Burning Bulb Publishing has released J. S. Lawhead’s collection, Vulgarity For the Masses, in paperback.
Description: Vulgarity For the Masses is a 9 story bizarro anthology novel of black comedy/dark fantasy/surreal horror/lite Christian fiction connected loosely by concepts, goals and even some recurring characters across some stories. It was inspired by the shows of Adult Swim (Aqua Teen Hunger Force and Venture Brothers particularly), South Park, David Lynch movies and every nightmare you’ve ever had.
The official story summaries are as follows:
The Whale Story – Well-intentioned, apocalyptic adventurer Meteo Xavier seeks the rare Blue Whale and ends up fighting for his life in a litigious, courtroom battle that threatens to annihilate the human condition as we know it.
On a Sunday Afternoon, This Happened – A crack-addicted, alcoholic, pothead on the rag tries to rob two banks on Sunday and defies the gods, the universe, the laws of nature regarding drug use and teleportation, a rival crook, and a large guardian sphincter on his quest to repay a drug debt to a holiday icon.
Aurora Terminus – A horrible tragedy marks the symbolic end of the British Empire for two aristocratic men (animals, actually) as their friend is betrayed and murdered by Lady Britannia herself; forcing the two to take revenge for what’s left of their country’s dignity and the pride of being British. (Inspired by Genesis’ Selling England By the Pound)
The Wisdom of My Father – A first person memoir of the narrator’s father and the usual father-son adventures through life that all of us go through – like getting gang-raped in Atlanta, building a guitar out of a fish, taking the heat for a Mexican drug deal gone bad and exploding your bowels on live TV.
The White Screamer (Three Incidents) – Across the generations in Tennessee, an unfathomable evil grows stronger as it absorbs innocent men and women in an eternal, soulthirsty mission to cleanse the lands and history from the white man’s influence.
The Book of the Three Little Pigs (Bible Version) – Exactly what it says it is.
HOPEBLISS – A two-headed boy meets a woman with no head (and unprovoked antagonism against Jesus for some reason) and offers to exchange heads with her so she can go about her life, but the results become disastrous and incomprehensible.
Ouroborus – A bizarre, ancient phenomenon grips the mountains of Tennessee and slowly wraps two students from a secluded academy into a spiraling conspiracy to keep the world hidden from God’s influence and lock the human condition into a cold world of icy logic.
The Feast of 1000 Famines – Meteo Xavier returns to bookend the book for a date, a charity event and an assassination/vengeance plot all gone horribly wrong. Book ends on a relatively positive note, readers are satisfied, they recommend it to their friends, and life continues on as it should until the sun swallows the planet whole and everything we have lived and died for vanishes in a layer of chromosphere.
Please note, this collection is not for kids or anyone under 17.
