PRAISE FOR
CARLTON MELLICK III
Easily the craziest, weirdest, strangest, funniest, most obscene writer in America.
GOTHIC MAGAZINE
Carlton Mellick III has the craziest book titles... and the kinkiest fans!
CHRISTOPHER MOORE, author of The Stupidest Angel
If you havent read Mellick youre not nearly perverse enough for the twenty first century.
JACK KETCHUM, author of The Girl Next Door
Carlton Mellick III is one of bizarro fictions most talented practitioners, a virtuoso of the surreal, science fictional tale.
CORY DOCTOROW, author of Little Brother
Bizarre, twisted, and emotionally rawCarlton Mellicks fiction is the literary equivalent of putting your brain in a blender.
BRIAN KEENE, author of The Rising
Carlton Mellick III exemplifies the intelligence and wit that lurks between its lurid covers. In a genre where crude titles are an art in themselves, Mellick is a true artist.
THE GUARDIAN
Just as Pop had Andy Warhol and Dada Tristan Tzara, the bizarro movement has its very own P. T. Barnum-type practitioner. Hes the mutton-chopped author of such books as Electric Jesus Corpse and The Menstruating Mall , the illustrator, editor, and instructor of all things bizarro, and his name is Carlton Mellick III.
DETAILS MAGAZINE
The most original novelist working today? The most outrageous? The most unpredictable? These arent easy superlatives to make; however, Carlton Mellick may well be all of those things, behind a canon of books that all irreverently depart from the form and concepts of traditional novels, and adventure the reader into a howling, dark fantasyland of the most bizarre, over-the-top, and mind-warping inventiveness.
EDWARD LEE, author of Header
Discussing Bizarro literature without mentioning Mellick is like discussing weird-ass muttonchopped authors without mentioning Mellick.
CRACKED.COM
Carlton is an acquired taste, but he hooks you like a drug.
HUNTER SHEA, author of Forest of Shadows
Mellicks career is impressive because, despite the fact that he puts out a few books a year, he has managed to bring something new to the table every time Every Mellick novel is packed with more wildly original concepts than you could find in the current top ten New York Times bestsellers put together.
VERBICIDE
Mellicks guerrilla incursions combine total geekboy fandom and love with genuine, unbridled outsider madness. As such, it borders on genius, in the way only true outsider art can.
FANGORIA
Also by
Carlton Mellick III
Satan Burger
Electric Jesus Corpse (Fan Club Exclusive)
Sunset With a Beard (stories)
Razor Wire Pubic Hair
Teeth and Tongue Landscape
The Steel Breakfast Era
The Baby Jesus Butt Plug
Fishy-fleshed
The Menstruating Mall
Ocean of Lard (with Kevin L. Donihe)
Punk Land
Sex and Death in Television Town
Sea of the Patchwork Cats
The Haunted Vagina
Cancer-cute (Fan Club Exclusive)
War Slut
Sausagey Santa
Ugly Heaven
Adolf in Wonderland
Ultra Fuckers
Cybernetrix
The Egg Man
Apeshit
The Faggiest Vampire
The Cannibals of Candyland
Warrior Wolf Women of the Wasteland
The Kobold Wizards Dildo of Enlightenment +2
Zombies and Shit
Crab Town
The Morbidly Obese Ninja
Barbarian Beast Bitches of the Badlands
Fantastic Orgy (stories)
I Knocked Up Satans Daughter
Armadillo Fists
The Handsome Squirm
Tumor Fruit
Kill Ball
Cuddly Holocaust
Hammer Wives (stories)
Village of the Mermaids
Quicksand House
Clusterfuck
Hungry Bug
Tick People
Sweet Story
As She Stabbed Me Gently in the Face
ClownFellas: Tales of the Bozo Family
Bio Melt
ERASERHEAD PRESS
205 NE BRYANT
PORTLAND, OR 97211
WWW.ERASERHEADPRESS.COM
ISBN: 978-1-62105-221-0
Copyright 2016 by Carlton Mellick III
Cover art copyright 2016 by Ed Mironiuk
www.edmironiuk.com
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written consent of the publisher, except where permitted by law.
Printed in the USA.
AUTHORS NOTE
When I was in third grade, I had a crush on a girl named Dawn Sprinkle. She was kind of the weird girl in school. She had a squeaky high-pitched voice, was kind of short and skinny, had four leaf clover patches sewn into her jeans, and looked kind of like a Gelfling from the Jim Henson movie The Dark Crystal . If anyone in school was actually a fairy or an elf in human disguise it would have been her.
She used to sit next to me on the bus on the way to school every day. No matter how many seats were open on the bus, she would always sit right next to me. I felt like the most special boy in the school because of this. Of all the people to sit with, she chose me. We would inch closer to each other throughout the bus ride. But we never spoke to each other. We were two of the shyest kids in school. She was a rich kid who was obviously sheltered by strict parents, the kind who was too wrapped up in violin lessons and ballet recitals to have much of a social life outside of school. And I had a mother who lived in constant fear of her son being horribly murdered if I ever left the house for more than five minutes, so I spent most of my childhood locked away safely in my bedroom to write stories and make up imaginary friends.
When I came up with the idea for this book, I was immediately reminded of what it was like to be a weird kid in love with the other weird kid in school. This story is pretty similar to my real life experiences, with a few exceptions. For instance, I was in third grade when this all happened, not junior high. And we never went on dates at the Dairy Queen. Its also important to point out that the girl I liked did not suffer from the same face-exploding condition as the girl in this book. She did, however, turn out to be an alien from outer space. And after all those months of sitting so close to her on the bus I accidentally contracted a weird space disease that caused me to grow thousands of tiny eyeballs all over my body.
It was pretty uncomfortable and painful to deal with eyeball skin. I still get outbreaks from time to time. And let me tell you, that shit is worse than herpes. I pretty much have to bathe in saline solution three times a day and getting pinkeye turns me into a giant ball of morning eye crust. Anyway, this story is kind of a cautionary tale for all those who fall in love for the first time. Be careful. That cute and quirky person youre crushing on might just turn out to be some kind of face-exploding eyeball-disease-infecting mutant alien who ends up fucking you up for the rest of your life. Of course, you dont really have a choice when it comes to who you fall in love with. Once it happens, theres no escape.
I hope you enjoy my new book. Written at a beach house retreat in 2015 with my author friends Vince Kramer, Gary Arthur Brown, and J. David Osborne, it has quickly become one of my personal favorites.
