The Harlequin & The Train: A Novella [Paperback]

Paul Tremblay (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 15, 2009

Limited to 400 copies, this novella from critically-acclaimed author Paul G. Tremblay expands upon the short story of the same name (published in Compositions for the Young and Old, 2004, rev. 2005).

The Harlequin & the Train is an experimental fiction narrative that requires you to interact with it using a simple yellow highlighter. This novella is about paranoia, choice, and the horror of individual and collective consequence.

Plot Summary:
Rudy has only been on the job as a train engineer for a few months. While at the helm of a commuter train headed to Boston, Massachusetts, it hits a harlequin clown, and in the chaotic aftermath, he witnesses the horrific and inexplicable actions of a group of people who were seemingly laying in wait for the accident. There are other accidents and as the group infiltrates his life (present and past), and as random global acts of violence and suffering seem to be connected, what Rudy believes about others and himself will be forever warped as he makes his final choice.

Editorial Reviews

Review

The Harlequin and the Train is absorbing, funny, dark, and freshly clever, and goes by far too quickly. Paul Tremblay is an extremely gifted writer and I can't wait to see what he does to us next. --Lucius Shepard, author of The Handbook of American Prayer and Softspoken

Somewhat similar in execution to Chuck Palahniuk's Haunted, Tremblay's story uses the cannibals to examine society, suggesting perhaps that we are a lot closer to these monsters than most people would like to admit.... [T]hose who consider themselves up for the intellectual challenge should definitely take a bite out of this psychologically assaulting horror hybrid that brings new meaning to the phrase "food for thought." --Jessa Sobczuk, Rue Morgue Magazine

Tremblay has been establishing himself over the past several years as one of an up-and-coming crop of genre writers bringing the literary back into dark genre literature, one of whom challenges readers without losing entertainment value and one who entertains without dumbing the challenge down. The Harlequin & the Train is a heady trip down a surrealistic railway, making station stops at terror, paranoia, heartbreak, and — ultimately — truth. --Vince A. Liaguno, Dark Scribe Magazine

About the Author

Paul Tremblay has won acclaim for his short fiction and received two nominations for the 2007 Bram Stoker Award. He is the author of the short speculative fiction collection Compositions for the Young and Old, the hard-boiled/dark fantasy novella City Pier: Above and Below, and his first novel The Little Sleep was published by Henry Holt. He has sold over fifty short stories to markets such as Razor Magazine, Weird Tales, Last Pentacle of the Sun: Writings in Support of the West Memphis Three, and Horror: The Year's Best 2007.

He lives in Massachusetts with his wife, two children, a hairy dog, and a soggy basement.

Product Details

• Paperback: 155 pages
• Publisher: Necropolitan Press; Limited 1st edition (June 15, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0981832008
• ISBN-13: 978-0981832005
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.3 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,945,907 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Paul Tremblay is the author of The Little Sleep (Henry Holt, March 3, 2009). and No Sleep till Wonderland (February 2010).

He is a three-time nominee of the Bram Stoker award has sold over fifty short stories to markets such as Razor Magazine, Weird Tales, Last Pentacle of the Sun: Writings in Support of the West Memphis Three, and Best American Fantasy 3. He is the author of the short speculative fiction collection Compositions for the Young and Old and the forthcoming In the Mean Time (October 2010), and the novellas City Pier: Above and Below and The Harlequin and the Train. He served as fiction editor of CHIZINE and as co-editor of Fantasy Magazine, and was also the co-editor (with Sean Wallace) of the Fantasy, Bandersnatch, and Phantom anthologies. Paul is currently an advisor for the Shirley Jackson Awards as well.

Paul is very truthful and declarative in his bios. He once gained three inches of height in a single twelve hour period, and he does not have a uvula. His second toe is longer than his big toe, and yes, on both feet. He has a master's degree in mathematics, teaches AP Calculus, and once made twenty-seven three pointers in a row. He enjoys reading The Tale of Mr. Jeremy Fisher aloud in a faux-British accent to his two children. He is also reading this bio aloud, now, with the same accent. He lives outside of Boston, Massachusetts and he is represented by Stephen Barbara, Foundry Literary + Media.