CanLit: Joey Comeau's Supernatural Serial

The National Post’s literary arts section, The Afterword, is featuring daily excerpts from Joey Comeau’s new novel, One Bloody Thing After Another. The novel was released in May on ECW Press. The serial began July 12, with the horror novel’s prologue, continuing with another two chapters each day. There is still a link where you can check out a running compilation of everything posted.

One Bloody Thing After Another blends aspects of horror and the supernatural with a storyline following several young people met with troubling life encounters. Jackie, a vandal with a heartfelt cause, is met with legal obstacles; sisters Ann and Margaret are busy dealing with their mother, who spends her days chained up in the basement; ghosts, violence, and lesbianic lust fill in the rest of the horror novel. One Bloody Thing stays along the same lines as previous Comeau work. The comedic and sensational grapple with the abysmal for a blunt, empathetic depiction of human experience. For an in depth look at the novel, read this formidable review at Fangoria.

Comeau, aged 29, is one of Canada’s leading transgressive fiction authors. He is best known for his collaboration with visual artist Emily Horne on the superlatively acclaimed webcomic A Softer World. He has published four novels, including Lockpick Pornography, a self-attributed “genderqueer adventure story”, and the experimental Overqualified which is told through a series of darkly worded job application letters. Comeau is an openly queer author, often satirically and absurdly picking apart societal sexual constructs in his fiction.

Published by ThisZine