PENNY DREADFUL [Paperback]

Will Christopher Baer (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: Viking Press (2000)
• ASIN: B0016AL9Y4
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #11,263,868 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Born 1966 in Mississippi. Lived in Montreal and Italy as a child. Graduated high school in Memphis, TN. Received MFA (1995) at Naropa U, Boulder, CO. Worked as taxi driver, journalist, and migrant college professor. Recently co-authored screenplay for Kiss Me, Judas, now in development with Mythic Films. Short stories have appeared in BOMB, nerve.com, the Cult, and elsewhere. Recent shorts include "Deception of the Thrush," SF Noir (Akashic), and "Fugitive Tendencies," postscript to the UK edition of The Contortionist's Handbook, (Harper-Collins UK). Status of much anticipated and long overdue fourth novel, the horror noir Godspeed, is unknown. WCB is married, two children. He currently teaches fiction and screenwriting at the Memphis College of Art.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Noir with a twist.... it's good!, March 30, 2000

By 

Brandon Taper - See all my reviews

This review is from: Penny Dreadful (Hardcover)

I have just recently finished reading the second in Baer's "Poe" trilogy, "Penny Dreadful" --- sequel to the amazingly prolific, "Kiss Me Judas". This novel however creates a world all its own. Baer is certainly a great talent, and his second novel's detail and plot are superb. One can picture the dark, gritty nights in Denver when Phineas Poe, (our anithero,) returns to find himself losing his identity -- or what has become of his identity -- more and more each day. He becomes lost in a "Game of Tongues"...which ceases to blow my mind when I remember how rich in noir detail the "horrific" game was described. (I won't give anything away, especially of the game's nature, I despise reviewers who do this.)

All in all, Baer has great insight when it comes to the mundane, unoriginal surroundings we find ourselves in everyday. Whether it be his describing a homeless man on the street corner, with his nose bloodied, his fingernails bitten to the ends or his describing the dark, dank Denver alleys, he does it well. This novel is filled with everything a reader can long for. Baer pulls off noir with his own sense of style, and he does it with passion.

Writing at its best.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars dark, mesmerizing, genuinely creepy, October 10, 2003

By 

David Batcher (Minneapolis, MN United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Penny Dreadful (Paperback)

Amid the slick writing, the grimly fascinating characters, plots, and setpieces, it's easy to miss the literary intelligence that's at work here. Baer gives us not only an addictive mystery-thriller, which is genuinely creepy and disturbing, but also a submerged meditation on the slipperiness of identity. There's even some well-placed commentary on _Ulysses_ here. Baer's vision ain't pretty, but it's compelling, and I think he's one to watch.

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Atmospheric Amazing, May 7, 2001

By 

Bob Fisher (Chicago) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Penny Dreadful (Paperback)

Enigmatic and sublime. This stark noirish nightmare is as good as they get. Baer makes what almost could be called a surrealist hardboiled novel. Without lossing control of the narrative, Baer does a superb job crossing the border between naturalist crime writing and heady phantasmagoria. Phineas Poe is one of the most interesting, beguiling anti-heros within the noir genre, a tight lipped drugged out sam spade caught up in a underground world of would be vampires.