Midnight at the Organporium

Description

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. Praise for Midnight at the Organporium “Tara 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.” 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. This slim, but packed collection of 12 stories makes the ordinary extraordinary—from the ghost of Lucille in “Death Sure Changes a Person” to a thief of hearts in the Southside Mall in the title story, “Midnight at the Organporium.” Red from Red Riding Hood re-tells her story with a roar and a vengeance in “Another Damn Cottage.” Whereas, “You, Commuter,” is a nightmarish wonder of flash fiction about an everyday bus ride. “The Rapture” comes at you slant, or at least that’s how it opens, and we soon have much more than a commonplace end of the world story—we have a story of race that rises on the shoulders of Octavia Butler. These stories all astonish and astound. 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.” Erin Fitzgerald, author of Valletta73