Fistful of Feet [Paperback]

Jordan Krall (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 5, 2009

A bizarro tribute to Spaghetti westerns, HP Lovecraft, and foot fetish enthusiasts. Screwhorse, Nevada is legendary for its violent and unusual pleasures, but when a mysterious gunslinger drags a wooden donkey into the desert town, the stage is set for a bloodbath unlike anything the west has ever seen. His name is Calamaro, and he's from New Jersey. Featuring Cthulhu-worshipping Indians, a woman with four feet, a Giallo-esque serial killer, a crazed gunman who is obsessed with sucking on candy, Syphilis-ridden mutants, ass juice, burping pistols, sexually transmitted tattoos, and a house devoted to the freakiest fetishes, Jordan Krall's Fistful of Feet is the weirdest western ever written.

Editorial Reviews

From the Author

This is my tribute to the Spaghetti Western and the giallo genres. It is quite weird so if you tend to scratch your head at strange literature....You've been warned. --This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.

From the Inside Flap

"Krall has quite a flair for outrage as an art form." - EDWARD LEE, author of The Bighead

"Jordan Krall is a bit like Jonathan Lethem meets the Coen Brothers with an H.P. Lovecraft fetish. His tales will quickly grow on you. Read two books and you'll be addicted." - CARLTON MELLICK III, author of Satan Burger

"Krall's vision of bizarro is not only dark and full of mystery, but guaranteed to entertain as well." - JOHN EDWARD LAWSON, author of Sin Conductor

"Jordan Krall's writing takes you places you never knew you wanted to go." - JEREMY C. SHIPP, author of Vacation

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 228 pages
• Publisher: Eraserhead Press (October 5, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1933929898
• ISBN-13: 978-1933929897
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 0.5 x 5.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (49 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,311,385 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Jordan Krall writes horror, weird fiction, crime fiction, apocalyptic literature, bizarro, and non-genre fiction.

His newest books include PENETRALIA and NIGHTMARES FROM A LOVECRAFTIAN MIND.

He has had four books published by ERASERHEAD PRESS including SQUID PULP BLUES which has been praised by horror authors Edward Lee and Tom Piccirilli.

His book FISTFUL OF FEET was called "a great homage to the spaghetti western" by the SPAGHETTI WESTERN DATABASE.

One of his most acclaimed books BEYOND THE VALLEY OF THE APOCALYPSE DONKEYS was recently published by COPELAND VALLEY PRESS and is an enigmatic descent into murder, infidelity, rare films, and a bizarre identity crisis. Think David Lynch meets Russ Meyer. .

Jordan Krall's upcoming books include:
-YOUR CITIES, YOUR TOMBS (Copeland Valley Press) coming Winter 2012
-NUDE WITCH, NUDE (Spectacular Productions) Spring 2013
-SHAOLIN SQUID (Dynatox Ministries) Spring 2013

His work is influenced and inspired by H.P. Lovecraft, Gnosticism, squid, Jim Thompson, Thomas Ligotti, J.G. Ballard, true crime, Andy Milligan, eschatology, Barry Malzberg, Philip K. Dick, William Burroughs, Current 93, Ginger Rogers, ancient astronauts, and pancakes.

You can get limited edition chapbook editions of his stories at http://dynatoxministries.wordpress.com


Contact him at http://jordankrall.wordpress.com

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Finally, a REAL weird western November 24, 2009

By David W Barbee

Format:Paperback

I'm going to be honest and say that I'm a huge fan of Jordan Krall and he's one of my favorite bizarro writers. I once heard Krall mentioned as the Quentin Tarantino of bizarro, and I think it's true in that he has a perfect mastery of genre fiction. Squid Pulp Blues paid homage to crime noir, and now with Fistful of Feet, Krall is entering one of my personal favorite genres: the western.

So of course I love this book, but I'm also going to tell you why. Fistful of Feet is a bloody love song to all the cool Spaghetti Westerns made back in the 60's and 70's, full of superhuman gunplay and a moral code enforced by graphic violence. The setting is the town of Screwhorse, a bubbling cauldron of corruption and mischief. The frontier of the west was a brutal and lawless environment, where everyone is just trying to survive. In this sense, Krall has stayed true to the roots of the western, giving it the proper atmosphere and the sort of characters we've come to expect. The cast is large and varied, with all the classic western characters represented. There's the stand-up-for-justice hero, the whores-with-the-hearts-of-gold, the corrupt mayor, the incompetent sheriff, the scum-of-the-earth thugs, the mystical Indians, the con man, and even a few psychos. That's a large cast, but I wasn't put off by it, as I felt that Fistful of Feet was just that kind of western. Westerns like this are like operas. There needs to be a large cast in order to produce as many corpses as possible.

Jordan Krall proves that he knows the western like the back of his hand, but at the same time, he's created his own brand of bizarro over the years. Fistful of Feet has tentacles, bodily fluids, deformed feet, weird drugs, sucking, screwing, hermaphrodites and much more. I've always been a fan of weird westerns but the best I could ever find was Trigun or old Jonah Hex comics (Sex and Death in Television Town by Carlton Mellick is very good, but at times it's barely recognizable as a western). Jordan Krall has created the TRUE weird western here. It conforms to the classic themes the genre has to offer, yet twists it with the sort of weirdness that Jordan Krall is known for. What we get is something far more interesting than just "werewolves in the west" or "cowboys in space." Here's hoping we get to see more weird westerns in the bizarro scene.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Cut My Heart Out and Fill It with Krall's Bizarro Western Stories, Please! December 22, 2010

By M. Kleine

Format:Paperback

First things first, Jordan Krall is an amazing writer. His Bizarro literature is unique and quite fantastic. When someone tells you, "this author has a voice," Jordan Krall is one of those. I say this because after having read everything by Krall (save for Piecemeal June,) there definitely is an authorial voice hidden behind the Bizarro curtain that is this book. If you enjoy the type of writing found in pulp novels, then you will enjoy FISTFUL OF FEET. There's dialogue, fantastic imagery, memorable heroes, crazy villains, strange fetishes, stunning one-liners and tons of superb spaghetti western-worthy moments. If I were asked to describe the best thing about the book, I would have to mention the characters. Though they are quite zany and out-of-this-world, no character would be complete without dialogue and as I have mentioned before, Krall has a talent when it comes to writing believable dialogue. Where Palahniuk has failed (repeatedly,) Krall shines. FISTFUL OF FEET reads like a spaghetti western written by Quentin Tarantino (for the dialogue and violence) and directed by Stanley Kubrick (for the truly bizarre and unexplainable moments.)

Now don't get thrown off by my description of the novel. Yes, it is bizarre and it definitely has its fair share of "odd" moments but Krall manages to nail the Western feel. It could have been very easy to create a Bizarro story situated in the West with no real semblance of the Western genre but somehow, and I applaud him for this, Krall succeeds. There are dozens of unforgettable characters and as David W Barbee puts it, "Westerns like this are like operas. There needs to be a large cast in order to produce as many corpses as possible." I was able to snag a pre-order of this book, which came with a lollipop, collectible card, miscellaneous goodies, a personal inscription and the text itself. While I would have liked to have received a MEGA-AWESOME-BONUS edition, I understand that these are hard times and we cannot all release Steven Spielberg/George Lucas-esque 64th anniversary bundles. Nevertheless, I am quite pleased to have read this book and it needs to be handed out to as many people as possible. Now. Sequel, please. Now.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Krall's Wild West Is Filled With Weird October 30, 2009

By Andersen Prunty VINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback

Jordan Krall's third release and first full-length novel is a must for spaghetti and weird western fans. I've never actually read a western novel but I find many of the movies to be plodding and dull to the point that most of the characters and plots are nakedly obvious in the first few minutes, thus beginning an endless barrage of the protaganist asserting his masculinity. Krall brings something new. The framework still draws heavily from the tried and true formula of the western film but is presented with such a love for the outre, weird, and fetishistic, that I found myself wanting to read on just to find out what happened next. And like the best spaghetti westerns, there are gems of existensialism like this: "Maybe there isn't a Heaven and Hell like they tell you in church. Maybe you end up spending eternity riding on the back of a giant scorpion that keeps going in circles and you can't tell him the right way to go because your mouth is full of dust."

Calamaro is the hero in the book. He enters the trippy town of Screwhorse, Nevada, dragging a wooden donkey behind him (an homage to the film Django). Calamaro has a hazy past and an extremely chivalrous disposition. The town of Screwhorse is a wreck. It contains a legendary whorehouse where customers can come and indulge their sickest, strangest fantasies. The mayor is corrupt. The cattle have tentacles instead of udders. The drugstore sells a powerful hallucinogen. These things are just the beginning. Part of the thrill of reading Fistul of Feet is discovering the odd characters and situations and picking up on all the winks and nudges.

Many of the characters lack depth, which is one of my only real criticisms with the book. One of the reasons for this is that Krall introduces A LOT of characters. There are basically good guys and basically bad guys but nearly everyone is weird. This can sometimes make it difficult to keep the characters straight. Some of the chapters are little more than these odd characters gathering together to indulge their fetishes with little to no plot development. However, this book is definitely not intended to be any kind of character study. And while it does have a plot that advances at a decent pace it is a writer creating an homage to various film and pulp fiction genres. In this respect, I think Krall succeeds and creates a very worthwhile and entertaining piece of oddity. After reading the 2008 novella Piecemeal June and the novella collection Squid Pulp Blues, I had been wanting to read a full-length work from Krall and Fistful of Feet left me very satisfied and looking forward to his next book.