Anthony Shriek

When aficionados of the horror novel discuss what books should have been issued in hardcover to major fanfare, one of the first novels that comes up is Anthony Shriek by Jessica Amanda Salmonson. Long time readers know that Jessica Amanda Salmonson is a researcher second to none, without a bit of hyperbole, the term “editorial genius” may be applied for her anthologies and many single-author collections of authors of ghost fiction that she has spearheaded through to publication.

However, it is as an author that she truly excels, since the early 1970s her short stories, poems, prose-poems, and novels have thrilled and chilled readers throughout the genre of fantastic literature. Anthony Shriek may well be her masterpiece, a novel that encapsulates the 1990s in much the same way as Jane Gaskell’s The Shiny Narrow Grin was an anthem for 1960s England. Anthony Shriek is much more than a good horror novel. It’s said that a good novel should make you laugh, make you cry or make you think, a great novel will do all three. But Anthony Shriek is also a poignant tale of pain, loneliness and the madness that may come with isolation from one’s fellows. It’s said that we make our own monsters and our own hells and this is certainly true of the tormented artist in this book. 

Finally, after twenty-five years this book gets the lavish production that it deserves, featuring an insightful introduction by author Eileen Gunn and illustrations by the amazingly talented David Ho. This is, without a doubt, a cornerstone volume for any serious collection of modern horror fiction. As a special bonus, The Centipede Press edition of Anthony Shriek includes nine of the author’s own favorite stories and twenty-two prose-poems and poems for a complete overview of her remarkable talent and a substantial volume of over four-hundred pages. Jessica Amanda Salmonson is one of our best, and Anthony Shriek is the crown jewel in her literary output.

Ms Salmonson writes: “In writing of Anthony's dark journey I had two subsidiary goals I hoped would lend the tale greater depth than the average horror novel. One was mystic, to recast a gnostic tale of the error-ridden Creator, alongside the attempted rescue of the Creator by the fallen Sophia. The other was to make Seattle and the last days of the punk era seem comparable to the dark, damp decadence of Gustav Meyrink's Prague in Der Golem. I additionally hoped for, and believe I achieved, something that is as tragic as it is horrific, so that readers might wish these characters better fates, and weep for them.”

Edition Specifications

• Limited to 200 copies, each signed by Jessica Amanda Salmonson, Eileen Gunn, and David Ho and sold out at the pubilsher
• New introduction by Eileen Gunn.
• Patterned endpapers.
• Full Dutch cloth with blind stamp on front board.
• Ribbon marker, head and tail bands.
• Bonus prose poems, short stories, and poetry