Morbid Tales
In these eight immaculately realised strange stories, Quentin S. Crisp delves deep into the decadence of contemporary life. Springing from the beauties of love and despair, the tales range from the melancholy betrayal of "Autumn Colours", to the elegiac love and violence of "The Tattooist"; from the seductive horror of "Cousin X", to the warped, heady eroticism of "The Mermaid"; from the wistful fantasy of "Far-Off Things" to the more worldly wish-fulfilment of "The Two-Timer"; and from the supernatural mystery of "A Lake", to the paradoxical perfection of "Ageless".
The fresh originality of the tales and their settings: an English country garden in "Cousin X"; contemporary Japan in "A Lake": is matched by the elegance of the writing. They are unified, perhaps, by a yearning for the achingly perfect, ecstatic moment. As Mark Samuels points out in his Foreword, Crisp's fiction is "...too multi-layered, too individual, to be labelled. One can spot influences here and there, a dash of this and a sprinkling of that, but the end result is much greater than the sum of its parts."
Contents:
- The Mermaid
- Far-Off Things
- Cousin X
- A Lake
- The Two-Timer
- The Tattooist
- Ageless
- Autumn Colours
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Quentin S. Crisp
Quentin S. Crisp (born 1972) is a British writer and publisher of supernatural fiction. Unlike the better-known personality of the same name, this Quentin Crisp was given the name at birth but, being younger, must use his middle initial to disambiguate. Originally from North Devon, Crisp now lives in London. He has a bachelor's degree in Japanese from the University of Durham, has spent two periods living in Japan and Japanese literature is a significant influence in his work.
Crisp is responsible for the Chomu Press, publishing fiction by contemporary authors.
Crisp also writes lyrics, which have been recorded by Kodagain.
His novella Shrike was a 2009 Shirley Jackson Award finalist.
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