Description
Fiction. This house has seen things it won't let you forget. When a new family moves into the house at 25 Trumbulls Road, the narrator's vivid dreams of a teary-eyed, raw-smelling woman who lives beneath the floor turn chillingly real. Five years later, the house's new set of inhabitants are visited by the spectral presence of the little girl they lost. In these five tales, linked by a single haunted house, the characters move through a world suspended between nightmare and loss, where the unexplainable and disquieting are fueled by ordinary grief and longing. Christopher Locke explores the ways in which our unspoken fears and everyday regrets sustain the darker heart of a home—its doorways and windows, its basements and lights—until it fills those corners of our lives with something close to terror. His stories ask: how does a home feed on this energy, growing stronger with each new, sinister end? As compulsively readable as it is unsettling, 25 TRUMBULLS ROAD takes us to the places we're afraid to go, then leaves us at a destination where we are our most human.
"A haunting, surreal, visceral collection of tales that is lyrical and poetic, while not losing its bite. Christopher Locke has channeled the ghosts of Matt Bell, Denis Johnson, and Jac Jemc, while retaining his own unique voice."—Richard Thomas
"Locke is a master of the slow burn. The events at 25 TRUMBULLS ROAD will stick and cycle back through your head for weeks."—Richard Peabody
"In 25 TRUMBULLS ROAD, Christopher Locke weaves together a series of eerily gorgeous narratives in which fathers, mothers, children, and dogs stumble into waking nightmares. Each ghostly flash glows with damage, mystery, and inevitability. This enchanting chapbook of tiny horror stories chills and entertains from beginning to end."—Meg Pokrass
Author Bio
Christopher Locke was born in New Hampshire and received his MFA from Goddard College. His essays and short fiction have appeared in The North American Review, The Sun, The Rumpus, Slice, JMWW, SmokeLong Quarterly, Barrelhouse, and Atticus Review, among others. He won the Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Award, as well as grants in poetry from the Massachusetts Cultural Council and the New Hampshire State Council on the Arts. 25 TRUMBULLS ROAD, his first collection of fiction, won the Black River Chapbook Award. His latest collection of poetry MUSIC FOR GHOSTS (NYQ Books) was released in 2022. Chris lives in the Adirondacks and teaches English at SUNY Plattsburgh and North Country Community College.
Author City: UPPER JAY, NY USA