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Conversation Pieces | ||||||
Vol. 67 — Midnight at the Organporium | ||||||
by Tara Campbell
What do a homicidal houseplant, an enchanted office picnic, sentient fog, and the perfect piece of toast have in common? They’re all part of the world of Midnight at the Organporium. At turns droll, wicked, and surreal, these tales cover topics from white flight, to the Princess and the Pea, to marriage in the afterlife. Visit Midnight at the Organporium for a dose of twisted obsession, covert complicity, and peculiar empowerment—and don’t forget to pick up your spare heart while you’re there. Advance PraiseTara Campbell’s stories exist at a delightful quarter turn to the left from our world—places where CEOs turn into lions, and hearts are sold in the mall—while simultaneously beautifully and deftly exploring exactly what it means to be human.&ngsp;—Tina Connolly, World Fantasy-nominated author of On the Eyeball Floor and Other Stories So much unexpected happens in Tara Campbell’s weird and wonderful short story collection, Midnight at the Organporium, that I didn’t want to let these stories go. From full-length to flash fiction, Campbell’s stories in Midnight at the Organporium sneak up on you with an exquisite hyper-realism, a sure-fire wit, and most of all, a daring sense of adventure and possibility. —Caroline Bock, author of Carry Her Home, Before My Eyes, and Lie Sometimes funny, sometimes frightening, and always full of heart—in Midnight at the Organporium, the everyday and the fantastic conspire to create the authentic. l——Erin Fitzgerald, author of Valletta73 ReviewsEqual parts surreal and wickedly droll, Campbell’s collection of 12 stories traverses reality in a way that highlights the extraordinary within everyday life. The menagerie of tales taps into an array of offbeat topics. In “Death Sure Changes a Person,” a man’s jealous wife keeps returning from the dead, while in the title story a thief tries to steal a heart from the Southside Mall. “New Growth” is a nightmare-inducing look into the life of a woman whose houseplant seems more aware than she is of her boyfriend’s abusive nature. “The Rapture” is a poetically harrowing look into the progression of white flight in suburban areas. Though this may sound like a mashup of unrelated oddities, the stories have been cleverly arranged to maintain a coherent and alluring tone, and Campbell’s versatility is impressive. Each tale is dryly funny, poetic, poignant, dark, and trippy. Readers who are hungry for a quick visit to somewhere left of reality will gladly immerse themselves in this profoundly avant-garde book. (Starred Review) —Publishers Weekly, April, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-61976-163-6 (13 digit)
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