Oh, what a glorious day it is to be a cowghoul! Perry Meester’s gnarly, cosmic body horror, science fiction western, gay-as-fuck novella The Flesh Inherent is finally available! Check out doomed sarcoma‘s cover on the physical paperback, currently on proud display in our little retail shop on the outskirts of San Antonio:
On a hot summer night, something enormous screams down from the sky and pierces into the desert not far from the small town of Farchapel. The stories that trickle back from the crater are strange indeed—those who find it and return claim to be forever changed, transformed into the better, ideal versions of themselves they’ve always wished to achieve.
Jamie, recent mysterious visitor in town, is a man on the run, all too eager to escape his current form no matter the cost. Sidney, local drunk, would rather face a hole in the ground than the things he’s done. As the two men venture into the desert canyons in search of their better selves, they soon discover that what hides there is much more terrible—and eager to lure them in.
Here is what Perry Meester had to say about the book:
This book is a snapshot of a very specific time in my life. My world was getting brighter and clearer and more terrifying all at once, and writing The Flesh Inherent was a place to funnel that nervous energy. I was starting to figure out what kind of a man I wanted to be — so I was looking at the men in my life and the men I grew up watching and reading, wrapping my head around what I loved about them and what scared me, what I wanted to do differently. I’ve never written a Western before, but falling into that genre came naturally out of all those thoughts. I grew up watching old Western films with my dad, and the particular models of masculinity you’d find there were fascinating to me even before I had words for why. Of course, I had to put a nasty horror spin on it to make it mine.
It’s not exclusively a “trans story” — though it certainly is in parts. First and foremost I wanted to write the kind of messed-up horror I want to see in the world, something tight and gross and horny in a genre mash-up I hadn’t explored before. It’s a little bit of a love letter to the body horror stories that inspire me, and to the queer men and trans folks I’ve been lucky to have around me so far.
Read an excerpt HERE.
Read an interview with the author about gay cowboy sex, alien abductions, Johnny Knoxville being a babe, and much more HERE.
Buy The Flesh Inherent through the GHOULISH webstore, or shop via Bookshop.org, B&N, Powell’s, Amazon, or request it directly from your local bookstore. Thank you! We love you all.
