Advert for Kitchen Sink Gothic

Kitchen Sink Gothic is now available:
trade paperback:
amazon.co.uk   £8.99
amazon.com  $11.99
ebook:
amazon.co.uk  £2.99
amazon.com  $4.66

Coined in the 1950s, Kitchen Sink described British films, plays and novels frequently set in the North of England, which showed working class life in a gritty, no-nonsense, “warts and all” style, sometimes referred to as social realism. It became popular after the playwright John Osborne wrote Look Back In Anger, simultaneously helping to create the Angry Young Men movement. Films included Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, The Entertainer, A Taste of Honey, The L-Shaped Room and The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner. TV dramas included Coronation Street and East Enders. In recent years TV dramas that could rightly be described as kitchen sink gothic include Being Human, with its cast of working class vampires, werewolves and ghosts, and the zombie drama In the Flesh, with its northern working class, down to earth setting. In this anthology you will find stories that cover a wide range of Kitchen Sink Gothic, from the darkly humorous to the weirdly strange and occasionally horrific.

Stephen Bacon (Daddy Giggles)
Franklin Marsh (1964)
Andrew Darlington (Derek Edge and the Sunspots)
Gary Fry (Black Sheep)
Benedict J. Jones (Jamal Comes Home) 
Kate Farrell (Waiting) 
Charles Black (Lilly Finds a Place to Stay)
David A. Sutton (The Mutant's Cry)
Walter Gascoigne (The Sanitation Solution)
Mark Patrick Lynch (Up and Out of Here)
Adrian Cole (Late Shift)
Shaun Avery (The Great Estate)
Jay Eales (Nine Tenths)
Craig Herbertson (Envelopes)
Tim Major (Tunnel Vision)
M. J. Wesolowski (Life is Prescious)
David Turnbull (Canvey Island Baby)

Busy end of year for Parallel Universe Publications

We already had a collection of stories by Kate Farrell (And Nobody Lived Happily Ever After) due for publication later this year, together with a collection of Irvin S. Cobb's darker tales, and possibly a sequel to Classic Weird. We now have another, unexpected collection of stories, which are being proofread at the moment, to be published either in October or November. So the end of the year is going to be as busy for Parallel Universe Publications as the beginning. There might also be another collection too, this time under a writer's pen name. More about all of these soon. In the meantime, it's eyes glued to the computer screen!

The Eleventh Black Book of Horror

Looking forward to seeing The Eleventh Black Book of Horror, which is due out shortly. I have a story in it called Lem.

First Amazon review of Kitchen Sink Gothic - and it's five stars

Okay, so the reviewer based this on one story only, but at least it's a start. I hope he enjoys the rest of them as much.
I'm sure he will!
 

Blue Collar Noir, September 9, 2015

By 

Dave Gorudoux

This review is from: Kitchen Sink Gothic (Paperback)

Kitchen Sink Gothic is a short story anthology published in the United Kingdom that includes a story written by my friend, Walter Gascoigne. The title refers to a genre of Gothic stories featuring working class characters, stories that range from, to quote the introduction, “darkly humorous to the weirdly strange and occasionally horrific.” Walter’s story is all of the above and much more.

I just received my Kindle copy last night, and I immediately flipped to Walter’s story, “The Sanitation Solution.” I haven’t taken the time yet to read any of the other stories, but I was so taken by “The Sanitation Solution” that I wanted to recommend it immediately. Knowing Walter like I do, I can tell you that the story is, like Walter himself, a unique experience.

Only Walter could preface a story by quoting Charles Manson and close by quoting Shakespeare. I’m not going to spoil anything by describing what happens in between, except to tell you that you’ll experience laughter and disgust and irony – not bad for a short story. He writing is lean and efficient and straight forward, reminding me a little bit of Richard Matheson at his best.
Walter begins the story with these two sentences: “From my vantage point on top of this mountain of trash and maggots, I could see the rats were the size of small dogs. Just last week I saw one tearing apart what was left of a tiny infant.” Perfect. There’s no way anyone can read that and not be compelled to keep reading.

And it only gets better as Walter draws you into his weird world and its twisted logic and strange characters. It’s a testament to Walter’s skill in that only a few pages you are taken away to a world of his imagining.

Walter’s story is only one of many in this collection, and if it were the only one, it’d be worth the price of purchasing the book. I’m hoping that as I read the rest of the book, I’ll find more stories that disgust and amuse me and make me think, even though I know there is only one Walter.

Fishhead and Other Weird Tales by Irvin S. Cobb

Besides working on getting Kate Farrell's collection of short stories into print - And Nobody Lived Happily Ever After - Parallel Universe Publications is also working on collecting together all of Irvin S. Cobb's darker stories for the first time in one volume. Better known as a writer of humorous tales, this will show another side to him.
Two of his stories are known to have inspired H. P. Lovecraft himself. Cobb's tale Fishhead (which PUP reprinted earlier this year in Things That Go Bump in the Night) gave rise to The Shadow Over Innsmouth. The Unbroken Chain helped to give Lovecraft the idea behind The Rats in the Walls.
The collection will be titled Fishhead and Other Weird Tales and will, hopefully, be published before the end of the year.

A work in progress - Classic Weird 2

Though it's still a work in progress, this is the cover so far for Classic Weird 2:

The Unbroken Chain by Irvin S. Cobb

Very pleased today to get a book I ordered through the post from a bookseller in the States. On an Island That Cost $24.00 by Irvin S. Cobb, is a collection of short stories, only one of which I really need to get: The Unbroken Chain, reputedly a model for H. P. Lovecraft's The Rats in the Walls. I have been trying to get hold of a copy of this story for a while without success.

In Things That Go Bump in the Night, which I co-edited with Douglas Draa earlier this year, we published another of Cobb's stories, Fishhead, which it is claimed inspired yet another of Lovecraft's stories, The Shadow Over Innsmouth.

I haven't read The Unbroken Chain yet, but I had in in mind when I ordered this book to include it in the next collection of old classic stories to be published by Parallel Universe later this year or early next, Classic Weird 2.

 

Free ebook offer

Parallel Universe Publications are offering a free mobi copy of any two of the following books (Moloch's Children, Classic Weird, Their Cramped Dark World, His Own Mad Demons, Things that go Bump in the Night, and Goblin Mire) for anyone who purchases a copy, either print or ebook, of Kitchen Sink Gothic and posts an honest review on Amazon. Just email rileybooks@ntlworld.com to claim whichever two books you would like.

Shades of Guy N. Smith - Queen Crab

Facebook Page created for Kitchen Sink Gothic

I have just created a dedicated facebook page to Kitchen Sink Gothic.

My work station