unravel

After a long season of contracts, I’m once again writing something for the raw joy of it. No, joy doesn’t feel like the right word here. Catharsis, maybe. Freedom. I’m writing because the act of creation has always been a form of exorcism for me. My books are often reams of past trauma and strange hurts pulled out of my lungs and impaled on a page with words. It’s almost a folkloric thing, almost a naming of the monster so I can find the right leash for it, the right muzzle, the right way to put it to rest.

And this book that’s shaping is very much the last thing: it’s an old nightmare that I’m going to finally inhume.

In answer, her death thumped its sable tail on the ground once, so much like any other household pet, Antigone nearly convinced herself she’d hallucinated its preternatural aspects. This was a dog, a stray and nothing more, unusually adroit even for a shepherd, sure, but a thing of flesh and fur and marrow. Delicately, it took the sandwich from her hand, lapping the grease from her fingers, and swallowed the tithe whole, wrapper and all, like a snake rather than a mammal. Antigone might have laughed if not for the animal’s eyes and how the pupils had burned to nothing so it was gold and only gold, like so much sap boiling in the sockets of its long skull, and she almost wanted to dip her fingers into the pools, mesmerized by their color, their terrible effulgence. Almost, she gave into the impulse, starting forward except, except–

She remembered dying.

It’s more autobiographical than anything else I’ve written as it’s going to be dealing a lot with the ideations from last year, with the jagged dysfunctional relationships that can develop between parents and child, with how I’m contending with the transition into mid-life. Is it horror? I don’t know. There’s at least one ghost there and an extraordinarily polite demon, and a death that arrives in the shape of a Very Good Boy. So, it’s certainly supernatural to some extent. But is it horror? Who knows. My inability to label it with a genre is certainly weirding me out although not in a bad way. We’ll see what happens (and if it happens soon, because I am still on contract and I should be writing the things that are on contract.)

***

things i’ve been enjoying

I greatly enjoyed Kathleen Jennings’ Honeyeater, which comes out on the 2nd of September later this year, and it too is about buried secrets and excavating the past for a key to let yourself out of the darkness. If you haven’t read her book, you should. Jennings’ prose is tuned not just to poetry but a photographer’s acumen for light and color. It’s gorgeous like everything else that Jennings writes, phantasmagoric and weird and perfect.

I’m doing an event with S.A Barnes later this week, which I’m very excited about, in which we are going to discuss her utterly spectacular Cold Eternity, which I cannot stop thinking about. It’s… it’s very ‘if this doesn’t get a movie or tv series adaptation, I’m going to riot’ levels of good. It’s action-packed and twisty in a way that I wasn’t expecting even though I should have. Multiple times in the book, I found myself going, ‘oh, that’s not where I thought it was going.’ Barnes is a spectacular white rabbit, leading people down unexpected paths, and when the climax arrives and all it’s revealed, I remember loudly going, ‘oh, oh I see’ while making a horrified face. (I rarely talk at my books so it should tell you something that I basically had a conversation with this one.)

I am also doing an event with C.S.E Cooney later this month. It’s going to be a tag team event with me and the marvelous Carlos Hernandez barraging the effervescent Cooney with all the praise in the world because oh my god, if you’ve spent any time reading any of my content, you’ll know I am a ridiculous diehard Cooney fan. I’ve loved everything she’s written. I love the bright zesty joy of her writing; I love the way she approaches grief and shadow and turns even the blackest of moments into something velvet and profound. Saint Death’s Herald is a gorgeous, gorgeous sequel to Saint Death’s Daughter, and just just go pre-order it now, thanks.

Go listen to The Magnus Archives right the fuck now, thanks. I’d listened to a few episodes on and off over the years but never really followed the series too deeply. However, last week I decided I really wanted something consistent and interesting for my runs so decided I’d start with episode one and go from there. Dear sweet gods of the Thames, I love this podcast. Love it, love it, love it. Essentially, it’s about this one dude who works for the eponymous institute. People go to the Magnus Institute to testify about the weird things that have happened to them and Jonathan, the new and very curmudgeonly archivist, is dealing with some of this by committing the statements to audio. Things get very weird and very eldritch and I love it so much, I was actually excited to go to the DMV yesterday because it meant hours of uninterrupted Magnus Archives time.

Also, you’re going to want Staircase in the Woods when it comes out so I’d go ahead and pre-order it right now. I’ve spoken about it at reasonable length on instagram, and there are sections of the book I’m still thinking about. My only note is that it does have oblique mention of CSA so if that’s a big trigger, be careful as you wade in.

***

I had more to say but I have to run to a meeting and well, *gestures at the political climate* so instead, take a cat photo. Be safe out there.