatched the gun from the linoleum, nearly falling in the scattered silverware. He always kept it loaded, in case of intruders. He ran back to the bedroom and the handgun kicked in his hand, the blast deafening in the confined space. He fired again. Feathers and blood splattered over everything in the room. The bedroom was filled with hundreds of birds, and they flew at him all at once. He dived to the floor, rolled, and crawled away as fast as he could. He crawled to the door and spilled down the steps and into the hard packed dirt outside. He struggled to his feet. He peered over his shoulder; the birds were still on top of his trailer, staring him down. He ran, his arms, and the gun he held, flailing over his head to keep the birds out of his hair. Later, lost in the woods, birds swirling everywhere in the trees above, he used the gun to explode the cawing laughter from his life forever. (Just something I'm working on. Thought I'd share. ;)) So I'm sitting here trying to work on my current novel in progress (currently titled UNDERWORLD DREAMS), and I just can't concentrate because THE NEW FLESH was finally unleashed on the world. It has been an amazingly rewarding experience writing, editing, and working with my editor, Greg Gifune, and publisher, DarkFuse. I rarely feel like shouting from the hills, but that's exactly how I feel at the moment! If you like dark, creepy, and uncanny... Paperback Ebook DarkFuse I am a slow writer, but a relentless one. I now have a novel under my belt, THE NEW FLESH, and the novellas FEVERED HILLS and MARROW'S PIT (March 2014). I have another novel manuscript written and in hiding at the moment (OUT OF THE JAR), and another novel currently in the works: UNDERWORLD DREAMS. I've come a long way since I got my life together toward the end of 2010 and began to write seriously. Now--time to go find those hills to shout from the tops of... |
"Unrelenting Horror"- FREE!An award-winning author known for blending elements of fantasy with horror in his surreal, literary style. Author of WITHIN, A GAME FOR GODS and VIOLENT HEARTS.
New Releases:
|