![]() The interconnected short stories are ghastly,clever, dryly witty, but also genuinely and bone-rattlingly creepy and disturbing. "Jon Padgett's The Secret of Ventriloquism is a horror revelation. An aspiring ventriloquist spends a little too much time looking at himself in a mirror. A commuter's worldview is shattered by two words printed on a cardboard sign. A stuttering librarian holds the key to a mill town's unspeakable secrets. A dummy reveals its own anatomy in 20 simple steps. A lucid dreamer is haunted by an impossible house. A bullied child seeks vengeance within a bed's hollow box spring. With themes reminiscent of Shirley Jackson, Thomas Ligotti, and Bruno Schulz, but with a strikingly unique vision, Padgett's work explores the mystery of human suffering, the agony of personal existence, and the ghastly means by which someone might achieve salvation from both. ![]() Jon Padgett's The Secret of Ventriloquism, named the Best Fiction Book of 2016 by Rue Morgue Magazine, heralds the arrival of a significant new literary talent. Jon Padgett, The Secret of Ventriloquism, Dunhams Manor Press, 2016. ![]()
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