In his first collection, Greener Pastures, Michael Wehunt introduced the world to his singular voice--a poetic, resonant force of darkness and unique terrors. He returns with The Inconsolables, a chilling selection of stories sure to brighten this star of literary horror.
Inside, meet masterfully rendered characters who grapple with desires as powerful and personal as the monsters that stalk them from the edges of perception.
A man revisits a childhood game of pretend in "Vampire Fiction."
A found-footage collaboration turns nightmarish in "The Pine Arch Collection," which links to "October Film Haunt: Under the House" from Greener Pastures.
In "An Ending (Ascent)," Wehunt steps beyond horror in a devastating near-future elegy for living and dying in a changing world.
Readers have waited for years to discover which cracks between the everyday and the extraordinary Wehunt would explore next. His latest collection offers ten resounding, haunting, terrifying answers.
The Inconsolables is fully illustrated by acclaimed artist Trevor Henderson.
“No other living author writes the weird and the uncanny with the verve and deftness of Michael Wehunt. In this remarkable follow up to his highly praised debut collection, Wehunt issues a mournful shriek into the carnivorous void and bares his soul so completely and so openly. Elegantly written and utterly harrowing, The Inconsolables is an exemplary achievement of short fiction penned by a master craftsman who knows all too well how to hurt you.”
—Eric LaRocca, author of Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke
“The Inconsolables is a seismic literary event in the horror genre, and Michael Wehunt is among our best living writers, full stop.” — Andy Davidson, author of The Hollow Kind
"Michael Wehunt is one of my favorite, trusted guides navigating stories of grief and loss, sadness and regret. My reader’s heart left standing in Greener Pastures so eager to welcome that unique, familiar voice ushering me toward a new strange path twisting through Wehunt’s garden of eerie, weird, beautiful things—The Inconsolables; what a gift."
--Sadie Hartmann, Author of 101 Horror Books to Read Before You're Murdered, Bram Stoker Award®-nominated editor
“I was slowly savoring The Inconsolables by Michael Wehunt, but by 'Caring for a Stray Dog (Metaphors),' I knew I had to read the whole book as quickly as possible. These stories offer communion with awe and terror, the profane and beautiful all at once. You will not be the same person after finishing. This is a must-have. It aches.”
--Clay McLeod Chapman, author of Ghost Eaters
“There aren’t a lot of 'traditional' monsters in The Inconsolables, save for the author himself, who keeps drenching the audience with sorrow and heartbreak and the dread of existence. No 'traditional' monsters save for the modern universe Wehunt explores and inhabits here, in narrative. These stories exist in the liminal space between elegy and the uncanny and prove beyond all doubt that Wehunt is one of our modern day masters of horror.
-- John Hornor Jacobs, Author of A Lush and Seething Hell and The Incorruptibles
"These stories drill down to my core, undoing me as they go, leaving me spent and shaken, searching for solid ground. And just when I was ready to throw in the towel, to surrender, there was a ray of hope, and it was heartbreaking in its brilliance."
-- Richard Thomas, author of Spontaneous Human Combustion, a Bram Stoker Award finalist