Product Description

Limited to 400 copies, this novella from critically-acclaimed author Paul G. Tremblay expands upon the short story of the same name (published in Compositions for the Young and Old, 2004, rev. 2005).

The Harlequin & the Train is an experimental fiction narrative that requires you to interact with it using a simple yellow highlighter. This novella is about paranoia, choice, and the horror of individual and collective consequence.

Plot Summary:
Rudy has only been on the job as a train engineer for a few months. While at the helm of a commuter train headed to Boston, Massachusetts, it hits a harlequin clown, and in the chaotic aftermath, he witnesses the horrific and inexplicable actions of a group of people who were seemingly laying in wait for the accident. There are other accidents and as the group infiltrates his life (present and past), and as random global acts of violence and suffering seem to be connected, what Rudy believes about others and himself will be forever warped as he makes his final choice.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #791858 in Books
• Published on: 2009-06-15
• Binding: Paperback
• 155 pages

Review
The Harlequin and the Train is absorbing, funny, dark, and freshly clever, and goes by far too quickly. Paul Tremblay is an extremely gifted writer and I can't wait to see what he does to us next. --Lucius Shepard, author of The Handbook of American Prayer and Softspoken

Somewhat similar in execution to Chuck Palahniuk's Haunted, Tremblay's story uses the cannibals to examine society, suggesting perhaps that we are a lot closer to these monsters than most people would like to admit.... [T]hose who consider themselves up for the intellectual challenge should definitely take a bite out of this psychologically assaulting horror hybrid that brings new meaning to the phrase "food for thought." --Jessa Sobczuk, Rue Morgue Magazine

Tremblay has been establishing himself over the past several years as one of an up-and-coming crop of genre writers bringing the literary back into dark genre literature, one of whom challenges readers without losing entertainment value and one who entertains without dumbing the challenge down. The Harlequin & the Train is a heady trip down a surrealistic railway, making station stops at terror, paranoia, heartbreak, and — ultimately — truth. --Vince A. Liaguno, Dark Scribe Magazine

About the Author
Paul Tremblay has won acclaim for his short fiction and received two nominations for the 2007 Bram Stoker Award. He is the author of the short speculative fiction collection Compositions for the Young and Old, the hard-boiled/dark fantasy novella City Pier: Above and Below, and his first novel The Little Sleep was published by Henry Holt. He has sold over fifty short stories to markets such as Razor Magazine, Weird Tales, Last Pentacle of the Sun: Writings in Support of the West Memphis Three, and Horror: The Year's Best 2007.

He lives in Massachusetts with his wife, two children, a hairy dog, and a soggy basement.