Dear Friends,
The Internet tides have cast me upon a strange new shore with an easier newsletter template. That’s right: DPTB has relocated to Substack. I bet you’re not all that surprised. With the new book coming out next year, and another big project soon to be revealed, I expect be to writing you a little more often than in the past. If you’re already a subscriber, thank you! If you’re new and would like to subscribe, please click below1:
I want to assure you that I’ll be providing the same urgent content you’ve grown to expect. To whit:
My Precious Blood
I donated blood earlier last month. I hadn’t done that in a long time. Needles and I, it’s not a love story.
Anyway, it was… okay. I actually didn’t mind the giving part at all. I sat in the chair for a while, needle in my arm, gravity doing its work, and enjoyed reading my friend Emma Straub’s wonderful novel This Time Tomorrow.
What was so great about Emma’s novel was that on the one hand it was a time travel story, and it carried off the inherent complexity of the genre with complete aplomb; and on the other, it was a very moving portrait of a father-daughter relationship, and a very direct consideration of loss. I’ll also add that it’s funny as hell in places.
But my quiet reading time was interrupted when the nurse informed me that I was done. And here’s what I didn’t like: I looked over, and my blood had filled up a big bag. I didn’t recall this from my past blood-giving experiences. In my memory, the blood filled up a pouch like the kind that hold saline on a hospital patient’s IV pole. In reality, it was like one of those bags that you get milk in when you’re in Canada - except full of my blood.
Reader, I’m pretty sure I heard my blood slosh.
I’m glad I gave, and I’m going to make it a habit from now on, and I hope you’ll consider doing it if you can, but next time I’m averting my gaze.
The Latest
The Curator has a cover. Check out this stunner!
Here’s the jacket copy:
From New York Times bestselling author Owen King comes a Dickensian fantasy of illusion and charm where cats are revered as religious figures, thieves are noble, scholars are revolutionaries, and conjurers are the most wonderful criminals you can imagine.
It begins in an unnamed city nicknamed “the Fairest”, it is distinguished by many things from the river fair to the mountains that split the municipality in half; its theaters and many museums; the Morgue Ship; and, like all cities, but maybe especially so, by its essential unmappability.
Dora, a former domestic servant at the university has a secret desire—to find where her brother went after he died, believing that the answer lies within The Museum of Psykical Research, where he worked when Dora was a child. With the city amidst a revolutionary upheaval, where citizens like Robert Barnes, her lover and a student radical, are now in positions of authority, Dora contrives to gain the curatorship of the half-forgotten museum only to find it all but burnt to the ground, with the neighboring museums oddly untouched. Robert offers her one of these, The National Museum of the Worker. However, neither this museum, nor the street it is hidden away on, nor Dora herself, are what they at first appear to be. Set against the backdrop of a nation on the verge of collapse, Dora’s search for the truth behind the mystery she’s long concealed will unravel a monstrous conspiracy and bring her to the edge of worlds.
In addition, the book just received its first two advance reviews one from Library Journal, and one from Kirkus, and they’re both positive!
“A fantastical panorama of twists and turns… King’s latest is a masterpiece of storytelling.” - Library Journal
“Sprawling, densely populated, intricately plotted... with vivid prose, excellent minor characters, and a scrappy, every-which-way inventiveness. Dickens novel meets Hieronymus Bosch painting—dark, chaotic fun.” - Kirkus (Starred)
It’ll be arriving on shelves on March 7, 2023, and I’d be thrilled if you gave it a go. If you’d like to order a signed copy, please head on over to Oblong Books.
The novel is also being published in the United Kingdom. Hodder did a wonderful job with their version of the cover, too. Check it out:
I’ll also be making some appearances at bookstores and at least one book festival, so stay tuned for that if you’d like to say hello.
Recommendations
The holiday season is upon us, and I have some gift recommendations:
My longtime co-conspirators The Paranoid Style really outdid themselves on their new one, For Executive Meeting. If there’s a deserving Faces fan in your life, I believe this is a strong choice. You can even go whole hog and get a package that comes with a Paranoid Style pen.
I’ve been rewatching Freaks and Geeks, and it remains the most remarkable blend of sitcom and drama. You could give this to just about anyone, but make sure they have a DVD player first.
The team at Ebbets Field Flannels does more than anyone to keep me clothed. They have the coolest t-shirts and hats. Every baseball fan could use something from EFF. They even have a NY Knights t-shirt. The good old Knights, I wish they were still around. Remember Roy Hobbs? What a hitter!
In the books department, for the reasons discussed above I can heartily recommend This Time Tomorrow. I’d also suggest like to suggest giving a novel by Emma’s dad, Peter Straub, who passed away in September. That person in your life that likes ingenious, finely characterized novels of the supernatural will be glad indeed to receive one.
I’ll just add that I adored Peter. He was enormously generous to me - and to a lot of other writers, too! - and always such gregarious, hilarious company. One of things that Emma expresses beautifully in her novel is the way that a writer leaves such a significant part of themselves in their books. I’m always going to miss Peter, but it’s a comfort to know that when I open up Ghost Story or Koko (my favorites), or any of his other novels or stories, I’ll be able to feel him close.
Meanwhile, if you want to keep up with me on a somewhat more constant basis, I’m on Instagram.
All Best,
Owen
Isn’t this newsletter called Don’t Press That Button? Shh.