Hardcover: 304 pages
Publisher:
Publisher:
(February 5, 2019)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1328566455
ISBN-13: 978-1328566454
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1328566455
ISBN-13: 978-1328566454
Praise for BREAK THE BODIES, HAUNT THE BONES
“A tour-de-force of the imagination. Hicks has created a world that is beautifully and brutally surreal and yet, at the same time, BREAK THE BODIES, HAUNT THE BONES stands as a hyper-realistic psychological portrait of the death of the American factory town. My own identity as an American was disturbed and changed by this novel; some dormant understanding was shaken awake. This is a stunning and profound debut.” ―Julianna Baggott, bestselling author of New York Times Notable Book Pure
“Hicks’ debut novel is a thoughtful tour of the rotted and haunted heart of America. Highly recommended.” ―Jeremiah Tolbert, Shirley Jackson Award-nominated author
“I can’t stop thinking about this book. It’s a haunting story that burrows under your skin like an insect laying eggs that hatch within you in the middle of the night. Hicks’ mesmerizing imagery kept me turning the pages and asking myself ‘How is this book happening? What sort of literary witchcraft am I witnessing?’” ―Maurice Broaddus, author of Buffalo Soldier and The Usual Suspects
“BREAK THE BODIES, HAUNT THE BONES is a breathless wonder of a debut novel… Hicks is a magician with words and has written a spellbinding, haunting and necessary book.” ―Anne Valente, author of Our Hearts Will Burn Us Down
“Hicks has crafted a haunting story with multi-generational appeal, where the very real horror of poverty meets supernatural horror, and social issues like xenophobia, racism and economic anxiety are addressed organically through allegory and gripping storytelling.” ―Chris L. Terry, author of Black Card and Zero Fade
SYNOPSIS
Swine Hill was full of the dead. Their ghosts were thickest near the abandoned downtown, where so many of the town’s hopes had died generation by generation. They lingered in the places that mattered to them, and people avoided those streets, locked those doors, stopped going into those rooms . . . They could hurt you. Worse, they could change you.Jane is haunted. Since she was a child, she has carried a ghost girl that feeds on the secrets and fears of everyone around her, whispering to Jane what they are thinking and feeling, even when she doesn’t want to know. Henry, Jane’s brother, is ridden by a genius ghost that forces him to build strange and dangerous machines. Their mother is possessed by a lonely spirit that burns anyone she touches. In Swine Hill, a place of defeat and depletion, there are more dead than living.
When new arrivals begin scoring precious jobs at the last factory in town, both the living and the dead are furious. This insult on the end of a long economic decline sparks a conflagration. Buffeted by rage on all sides, Jane must find a way to save her haunted family and escape the town before it kills them.
Meeting
the Bleeding Man
His hand is on his gun. His seat belt is off. He wants
you to run, because he will chase you, and he will catch you, and that will be
all the reason he needs.
He
knew. He must know. The earth was soft under Jane’s shoes, her sneakers turning
in the mud. She struggled not to fall, going down the slope to stand by his
open window. The ghost fed her every flashing thought from the man’s head.
Little fantasies of violence licking out. The feeling of hands around a throat.
The smell of gunpowder and rasp of a whetstone. The tension building in his
chest like an oil well ripening to explode.
Now
that she stood by his open window, Jane could see his face. The officer’s eyes
were bloodshot and his lips cracked. He was balding, and his hands trembled on
the steering wheel. A small trickle of blood curled from his ear, and she
wondered for a moment if he was hurt. More blood issued from the corners of his
eyes. Clotted around his fingernails. Leaked drop by drop from his nose and
stained the beard around his mouth. She didn’t need her ghost to tell her that
the man was haunted.
Jane
made herself smile, shoving her anger and fear down her throat. “Yes, sir?”
“That’s
your robot. I saw you with it.” His tone was pleased and justified, like he’d
caught her doing something and knew she would deny it.
He doesn’t know. But be careful. Don’t contradict him.
She
enunciated each syllable, speaking soft and clear, as proper as possible. “Did
it do something wrong? If it did, I’ll make it right.”
The
man’s teeth were stained dark. “That’s all I want. To make things right. It’s
not right to replace people with things.”
“The
robot just helps my mom around the house. Her ghost is really bad, so it’s hard
for her to take care of us.”
He
nodded. “I know something about bad ghosts. I’ve had mine a very long time.”
“I’m
sorry to hear that.” Jane swallowed, waiting, but her ghost was silent. “Was it
someone close to you?”
“A
suspect. He ran. My gun went off.” The officer gave a pained laugh, pressing a
fist to the side of his head. “I tell it every day that I’m sorry. That it was
an accident. Still, it’s angry.”
Jane
hated the man for forcing her to talk to him, for making her sympathize with
his pain when he was so ready to hurt her. She kept the rage off her face. “The
robot is mostly junk. A lemon. It could never work a real job. My brother’s
always having to fix it.”
“Your
brother.”
The
man’s anger shifted from her, finding a new target. Jane didn’t know whether to
be relieved or afraid. He wiped the blood pooling under his eyes, smearing it
in two wide bands across his face.
“So
he’s the one responsible?”
Copyright © 2019 by Micah
Dean Hicks
You can purchase Break the Bodies, Haunt the Bones at the following Retailers:
Photo Credit: Scot Lerner 2018
Micah Dean Hicks is the author of the novel Break the Bodies, Haunt the Bones. He is also the author of Electricity and Other Dreams, a collection of dark fairy tales and bizarre fables. His writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Kenyon Review, and elsewhere. Hicks grew up in rural southwest Arkansas and now lives in Orlando. He teaches creative writing at the University of Central Florida.
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