Find Me Where It Ends

New book, new omnibus, an actual newsletter?!

The Haunting of Bly Manor stuck to me for a variety of reasons. One was the absolutely brutal death scene at the stairs, which oof, if you haven’t seen it, is an absolute work of morbid art.

The other was the fact it posits that all love stories are ghost stories at the end of the day. Which is truer, I think, that most of us would ever like to admit. The win condition for a relationship —any relationship, really, whether it is with an animal or a person— is actually loss so profound, it breaks you in such a way that the bones of you heal strangely. The pain is always proportional to how much they mattered to you and if they were your sky and your stars, well.

I’ve known people who withdraw from the thought of love for that reason. Who modulate each affectionate impulse, who restrict themselves from caring too much because they don’t trust themselves in a room with the grief after, who spend their lives waiting and waiting and waiting for the thing that reveals itself as irrevocably worthwhile. I don’t blame any of them for it. I have felt that before — with lovers, with found family: an internal switch that flips and goes, yes this person will mean something and they will keep me safe and it will be great and it will be worth the heartbreak that comes after. And I’ve known people for which this is true. Friends with soulmates whose romantic lives seem like something written for the big screen.

I can also understand not knowing how to trust yourself in the room with the grief that comes after. That first moment when it enters the space with you and you understand nothing will ever be the same again, that every single moment of your life will be tinted by its presence.

If you’ve been reading my newsletter for a while, you probably know about the suicidal episode I had a few years ago and how touch and go things were for a while. I wanted so badly to die. Not because there was anything wrong in my life but rather, because I couldn’t imagine it getting better than it was. I’d done all the things I intended to. I’d become who I wanted to be. There wasn’t a bucket list. All that was left, it seemed, was to experience the inevitable loss that came as payment for every good thing I’d gotten.

So, whispered that insidious little voice, why not get out while it’s still good? Go out on top. The good die young, don’t they? (Or young-ish, as the case may be.)

I’ve spent my whole life navigating my depression and I’ve heard every argument it’s ever made in terms of why I should end it all.

Except this one.

I didn’t have a comeback.

I didn’t have anything to say except that does sound reasonable, doesn’t it?

FIND ME WHERE IT ENDS was a book I never expected to write. In part because I didn’t expect to be around to write it. Pretty much every book I’ve ever written, I’ve described in some way as personal. This one obviously is really personal. A mythologization of the year I spent grappling with that little voice, that impulse to call it a day and be done with this life.

It’s also about why I stayed.

(This is a weird book to promote, all said and done. Like, at the end of the day, it feels like what I’m saying is hey do you want to break your heart reading the thing i conjured in a fugue of misery and contemplate your own mortality really fucking hard throughout. Yes, I’m aware that sounded very flip but look, some of us use humor as a coping mechanism.)

You can pre-order the book from basically anywhere, I suspect although I think it’d be swell if you would pre-order it from your local indie bookstore. If pre-ordering is outside of the budget, perhaps consider adding the book to your want-to-read list on Goodreads (yes, that actually does help authors) or requesting it from your local library.

On a lighter note, Nightfire is also releasing an omnibus of the Persons Non Grata series called the John Persons Files because apparently, I cannot have a horrible pun as the title of an omnibus. I’d be pouting a lot harder about that if not for this cover because seriously, look at that.

(You can also pre-order it!)

Other Stuff

• Have you ever wanted to see me play as a red-skinned card magician whose body hosts a legion of fox demons in an Invisible Suns game live every Monday? Really? Well, you’re in luck because every Monday at 8pm, I will be playing exactly such a character over at Dungeon Scrawlers.

• I’m at Awesomecon this weekend. Come say hi?

• I’m slightly obsessed with [REDACTED] right now. It’s a great horror-comedy podcast that reminds me strongly of Magnus Archives x Persona, for some reason. With a side of identity confusion.

• You’re pre-ordering Ali Trotta’s Offerings for Ordinary Gods, damn it.

• And straight up buying Hache Pueyo’s Cabaret in Flames, okay? When the editor sent me the book, I tore through it within a day and sent a blurb literally the next morning. I loved it that much. You will too.

And as always, a cat picture as payment for your attention.