Worlds of Paul Jessup

This is a crevice book . . . a shadow volume whose pages were written in the cracks of ancient cities and long since forgotten. Nine stories, nine shadows . . . words tattooed on skin, locked in towers, frozen under glass and sleeping with apple hearts, refusing to be defined. They are carved of light, and slither through your fingers like winter rain.

In these shadows you will find:

Glass Coffin Girls Cover Art

- resurrection, quantum vampires and magic tricks
- jealous mothers, dead birds, and a cannibal princess
- a high school trapped behind a wall of snow
- a man who makes art out of misery
- a surreal war and a chance for survival
- feral children, a dead mother and the bogeyman
- hypnotism, speaking to the dead, a girl in thorns and a haunting
- a drought, a story in reverse, and a man who makes a star out of a mermaid

Step inside . . . but be careful. The path is uneven and will melt with every step, trapping you between worlds.

PS Showcase 6: Glass Coffin Girls

Purchase - [hardcover for $19.20] [jacketed hardcover for $40.00]
Publisher: PS Publishing
Release Date: Spring 2009
Cover art: Darin Bradley
Introduction by: Jeff Vandermeer

-Contents-
Secret in the House of Smiles
Glass Coffin Girls
Stone Dogs
The Drinking Moon
Wire Rabbit
Red Hairs
Jars of Rain
It Tasted Like the Sea

Reviews

Another stand-out is “Secret in the House of Smiles,” which starts the book off in typically atypical fashion with Jack, a nutty college dude who likes to cut out pieces of women’s bodies from magazines and then paste them together in new configurations, his vampire (quantum vampire, that is) hunting girlfriend Alice, and a cabin in the woods where Jack and Alice meet their fate. “The Drinking Moon” is even stranger, a slip-streamy evocation of undiluted oddness whose overall tone is set by the words of the title.

-From Fright.com

“The title story, “Glass Coffin Girls”, is the second story and a much more interesting piece. The opening paragraph is a real “grabber” and sets up the coming conflict between the main characters beautifully. One thing that Jessup does extremely well, in this story and throughout the collection, is use sentence length and rhythms to propel the stories along. At times, his writing feels like free verse poetry, and he likes to use repetition and short lines for emphasis. Unlike in the previous story, the characters of Lewis and Emily are expertly drawn. The relationship between them is complex and multifaceted. Lewis’ obsession with cannibalism, seemingly rooted in childhood denial and secrets, dominates his very being and his obsession with the seemingly-suicidal Emily leads to him becoming increasingly dominated by her, having obviously been dominated by his mother before her.

It’s a story that has more narrative drive than “Secret In The House of Smiles”, and Jessup employs some characteristic fairytale tropes (an evil hound, wicked mother figure, glass coffin, wannabe princess) to new and freakishly-unusual effect. As the story moves along, the imagery becomes more and more bizarre and there is a real sense of claustrophobia built up as Lewis loses control of everything around him. It’s certainly one of the more accessible stories in the collection, thanks to cleanly-delineated characters and a cohesive structure, and I genuinely enjoyed it.”

From Innsmouth Free Press