Publishers Weekly
08/19/2019
Jacobs’s collection bundles two evocative novellas exploring human depravity and corruption. “The Sea Dreams It Is the Sky” focuses on the tenuous relationship between aging, once-infamous poet Rafael Avendaño and young academic Isabel Certa, both exiles from the dictator-ravaged South American country of Magera and now living in Málaga, Spain. When Isabel finds Rafael’s journal and his attempts to translate an unsettling text (“It is a lure, a sweet aroma,/ the killing and/ the letting of blood”) from Latin and Greek into Spanish, she descends into a world of unthinkable corruption. In “My Heart Struck Sorrow,” a librarian discovers the journals and recordings of a man who recorded blues music in the Deep South, and learns of his fall into madness as he uncovers the Satanic roots of a popular blues tune. In Jacobs’s work, the present is held in a manacled grip by the foolishness and horrors of the past. His writing is meticulous, detailed, and atmospheric, evoking a sense of place and suspense in equal turns. Horror readers will enjoy Jacobs’s dark vision of human nature. Agent: Stacia Decker, Dunow, Carlson & Lerner Literary. (Oct.)
From the Publisher
Falling somewhere between House of Leaves (2000) and The Blair Witch Project, it is a terrifying, gothic descent into madness.This book has a fitting title if there ever was one, and these nightmares are worth every penny.” — Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
“The audacity of Jacobs to write two brilliant, hallucinatory, terrifying short novels that mash up South American poetry and politics, pre-WWII American folk songs, all-too-human depravity and longing, and cosmic horror. And then present them in one of the best books of the year. Damn him.” — Paul Tremblay, author of A Head Full of Ghosts and The Cabin at the End of the World
“There are horror writers who plant you in the cemetery and show you the old grave where the ghoul resides. Then there are writers like Jacobs, who ditch many of the genre’s standard tools while staying true to its essential heart. [...] These stories stitch Lovecraftian cosmic horror into terrestrial elements like murder ballads, and the result is a fiercely original and disquieting work. A must-have for any serious horror collection.” — Booklist (starred review)
“This book is Jacobs at his monstrous best. The tales read like whispered secrets from the mutant offspring of Lovecraft and Borges. Hornor understands that real horror doesn’t just exist in far-flung regions, but is as close as a glimpse of text or a snatch of song.” — Richard Kadrey, New York Times bestselling author of The Grand Dark
“In Jacobs’s work, the present is held in a manacled grip by the foolishness and horrors of the past. His writing is meticulous, detailed, and atmospheric, evoking a sense of place and suspense in equal turns. Horror readers will enjoy Jacobs’s dark vision of human nature.” — Publishers Weekly
“A Lush and Seething Hell expands the borders of cosmic horror and reveals John Hornor Jacobs for what he’s always been: a quiet master among us. A beautiful, haunting book full of beautiful, haunting prose. This is the best of what horror can be.” — Andy Davidson, author of In the Valley of the Sun
“John Hornor Jacobs conjures secret histories infused with the truths of real ones, turning the dark material of the twentieth century into shadowy new mythos. This is a horror novel with politics, one that uses the fantastic to put a mirror up to our most dreadful capacities.” — Christopher Brown, Campbell and World Fantasy Award-nominated author of TROPIC OF KANSAS and RULE OF CAPTURE
“For horror fans, certainly, it is an absolute must-read.” — B&N Sci-fi & Fantasy Blog
“In A Lush and Seething Hell Jacobs shows how a novella can do everything a novel can do and do it better — and he shows it twice. Two excellent, unsettling pieces about forbidden knowledge, lost souls, and struggling selves, one set in Latin America, the other in the American South. Having them together in the same book is like listening to two ghosts talk to one another.” — Brian Evenson, Guggenheim fellow and award-winning author of Song for the Unraveling of the World, Last Days, and The Warren
“The title of the collection, A Lush And Seething Hell, is both an invitation and a warning. The horror is seductive and smart, both beautiful and terrifying.” — Jason Murphy, screenwriter and author of The Black Goat Motorcycle Club
“A Lush and Seething Hell is what would happen if Nabakov and Faulkner were reborn and decided to collaborate on a pair of psychological horror tales. Frightening, suspenseful, and full of humanity, this book showcase one of the most original voices in fiction.” — Jonathan Janz, Author of The Dark Game, The Siren and the Specter, and Children of the Dark
“In A Lush and Seething Hell, John Hornor Jacobs shines a light on the unimaginable, and then plunges gleefully deeper, into the abyss. We worry about his characters. We worry about our own sanity, too. Jacobs’ work is some of the smartest and most creative fiction I’ve read.” — Sarah Langan, Stoker Award-winning author of Good Neighbors
“Jacobs’s A LUSH AND SEETHING HELL is a one-two punch of thoroughly entertaining and richly realized cosmic horror that sends you reeling through a dark and unsettling world. Pays loving homage to its forbears while creating its own beautiful nightmares from the horrors of human history. JHJ’s singular combination of existential dread and menace from beyond had me spellbound and reading through the night.” — Jeremy Robert Johnson, author of Entropy in Bloom
“Unsettling and incisive, these collected novellas illuminate the brutality of recent history and the cruelty—both heartwrenchingly mundane and more eldritch-leaning—of those in power.” — Caitlin Starlin, author of The Luminous Dead
“John Hornor Jacobs is a writer’s writer. His prose is gloomily sublime and layered with shadow. Be warned though: These stories may well be haunted. They stick around to whisper their melodies in the dark long after you finish reading.” — Jaye Wells, author of High Lonesome Sound
Jason Murphy
The title of the collection, A Lush And Seething Hell, is both an invitation and a warning. The horror is seductive and smart, both beautiful and terrifying.
Richard Kadrey
This book is Jacobs at his monstrous best. The tales read like whispered secrets from the mutant offspring of Lovecraft and Borges. Hornor understands that real horror doesn’t just exist in far-flung regions, but is as close as a glimpse of text or a snatch of song.
Booklist (starred review)
There are horror writers who plant you in the cemetery and show you the old grave where the ghoul resides. Then there are writers like Jacobs, who ditch many of the genre’s standard tools while staying true to its essential heart. [...] These stories stitch Lovecraftian cosmic horror into terrestrial elements like murder ballads, and the result is a fiercely original and disquieting work. A must-have for any serious horror collection.
Brian Evenson
In A Lush and Seething Hell Jacobs shows how a novella can do everything a novel can do and do it better — and he shows it twice. Two excellent, unsettling pieces about forbidden knowledge, lost souls, and struggling selves, one set in Latin America, the other in the American South. Having them together in the same book is like listening to two ghosts talk to one another.
Andy Davidson
“A Lush and Seething Hell expands the borders of cosmic horror and reveals John Hornor Jacobs for what he’s always been: a quiet master among us. A beautiful, haunting book full of beautiful, haunting prose. This is the best of what horror can be.
Christopher Brown
John Hornor Jacobs conjures secret histories infused with the truths of real ones, turning the dark material of the twentieth century into shadowy new mythos. This is a horror novel with politics, one that uses the fantastic to put a mirror up to our most dreadful capacities.
B&N Sci-fi & Fantasy Blog
For horror fans, certainly, it is an absolute must-read.
Paul Tremblay
The audacity of Jacobs to write two brilliant, hallucinatory, terrifying short novels that mash up South American poetry and politics, pre-WWII American folk songs, all-too-human depravity and longing, and cosmic horror. And then present them in one of the best books of the year. Damn him.
Sarah Langan
In A Lush and Seething Hell, John Hornor Jacobs shines a light on the unimaginable, and then plunges gleefully deeper, into the abyss. We worry about his characters. We worry about our own sanity, too. Jacobs’ work is some of the smartest and most creative fiction I’ve read.
Jonathan Janz
A Lush and Seething Hell is what would happen if Nabakov and Faulkner were reborn and decided to collaborate on a pair of psychological horror tales. Frightening, suspenseful, and full of humanity, this book showcase one of the most original voices in fiction.
Caitlin Starlin
Unsettling and incisive, these collected novellas illuminate the brutality of recent history and the cruelty—both heartwrenchingly mundane and more eldritch-leaning—of those in power.
Jaye Wells
John Hornor Jacobs is a writer’s writer. His prose is gloomily sublime and layered with shadow. Be warned though: These stories may well be haunted. They stick around to whisper their melodies in the dark long after you finish reading.
Jeremy Robert Johnson
Jacobs’s A LUSH AND SEETHING HELL is a one-two punch of thoroughly entertaining and richly realized cosmic horror that sends you reeling through a dark and unsettling world. Pays loving homage to its forbears while creating its own beautiful nightmares from the horrors of human history. JHJ’s singular combination of existential dread and menace from beyond had me spellbound and reading through the night.
Booklist (starred review)
There are horror writers who plant you in the cemetery and show you the old grave where the ghoul resides. Then there are writers like Jacobs, who ditch many of the genre’s standard tools while staying true to its essential heart. [...] These stories stitch Lovecraftian cosmic horror into terrestrial elements like murder ballads, and the result is a fiercely original and disquieting work. A must-have for any serious horror collection.
Kirkus Reviews
★ 2019-08-19
Two lush, sprawling novellas that are nothing like each other except that they're both scary as hell.
Arkansas-based novelist Jacobs (Infernal Machines, 2017, etc.) is a wildly diverse writer whose work ranges from the teen-oriented Incarcerado trilogy to a wetwork nightmare zombie survival epic (This Dark Earth, 2012). Like some of his contemporaries, Jacobs is stretching his talents and imagination like never before, turning in two spectacular novellas. After a glowing foreword by Jacobs' fellow fabulist Chuck Wendig, the book launches into The Sea Dreams It Is the Sky, a Lovecraft-ian horror story set in a fictionalized South American nation. In it, a young academic named Isabel Certa becomes involved with a famous one-eyed poet named Rafael Avendaño, a cavalier scoundrel who's heading into a war zone, leaving Isabel money, his apartment, and a cat for her protection as well as an obsession-inducing poem called "A Little Night Work" that Isabel spends all her time translating. The story is operatic in scale while the flavor leans closer to Roberto Bolaño or the weirdness of César Aira than the traditional horror genre. Then there's the chill-inducing, artfully paced My Heart Struck Sorrow, in which we're introduced to Cromwell, a librarian from the Library of Congress who specializes in oral tradition—and is suffering extreme shame about cheating on his wife. Through sheer coincidence, he accidentally stumbles upon a long-hidden treasure trove of blues recordings from the 1930s. Along with his assistant, Hattie, "Crumb," as she calls him, delves into the strange recordings and diary of Harlan Parker, a researcher much like himself who becomes obsessed with performances of the murder ballad "Stagger Lee." Falling somewhere between House of Leaves (2000) and The Blair Witch Project, it is a terrifying, gothic descent into madness.
This book has a fitting title if there ever was one, and these nightmares are worth every penny.
