The Black Emerald by Jeanne Thornton

"The gorgeousness of Thornton’s writings help sustain the worlds she creates . . . That’s the kind of seductiveness these stories have—in reading them, you become strange and dreamy in the same way they are." —Torrey Peters, author of Detransition, Baby

A high schooler finds her drawings corrupted by a haunted stone she inherits from a suicidal underground cartoonist. A video game addict discovers a vast, hidden dimension to colonize in the walls of his girlfriend's apartment. A philosophy student seeks anonymous Craigslist sex with the ubiquitous devil that stalks her. In this new collection from Jeanne Thornton, author of The Dream of Doctor Bantam (a Lambda Literary Award finalist in 2012), reality and relationships blur, creating a queer pulp experience with a literary sensibility, a hallucinatory journey into despair...and, possibly, toward hope.

"Jeanne has this way of writing self-consciousness inside these perfect, self-contained worlds with signifiers that make them seem like they are the world we live in but if that world were . . . I don’t even know exactly. Mystifying and uncomfortable and bulging with complicated, contradictory feeling just below the surface of everything. Seriously check out this book." —Imogen Binnie, author of Nevada

"Beautifully written. The grossest stuff is like jewels on the page. Read it if you are a sad gay girl who loves messed up art and creepy magic." —Julian K. Jarboe

"Jeanne Thornton is the kind of artistic superwoman who not only writes a critically praised novel, she also does all of the book's illustrations." —Sarah Bridgins, Bookslut

"Brilliantly dark and strange...the unpredictable bizarre plot twists and turns are interspersed with Thornton’s dark, tragic humor...her delightful imagination is showcased in the fabulist, absurdist tales." —Autostraddle