From the “the Donald Barthelme of psychological horror” (Los Angeles Times) comes this collection of “satisfying and surreal stories” (The Plain Dealer). Illustrated by graphic novelist Zak Sally, Brian Evenson’s hallucinatory and darkly comic stories of paranoia, pursuit, sensory deprivation, amnesia, and retribution rattle the cages of the psyche and peer into the gaping moral chasm that opens when we become estranged from ourselves. From sadistic bosses with secret fears to a woman trapped in a mime’s imaginary box, and from a post-apocalyptic misidentified Messiah to unwitting portraitists of the dead, the mind-bending world of this modern-day Edgar Allan Poe exposes the horror contained within our daily lives. “Brilliant . . . Evenson manages to capture madness with a masterful tone. The specific genius of Fugue State rests in subtlety, in Evenson’s ability to maintain suspense, dread and paranoia through utter linguistic control.” —Time Out New York “Brian Evenson is one of the treasures of American story writing, a true successor both to the generation of Coover, Barthelme, Hawkes and Co., but also to Edgar Allan Poe.” —Jonathan Lethem “The stories in this collection will thrill, unsettle, and captivate . . . Read at your own risk.” —Kelly Link

© 2011 Coffee House Press (Ebook): 9781566892674

Release date

Ebook: 17 February 2011