Paper Fruit

I’ve been really boring of late (just of late?), mostly because a story has been obsessing me and I’m keeping my head down until I finish it. Also I’m in panic mode because I’m behind on pretty much everything and MileHiCon is next weekend, and I have a million things to do before then, including—most frivolously—finishing my costume.

But! I’m never too busy to pay attention to myself, so of course I have some spamming about A Pretty Mouth to do. There have been some new Goodreads and Amazon reviews, so an enormous thank you to everyone who’s taken the time to read my humble tome and post about it. But two reviews appeared online this week that … I’m just going to let them speak for themselves, okay? Because, truth be told, I’m a bit overwhelmed.

A Pretty Mouth was reviewed over at Seattlepi.com, and wowza. About the title novella, the reviewer says:

…the author mixes anachronistic language with historically accurate detail and strikes a perfect balance. “A Pretty Mouth” takes place at Wadham College, Oxford in the 17th century. The boys who attend the prestigious institution are typical of their age and degree of privilege. Their nefarious adventures will strike a chord with readers fond of stories about school days. But this magical tale is a far cry from the idealized world of Harry Potter and his little chums. These boys woo and taunt and brutalize one another. Their secret experiments are matters of life and death—and sex.

Another amazingly flattering quote, about “The Hour of the Tortoise” (also available in The Book of Cthulhu II):

This darkly romantic story is worthy of a Bronte, except for the naughty bits written by our heroine for her demanding editor. The naughty bits are hugely entertaining, by the way. The language, setting, and characterization are flawless; all contribute to a keen portrait of an intellectual woman undone by patriarchal power. The madwoman in the attic has nothing on our fair Chelone.

It’s so incredible, as a new author, to see people really “getting” what I was trying to do with these stories. Many thanks to S.P. Miskowski and Shock Room Horror!

A Pretty Mouth was also reviewed by Jared over at Pornokitsch.com, and again, I am nigh-speechless:

Molly Tanzer’s A Pretty Mouth (2012) is easily the best collection I’ve read this year and, honestly, for as long as I can remember. Effusive praise, but utterly well-deserved, as A Pretty Mouth combines skillful pastiche, gut-churning horror, atmospheric weirdness and atmospheric poignancy.

And as if that wasn’t enough:

The stories trace the descent of a single family through time, with Ms. Tanzer’s prose changing to incorporate the appropriate Edwardian, Victorian or Gothic style for each tale. My favourite is the Wodehouse/Lovecraft mash-up, but the author does justice to every tale. But, most importantly, despite being a stylistic chameleon, Ms. Tanzer’s prose is insightful, clever and distinctly her own.

Bring me my smelling salts! Seriously. Many, many thanks to Jared and Anne for taking the time to read and review my book. It means a lot to me.

All right! I must stop reading and re-reading my reviews and finish this friggin’ story, finish my costume, finish the book reviews I owe, finish reading a book about the sex lives of the Victorians so I can moderate a certain panel at MileHi, and also clean my house. Tinkerty-tonk!

EVIDENCE:

I can’t even!

Whee! It’s been a great first week for A Pretty Mouth. I’ve heard from a few people that they received their copies, which is awesome. I’ve also seen folks online commenting that they’ve been enjoying the book, which makes me very happy indeed!

It’s gotten some reviews, too! Right now there are four reviews on Amazon, all of which are 5-star (brag brag brag, amiright?). One of those, from Jamie Grefe, is on his blog, too, and it’s as super-cool, stylish a writeup as I have ever seen. Thanks, Jamie!

My friend Jesse interviewed me about A Pretty Mouth, asking some hard-hitting questions like who my dream-date Calipash would be. I answered a double-date with Basil and Rosemary, the original twins, for reasons you can read at the link above. Many thanks, Jesse!

Also, last Sunday I participated in a round-table discussion, hosted by Mike Davis of the Lovecraft eZine. We (meaning Joe Pulver, Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Nicole Cushing, W.H. Pugmire, Scott Thomas, and Peter Rawlik) talked about “The Art of Writing,” on google hangouts, which apparently you can record and then put on youtube. I know, right? So, you can watch our discussion here. Sometime later in the discussion we all get weirdly enthusiastic about the potential of Lovecraftian pornography, so if you’re into such things, well, it would behoove you to pour some Dewars (that’s what I was drinking during the discussion, so it’ll be like you’re right there with us) sit back, and watch the magic happen. I mention this in association with news of my book because Mike kindly gave me a chance to talk about A Pretty Mouth, so I awkwardly babbled about it for a few minutes. Thanks, Mike!

So that’s what’s up with A Pretty Mouth. If, after reading the interview and seeing all those stellar reviews, you could buy it from Amazon.com if you were so inclined. I would appreciate that very much. And to everyone who’s already picked up a copy, thank you thank you thank you!

Holy moly! A Pretty Mouth dropped early—by like, a month!—so it’s up on Amazon and you could buy it if you wanted to. And you know you want to! Because really, the cover alone is worth the price.

But what about inside said cover? Well, I’m super-proud of the contents, which I can actually take credit for. If you pick up my book you’ll be getting a short novel and four short stories about the Calipash family, first featured in my “The Infernal History of the Ivybridge Twins” which people seemed to like well enough. The stories are all set in different time periods so it’s like, sort of Blackadderish, but with lots of incest and necromancy and you know what, my friend and colleague John Langan said it way better than me here:

“The stories and short novel in Molly Tanzer’s impressive debut collection move steadily backwards through English history, from an Edwardian resort to a Roman encampment, stopping on the way for the nineteenth, eighteenth, and seventeenth centuries, all in the interest of tracing the main trunk of the notorious Calipash family tree all the way to its roots. It’s a family linemarked by its excesses of sensuality, cruelty, and sorcery, and in excerpting the exploits of its storied members, Tanzer demonstrates her facility with a variety of voices and styles, from Wodehousian farce to Victorian erotica to Restoration class comedy. Each of the narratives collected here stands and succeeds on its own terms, but taken together, they add to a whole greater than the sum of its parts, in which the recurrence of key motifs in a diversity of settings creates the sense of a family living out its doom generation after generation. Tanzer is an ambitious writer, and she is talented enough for her ambition to matter.” —JOHN LANGAN, author of The Wide, Carnivorous Sky and Other Monstrous Geographies

See that? An actual college professor claims my book has “key motifs!” Fuck yeah, that’s pretty much everything I ever wanted right there. But in case that’s not enough to convince you that your $11.95 will be well spent on my book, you can scroll down on the Amazon page and see that such people as Caitlin R. Kiernan, Laird Barron, Stephen Graham Jones (who also has a book out today through LFP, so get ’em both and maybe you’ll get super-saver  shipping?), John Hornor Jacobs, W.H. Pugmire, and Nick Mamatas all thought it was pretty okay, too.

Anyways! Many thanks to Amazon for saving me the trouble of doing a bunch of pre-promotion, because I suck at it. Just go buy it! Please? Thank you!