Cardigan is heading east through the night-bleak cities of America and back to confront the past he has never escaped, as a resident of Zimms, an orphanage-cum-asylum and a true palace of dementia. In the circles and dead-ends that make the maze of his madness, Cardigan meets bounty hunters, ghosts, ghouls, a talking rat, even a merman, and struggles to decide which will lead him to damnation and which to salvation.
The Orphan Palace
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"The prose of Joe Pulver can take its place with that of the masters of our genre - E.A. Poe, H.P. Lovecraft, Ramsey Campbell, Thomas Ligotti - while his imaginative reach is something uniquely his own." - S.T. Joshi **** "While everybody else in horror is still aping the shallow visual palette of cinema, Joe Pulver calls down a storm of psychotronic nightmares charged with the evocative depth and relentless pulse of the Devil's music." - Cody Goodfellow
About the Author
Joseph S. Pulver, Sr., was born in New York and currently lives in Germany. Increasingly recognised as a key figure in the renaissance of weird fiction and horror, he is the author of the Lovecraftian novel "Nightmare's Disciple", and has written many short stories included in magazines and anthologies such as Ellen Datlow's Year's Best Horror, and S. T. Joshi's Black Wings. His highly - acclaimed short story collections, "Blood Will Have Its Season" and "SIN & ashes" were published by Hippocampus Press in 2009 and 2010.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
One often hears the fiction of certain writers praised as poetic, but the effects those writers produce actually have little to do with poetry. What makes their work so striking is a mastery of the rhythms of prose, so that their sentences fall with an elegance that may be simple or extravagant but is always orderly. Truly poetic language is another matter; largely the preserve of experimental writers, it awkwardly yet beautifully occupies the space between prose and poetry, can often be read either way depending on the moment and one's mood. Chomu Press has published a number of writers who explore this territory-- Brendan Connell and Michael Cisco come to mind-- but their latest release, Joseph S. Pulver Sr.'s The Orphan Palace, is the most mind-bending hybrid yet. The blurring of the line between prose and poetry is only the beginning; Pulver's sharp, dark narrative mixes Lovecraftian cosmicism, noir fiction, psychological horror, and urban squalor so seamlessly that it's hard to remember they ever worked separately. To say a book like this is "not for everyone" is a massive case of stating the obvious, but for the right reader, it's an awe-inspiring, mind-bending experience.
There's a plot. Of course there's a plot. "Plotless" is a word that's thrown around pretty often, but how many books really fit the label? Here, as is often the case in novels with such emphasis on style, the plot works around the demands of the language rather than vice versa. To quote Roger Ebert, it's the rhythm section, not the melody. The protagonist, Cardigan, twisted by terrible years in a children's home under the attentions of the cold Dr.... Read more ›
There's a plot. Of course there's a plot. "Plotless" is a word that's thrown around pretty often, but how many books really fit the label? Here, as is often the case in novels with such emphasis on style, the plot works around the demands of the language rather than vice versa. To quote Roger Ebert, it's the rhythm section, not the melody. The protagonist, Cardigan, twisted by terrible years in a children's home under the attentions of the cold Dr.... Read more ›
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I actually won my copy of this book in a prize draw. Since I review books regularly for the British Fantasy Society, I decided I may as well review this one too.
I had to describe this book for a friend recently.
This is what I came up with...
Think in terms of an unfilmed noir movie script, revised by H.P. Lovecraft, who worked in references to the work of several of his friends & influences (Robert W. Chambers, Frank Belknap Long etc.). Then it remained, untouched, until Jack Kerouac was commissioned to pen a script treatment, which then languished in development hell, until it landed on the desk of David Lynch.
Frightening concept isn't it?
It really shouldn't work at all...
... but it does! The gorgeous prose sweeps the reader along on an hallucinogenic ride into madness... a road trip (back) to bedlam.
Cardigan, the serial killing, arsonist anti-hero heads east, back to the institution, where the mysterious Doctor Archer inflicted cruel & insidious treatments on his charges. On the way he encounters ghosts, ghouls & a merman & is regularly advised by a talking rat, named D'if. He stays in many identical hotels, all with identical rooms, each one with a book on the night stand. A book with no ending. One of a hundred variant versions of the same book, written by various authors for the mysterious Shadow House press. The TV in the rooms always shows the same movie, an adaptation of one of the books.
This wonderful novel is a roller-coaster ride of lunacy & pop-culture references. There are few books, in my experience, which have off the cuff references to the work of Bulwer-Lytton & Funkadelic in the same chapter!
I read this book until I was too tired to read any more.... Read more ›
I had to describe this book for a friend recently.
This is what I came up with...
Think in terms of an unfilmed noir movie script, revised by H.P. Lovecraft, who worked in references to the work of several of his friends & influences (Robert W. Chambers, Frank Belknap Long etc.). Then it remained, untouched, until Jack Kerouac was commissioned to pen a script treatment, which then languished in development hell, until it landed on the desk of David Lynch.
Frightening concept isn't it?
It really shouldn't work at all...
... but it does! The gorgeous prose sweeps the reader along on an hallucinogenic ride into madness... a road trip (back) to bedlam.
Cardigan, the serial killing, arsonist anti-hero heads east, back to the institution, where the mysterious Doctor Archer inflicted cruel & insidious treatments on his charges. On the way he encounters ghosts, ghouls & a merman & is regularly advised by a talking rat, named D'if. He stays in many identical hotels, all with identical rooms, each one with a book on the night stand. A book with no ending. One of a hundred variant versions of the same book, written by various authors for the mysterious Shadow House press. The TV in the rooms always shows the same movie, an adaptation of one of the books.
This wonderful novel is a roller-coaster ride of lunacy & pop-culture references. There are few books, in my experience, which have off the cuff references to the work of Bulwer-Lytton & Funkadelic in the same chapter!
I read this book until I was too tired to read any more.... Read more ›
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Kindle Edition
Joe Pulver is a unique voice in horror. I first encountered his work in a number of anthologies, and they always left a lasting impression. At novel length, he becomes the Tom Waits of the macabre - laconic, poetic, surreal, with an uncanny ability to paint a landscape or a feeling with a few, deft words.
As to The Orphan Palace, I won't taint it with my impressions, other than to say it is a dark jewel of the English language. Beat poetry for the night.
As to The Orphan Palace, I won't taint it with my impressions, other than to say it is a dark jewel of the English language. Beat poetry for the night.
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