How to Eat Fried Furries (The New Bizarro Author) [Paperback]

Nicole Cushing (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 13, 2010 | Series: The New Bizarro Author

Furries-you know, people in animal costumes. You may love them. You may hate them. But chances are, you have not considered eating them...until now! Not since the early days of Monty Python has dark satire so subversive reared its ugly head! From the Hellmouth of the Heartland, Nicole Cushing brings you How To Eat Fried Furries-your guide on how to raise furries as livestock and cook 'em up tender and tasty. The cast of characters is as motley and grotesque as one would imagine given such a premise. There's the misshapen, proto-furry cast of the '70s action-adventure show, Ferret Force Five. Extraterrestrial Squirrels. The Amish and the even more despicable Pseudo-Amish. Whether an avid Bizarro fan or a newcomer to this wave of weird fiction, you're bound to be satisfied once you take a bite out of How To Eat Fried Furries.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

People who dress up as animals are the target of this uneven speculative satire, a soi-disant "flying circus" of semiconnected short works presented as part of Eraserhead's New Bizarro Author series. Readers who expect Monty Python–style wild-paced, sprawling, clever humor may be disappointed. While diving in with promising bite, the first half of the book eventually bogs down in a single, mostly uninterrupted story, a mock script for an imaginary TV show called "Ferret Force Five" in which extraterrestrial squirrels plot to invade Earth. Later stories like "A Citizen's History of the Pseudo-Amish Anschluss" don't wear out their welcome, but the weird humor will likely only appeal to a small niche audience--one that doesn't include furries. (Nov.) (c)
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Review

"I can't remember the last time I read a first effort that was this damn good."

--ANITA DALTON, I Read Odd Books.Com

"Imaginative and funny, this book almost defies categorization...I recommend this book to libraries and anyone looking for something VERY different and VERY funny."

--MONSTER LIBRARIAN

"Packed with plenty of wit and clever dialogue, HOW TO EAT FRIED FURRIES is a blast and a half; hysterical one second and thought-provoking the next."

-- NICK  CATO, Antibacterial Pope

"a twisted book about raising Furries as a food source -- dark humor at its strangest" --FURRY NEWS NETWORK

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 104 pages
• Publisher: Eraserhead Press (October 13, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1936383004
• ISBN-13: 978-1936383009
• Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 0.2 x 8.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,739,547 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

"The confidence and expertise so blatantly evident in Nicole Cushing's writing is astonishing."

- Thomas Ligotti, in reference to Children of No One

"(Children of No One is) an absolutely stunning debut novella that will make you cringe, and most importantly will make you think... If you read one debut this year, this should be the one you read."

- Famous Monsters of Filmland

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Not Flesh Nor Flayed, just killer November 6, 2010

By Michele Lee

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

SBN: 978-1936383009

I bought this book.

The chances of readers not being familiar with either bizarro fiction or the "flying circus" storytelling form is pretty high. So let's start there. Bizarro is a pseudo-genre that embraces Absurdism, irony, satire, surrealism and even outright silliness. Think Roald Dahl, Lewis Carroll, Jean-Paul Sarte, Samuel Beckett meets The Twilight Zone, Lovecraft and David Lynch. In fact this book comes out through Eraserhead Press.
The flying circus is an homage to Monty Python. It's a collection of related (thematically, directly through characters and worlds, or merely grammatically) shorts that come together as a whole. How to Eat Fried Furries supposedly is a pamphlet included in the goodie bags at the American Association of Furry Farmers convention.
Cushing's shorts start out as silly riffs on religion and genre (alien squirrel invaders led by the Squirrel Pope, readers will get that the stories are absurd, as is the bits of religion they're reflecting). It disarms the reader with over-the-top stunts then subjects them to some pretty serious shorts that challenge the nature of human status quo and pretentiousness. In these darker pieces Cushing establishes that there are three people in the world: the Flesh, who uphold and define the status quo; the Flayed to reject it to the point of rejecting their own skin; and the neutral who are very screwed indeed.
While the premise might seem silly (and honestly the first mini-tale is quite far gone) Cushing deftly slices apart the reader with a wicked wit and almost playful viciousness. The power packed second act makes Furries an excellent, rattling read and a chance to get in on the ground floor of what will be a stellar career.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A Mental MindF**k Can Be Nice November 19, 2010

By Troy Chambers

Format:Paperback

Dear Squirrel Jesus, what on earth to say about Nicole Cushing's How To Eat Fried Furries? I'm still kind of in shock from it to be honest.

Let's start with this: the book's brilliant. It's been a long time since I've been so delighted by a book, and I'm willing to bet it will be a long time until I come across another one to match it. Unless, of course, Nicole Cushing has more furred absurdity up her cow-suit sleeves.

It's difficult to really define the book as a novel, yet it's not a collection of short stories either. The author describes it as a Flying Circus- the Monty Python kind. (Is there another kind?). This is probably most accurate- several connected strains of bizarro wackiness bouncing about and ranging from stories to a TV show plot, to recipes, to the whacking of a mobster Santa Claus- all with the main theme of human/animal species confusion.

Don't think this is simply a book about people dressing up in animal costumes to have sex. No, no I was expecting more from a woman who travels the country dressed as a papal cow with a bag of laxatives and the machine-manipulated voice of a robot. This book has were-ferrets, freaks in ferret suits, intergalactic Bible-thumping giant squirrels, body-morphing offspring of the Mafia-Don Easter Bunny, and the forced-animal humans subjugated by the despicable lowlife crackhead Pseudo-Amish.

My brain hurts. But it's a GOOD hurt.

Since first emerging into the Bizarro Fiction scene, Nicole Cushing has gone from quiet to huge- her writings have garnered much attention and acclaim, and have been published in quite a few reputable places. Furthermore, she's one of the few Bizarro authors that can be found somewhere in the bowels of a Barnes & Noble. While still considered a `New Bizarro Author'!!

Cushing's book is bound to become the star in the current line up of New Bizarro Author Series releases, and I am positive this is not the last we've heard from her. There is obviously a lot going on this strange, strange woman's head and good god I am so VERY happy about that.

So- seriously, get this book. Turn your stove on, get your butcher knives out, call the midgets in Slaughterhouse 54- and get ready to learn How To Eat Fried Furries.

You're WON'T regret it.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Get it. Read it. Love it. November 29, 2010

By Kirk Jones

Format:Paperback

There are some nights when I can sit back, watch a television show from before my time like Welcome Back Kotter or Sanford and Son, and truly enjoy it. There are other nights where I watch these old shows and feel some combination of sorrow and nostalgia, and I have to change the channel. The problem is, I really like to watch television shows from the 70s and 80s. Cushing's "Ferret Force Five" is the answer to those nights when, though I want to, I become too emotionally distressed to watch my favorite shows of yore. In fact, the story touches down on some of the underlying reasons I think I might feel the way I do about old television shows. Like the narrator, I deeply enjoy something that few from my generation remember. The great thing about Ferret Force Five is that it has the feel of a 70s show, but it is modern. Additionally, I only have to mourn for the long-forgotten show and their creators in a fictional capacity. So on those nights when I can't watch Kotter because I find myself wondering about the fate of episode writers, producers, etc, I'm going to come back to this.

I feel like there were two parts of myself struggling when I read this book. As a nostalgic, emotional reader, I really enjoyed the playful style. As a writer, I longed for a little less alliteration, but the topic merited a playful style, and as written, the book is penned in the vein of old Monty Python, and the style reflects that. So while I personally longed for something a little different stylistically, I think the rendering of words was totally warranted (there's some alliteration :), and, despite my personal stylistic preferences, I enjoyed the book as a whole. The recipes, the short tips, all of these small contributions create a really interesting multi-genre take on Furry Cuisine. There are also some really interesting concepts in the book: pseudo Amish, reverse furries, furry farming, and I recommend that anyone interested in bizarro, Python, furries, or just straight-up fun reading check this out.