It's official! John Langan's House of Windows is off to the printer...


House of Windows, by John Langan. Jacket illustration by Santiago Caruso, jacket design by Michael Gin.

I've been a fan of John Langan's fiction for quite a while. His contributions to John Joseph Adams' Night Shade anthologies, Wastelands ("Episode Seven: Last Stand Against the Pack in the Kingdom of the Purple Flowers"), The Living Dead ("How the Day Runs Down"), and By Blood We Live ("The Wide, Carnivorous Sky") represent some of the most finely-crafted stories in the genre. His collection Mr. Gaunt and Other Uneasy Encounters is an easy recommendation. So it was a joy to be able to work on his debut novel, House of Windows.

House of Windows is a contemporary ghost story with roots that reach back to Poe, Lovecraft, James (both of 'em), and Dickens, and it's a helluva read. But don't take my word for it, read the jacket copy:

When a young writer finds himself cornered by a beautiful widow in the waning hours of a late-night cocktail party, he seeks at first to escape, to return to his wife and infant son. But the tale she weaves, of her missing husband, a renowned English professor, and her lost stepson, a soldier killed on a battlefield on the other side of the world, and of phantasmal visions, a family curse, and a house... the Belvedere House, a striking mansion whose features suggest a face hidden just out of view, draws him in, capturing him.

What follows is a deeply psychological ghost story of memory and malediction, loss and remorse. This unnerving tour de force, exploring the literary haunted house, from Charles Dickens, Edgar Allan Poe, and H. P. Lovecraft to today, incorporates family trauma, abstract art, literary criticism, the occult Dickens, and the war in Afghanistan. From John Langan (Mr. Gaunt and Other Uneasy Encounters) comes House of Windows, a chilling novel in the tradition of Peter Straub, Joe Hill, and Laird Barron.

House of Windows is shipping November 1. We will have the book in hand for World Fantasy, NSB will be shipping preorders once we get back from San Jose, and the book will be available at the usual online merchants and at better bookstores near you.

"Pick someone at random & convince them they’re the heir to an enormous, useless & amazing fortune—say 5000 square miles of Antarctica, or an aging circus elephant, or an orphanage in Bombay, or a collection of alchemical mss. Later they will come to realize that for a few moments they believed in something extraordinary, & will perhaps be driven as a result to seek out some more intense mode of existence." -- Hakim Bey, "Poetic Terrorism"


So, speaking of random picks and useless fortunes, I received an interesting offer by e-mail this morning, regarding my MA thesis, CHICK BASSIST: A ROCK AND ROLL FANTASY. Here it is in full:

Dear Ross Lockhart,

I am writing on behalf of the German publishing house, VDM Verlag Dr. Müller AG & Co. KG.

In the course of a research on the San Francisco State University, I came across a reference to your thesis on "Chick bassist : a rock and roll fantasy".
We are a German-based publisher whose aim is to make academic research available to a wider audience.
VDM Verlag would be especially interested in publishing your dissertation in the form of a printed book.

Your reply including an e-mail address to which I can send an e-mail with further information in an attachment will be greatly appreciated.

I am looking forward to hearing from you.
Best Regards,

Sandrine Fabre
Acquisition Editor

VDM Publishing House Ltd.


I'll admit it, for a few moments, I believed something extraordinary had happened. The Germans want my book! Alas, sober realization soon followed, and I Googled the company's name. A bit of looking around revealed that VDM Publishing is a legit publishing company, technically speaking, but one created strictly to fulfill a requirement in German academia (and one that doesn't do any proofing or editing). Not really the right publishing company for CHICK BASSIST (or, frankly, any work of fiction).

But they do have some great titles, even if all their books seem to be priced right around the hundred dollar mark (way out of my budget). Glancing at the list over at Buy.com reveals the following titles:

Aircraft Performance Explanation for Takeoff from a High Altitude Airport ($82.43)
Hardboiled Heores, Deadly Dames ($153.23)
The Impacts of International Terrorism on International Trade: Global Business Strategies for Multinational Corporations ($94.70)
Bullies and the Parents Who Raise Them ($85.34)
College Drinking ($153.23)
Becoming the New Man in Post-Postmodernist Fiction - Portrayals of Masculinities in David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest and Chuck Palahniuk's Fight Club ($82.23)

So nothing extraordinary here, merely some wide-net fishing (or phishing, you be the judge). But it is a good reminder that I need to query the small press publisher that's had my manuscript for the better part of a year and see if they're planning to do anything with it. Maybe I should tell them that a major German publishing company's made me a offer, something about 5000 square miles of Antarctica, and see if they're willing to make me a counter-offer. Then again, where would I keep an aging circus elephant?