Methods of Madness

This is the first fiction collection from Garton. A writer of some rough power, he is not in total control of his material: his stories are often crude, their various elements poorly integrated. His writing is compelling, however, particularly when he explores psychopathologies. A fascination with the effects of sexual repression figures importantly in several of the six tales. In ``Active Member,'' a man is dissociated from and terrorized by his own sexuality. ``Something Kinky,'' the most polished story here, is a Hitchcockian account of a man who, after allowing himself to stray one night following years of an unsatisfying marriage, is inadvertently drawn into blackmail and murder. In ``Sinema,'' a boy being raised by strict Seventh Day Adventist grandparents is befriended by an older man who has a VCR and an extensive library of illicit tapes. Other stories concern a radical therapy for child abusers; the revenge a man's body fat takes on the woman who has rejected him; and an account of bloody poetic justice.

Published in 1990

Trade

Limited Edition - Signed, slipcased limited edition of 425 copies, signed by Garton and illustrated and signed by Paul Sonju

Lettered Edition: Signed and limited to 52 copies housed in the normal wooden slipcase used by Dark Harvest for their lettered editions

Trade and Limited edition copies may show some edgeware or fading to slipcase, otherwise as new. Lettered is fine in fine wooden slipcase