Come along, my would-be selves, and let us live a life, if for no other reason than to say, when it is over, that we did.
Think of all the loves and hates we will temporarily adopt, all the troubles and delights we will foster into being, all the laughter and the tears we will cause and quell alike, the days we will wake to and waste, the nights we will dream in and forget, the children we will make and mar, the parents we will thrill and bury, and all the silly things we will wear along the way, the hairstyles and habiliments, the passions and opinions, the banners and boredoms and outrageous beliefs. How mad it all will be. How mad and miraculous and not to be missed.
So come along, my would-be selves, and let us live a life, if for no other reason than to say, when it is over: “How ridiculous and wonderful it was.”
“There’s this book,” he said, “called A Season in Carcosa. It just got here. By ‘here’ I mean this place that most folks call the world. Where it came from, I couldn’t tell you. Some say from the shores of Lake Hali, others from the cloudy depths of dim and forgotten Demhe. Anyway, this book, it’s got a bunch of writin’ in it—stories and a poem or two—that’ll change the shape of your soul. If you believe in that kind of thing. Souls and change, I mean. And even if you don’t, it don’t really matter, ’cause it’ll do what it does just the same. ‘Cause that’s the way it is, this book. If you know what I mean. And even if you don’t. If you know what I mean. Ad in-effin’-finitum.”
In addition to “Salvation in Yellow,” my Southern Gothic meditation on madness, the Bible, and “divine” intervention, this long-awaited anthology, edited by Joseph S. Pulver Sr., boasts the following table of contents:
“My Voice is Dead” by Joel Lane
“Beyond the Banks of the River Seine” by Simon Strantzas
“Movie Night at Phil’s” by Don Webb
“MS Found in a Chicago Hotel Room” by Daniel Mills
“It sees me when I’m not looking” by Gary McMahon
“Finale, Act Two” by Ann K. Schwader
“Yellow Bird Strings” by Cate Gardner
“The Theatre & Its Double” by Edward Morris
“The Hymn of the Hyades” by Richard Gavin
“Slick Black Bones and Soft Black Stars” by Gemma Files
“Not Enough Hope” by Joseph S. Pulver Sr.
“Whose Hearts are Pure Gold” by Kristin Prevallet
“April Dawn” by Richard A. Lupoff
“King Wolf” by Anna Tambour
“The White-Face at Dawn” by Michael Kelly
“Wishing Well” by Cody Goodfellow
“Sweetums” by John Langan
“The King is Yellow” by Pearce Hansen
“DT” by Laird Barron
“Salvation in Yellow” by Robin Spriggs
“The Beat Hotel” by Allyson Bird
And for those who like a little extra teasing, here’s the book trailer by Brendan Petersen, with music by Lena Griffin.
A Season in Carcosa can be purchased from Amazon, or directly from Miskatonic River Press. I hope you’ll give it a try.
Come along, my would-be selves, and let us live a life, if for no other reason than to say, when it is over, that we did.
Robin Spriggs 