The Soul Standard Stories
Across four different districts of a city that has torn itself to shreds, four different interweaving tales (each written by a different author) play out. In “Four Corners,” a morally dubious banker must keep his employer happy at any cost. The next story, “Punhos Sagrados,” concerns a boxer who finds himself torn between honor and the woman he loves. “Golden Geese” follows a hardened criminal with a terrifying condition who must come to terms with the life he’s led. Finally, “Jamais Vu” provides a stunning denouement as a man searches endlessly for his missing daughter, a task which is complicated by a peculiar condition: his inability to recognize faces. Told in rugged, bare-knuckled prose, The Soul Standard is a nonstop thrill-ride down the darkened avenues and through the shadowed alleys of a nightmare town.
Publication Date: July 26, 2016
Paperback: 232 pages
ISBN: 978-1-938103-04-9
Also available as an eBook
Across four different districts of a city that has torn itself to shreds, four different interweaving tales (each written by a different author) play out. In “Four Corners,” a morally dubious banker must keep his employer happy at any cost. The next story, “Punhos Sagrados,” concerns a boxer who finds himself torn between honor and the woman he loves. “Golden Geese” follows a hardened criminal with a terrifying condition who must come to terms with the life he’s led. Finally, “Jamais Vu” provides a stunning denouement as a man searches endlessly for his missing daughter, a task which is complicated by a peculiar condition: his inability to recognize faces. Told in rugged, bare-knuckled prose, The Soul Standard is a nonstop thrill-ride down the darkened avenues and through the shadowed alleys of a nightmare town.
Publication Date: July 26, 2016
Paperback: 232 pages
ISBN: 978-1-938103-04-9
Also available as an eBook
Across four different districts of a city that has torn itself to shreds, four different interweaving tales (each written by a different author) play out. In “Four Corners,” a morally dubious banker must keep his employer happy at any cost. The next story, “Punhos Sagrados,” concerns a boxer who finds himself torn between honor and the woman he loves. “Golden Geese” follows a hardened criminal with a terrifying condition who must come to terms with the life he’s led. Finally, “Jamais Vu” provides a stunning denouement as a man searches endlessly for his missing daughter, a task which is complicated by a peculiar condition: his inability to recognize faces. Told in rugged, bare-knuckled prose, The Soul Standard is a nonstop thrill-ride down the darkened avenues and through the shadowed alleys of a nightmare town.
Publication Date: July 26, 2016
Paperback: 232 pages
ISBN: 978-1-938103-04-9
Also available as an eBook
PAST PRAISE FOR THE AUTHORS
Past Praise for Richard Thomas:
“A dark existential thriller of unexpected twists, featuring a drowning man determined to pull the rest of the world under with him. A stunning and vital piece of work.”
—Irvine Welsh, author of Trainspotting and Filth
"Transubstantiate is an intricately-woven dystopian thriller, with every thread pulled tight. This is a solid debut from Richard Thomas." - Craig Clevenger, author of The Contortionist's Handbook and Dermaphoria
“Sweet hot hell, Richard Thomas writes like a man possessed, a man on fire, a guy with a gun to his head. And you’ll read Disintegration like there’s a gun to yours, too. A twisted masterpiece.”
—Chuck Wendig, author of Blackbirds and Double Dead
“This novel is so hard-hitting it should come with its own ice-pack. Richard Thomas is the wild child of Raymond Chandler and Chuck Palahniuk, a neo-noirist who brings to life a gritty, shadow-soaked, bullet-pocked Chicago as the stage for this compulsively readable crime drama.”
—Benjamin Percy, author of The Dead Lands, Red Moon, and The Wilding
“Thomas builds his universe and its population with terse prose and dynamic, often horrifyingly visceral imagery that unspools with grand weirdness and intensity. Then he rips that universe apart, brick by bloody brick. Disintegration is provocative. It’s also damned fine noir.”
—Laird Barron, author of The Beautiful Thing That Awaits Us All and The Croning
“A sodden, stumbling anti-hero in a noir so dark it makes much of the rest of the genre seem like Disney movies by comparison. Gritty, obsessive, and compulsively readable.”
—Brian Evenson, author of Immobility and Windeye
“Disintegration is gritty neo-noir; a psycho-sexual descent into an unhinged psyche and an underworld Chicago that could very well stand in for one of the rings of Dante’s Hell. Richard Thomas’ depraved-doomed-philosopher hitman is your guide. I suggest you do as he says and follow him, if you know what’s good for you.”
—Paul Tremblay, author of A Head Full of Ghosts and The Little Sleep
“In sharp, icy prose that cuts like a glacial wind, Richard Thomas’ dark Chicago tale keeps us absolutely riveted to the very end.”
—Donald Ray Pollock, author of The Devil All the Time and Knockemstiff
Past Praise for Nik Korpon:
“Nik Korpon’s Old Ghosts is about old friends and older dreams getting in the way of your present, and then totally kicking the shit out of your future. Plus rebar. If there’s such a thing as neo-noir, this is it. Moody, smart, sexy, and tension-filled, Old Ghosts is a whip crack of a crime novella.” – Paul Tremblay, author of The Little Sleep and No Sleep Till Wonderland
Praise for Caleb Ross:
"I'm always looking for the scene, the character, the story I haven't read a thousand times over and over. Something with the spark of originality and the courage to be different...This is an original — unlike anything you've ever read before." - Rob Roberge, author of The Cost of Living and Liar
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Richard Thomas is the author of four previous novels as well as over 100 stories in print. The editor in chief of Dark House press, he has also edited three anthologies, including the recently released Burnt Tongues, which he co-edited with Chuck Palahniuk. He lives in Mundelein, IL. Visit him on the web at whatdoesnotkillme.com.
Caleb Ross' fiction and nonfiction has appeared widely, both online and in print. He is the author of five books of fiction and is the creator of The Burning Books Channel, a YouTube channel featuring humorous book reviews, literary skits, writing advice, and rants. Ross lives in Kansas City, KS. Visit his official page at calebjross.com.
Axel Taiari was born and raised in Paris, France. Publishing credits include Abyss & Apex, Fantasy Scroll, The Big Click, and others. Read more at axeltaiari.com.
Nik Korpon is the author of Fait Ave; Stay God, Sweet Angel; Fight Card: Punching Paradise; and Bar Scars: Stories and Old Ghosts. His stories blackened eyes in Needle Magazine, Shotgun Honey, Crime Factory, Yellow Mama and Noir Nation, among others. He is an associate editor at Dark House Press. He lives in Baltimore.
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