Into its Depth: Classifying The Angels of Autumn by Joshua Skye
Writing high-quality erotica is a challenge. It is reminiscent of
scripting high concept scenes of horror or fantasy. No matter how
grounded in reality they may be, no matter how dirty and gritty it is,
there will always be a need to delve into the depths of the imagination
and give it the distinguished air of the extraordinary. Horror, fantasy,
erotica… they can be epic and profound. They can be every bit as
emotional, heart-wrenching, and enthralling as any dramatic piece of
literature. Genre writing is just as worthy and important as what would
traditionally be categorized as classical works. And the brave writers
who create such worlds are just as important as any other author.
The
erotic content of The Angels of Autumn was indeed quite challenging,
from making the difficult decision to be uncompromising and uninhibited
about it to the actual writing itself. There are no easy choices in
writing, and like horror and fantasy, the true bravery actually
manifests in essentially just doing it. It takes courage to create a
scene of private pleasure, the joys one can give to oneself, perhaps
even braver than writing a vanilla scene between two people. Braver
still is to write something just a little deviant, sex in the shadowy
depths of someplace open and public, carnal gatherings with many people,
or consensual brutality. It really is brave to be an honest writer
especially in the realms of speculative genres. Erotica can be just as
speculative as horror and fantasy especially when you let your
imagination soar.
Sometimes I have to bring myself back
down from the clouds; ground myself as it were. I love to romanticize
sex in ways foreign to the usual notions of carnality. Sometimes I like
to give erotic scenes an air of the horrific by describing them as I
would a scene of terror or dread. Other times, I like to let the
descriptions fly and grant them an atmosphere of high fantasy, using
lofty and ambitious verbiage to describe even the most mundane aspects
of sex. And, of course, I live to do the reverse and give startling
moments their own distinctive sexual vibe. Sometimes, it’s really just
all about the sex.
The Angels of Autumn not only has its
explicit erotic content, detailed and realistic, but it also weaves a
slithering sexual undertone into the entirety of its strange and complex
world. This was purposeful. I wanted it that way. I wanted it to be
raw, uninhibited, and inescapably carnal. An unnerving sensuality can be
found in everything, it’s there in The Angels of Autumn, even at its
most disconcerting. I was once opposed to categorizing the novel at all,
wanting it to remain a mystery, unclassifiable. But the truth is that
it’s an erotic work of speculative fiction to its seedy little core. And
I quite like it that way.
***
Joshua Skye
was born in Jamestown, New York but predominantly grew up in the Texas
Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex. He is a graduate of K.D. Studio Actor’s
Conservatory of the Southwest and has worked on indie/underground films
and on stage. He lives in rural
Pennsylvania with his partner Ray
of sixteen years and their eight year old son, Syrian. His short
stories have appeared in anthologies from STARbooks Press, Knightwatch
Press, Sirens Call Publications, Rainstorm Press, JMS Books and
periodicals such as Blood and Lullabies. He is the author of The Singing
Wind, Bareback: A Werewolf’s Tale, along with the forthcoming Midnight
Rainbows, and The Grigori.
***
Excerpt
The Lombardi Funeral Home was among the oldest of buildings in Wren,
constructed in the late 1800s as both a business and a residence by the
Lombardi family, immigrants from Italy, of course.
They conducted
the bulk of their unusual profession on the shadowy, beautifully
decorated, meticulously maintained first level while the untidy dealings
with body preparation were carried out in the basement. The second and
third levels were where they actually lived. Kept in the family for well
over a hundred years by strict legal clauses in every will and
testament down the Lombardi line it was now owned and operated by the
widow Mary Anne Lombardi and her only son, Angelo.
Kincaid felt
queasy as he looked around the parlor. The furnishings were ancient,
most assuredly antiques, perhaps even the original Italian décor, all
aglow in the flickering light of electric candles. Aside from what
little daylight filtered in through the dark sheers, there were no other
light sources. A little bell had announced his arrival several minutes
before but he’d yet to be greeted.
There was a musty smell and a
pungent chemical odor beneath it. Someone, somewhere deep in the house
turned on a hissing record player and after a few scratchy seconds a
low, somber sonata began to play over unseen speakers. A curtain parted
and a tall shadowy figure emerged. He said, “How may I help?”
Angelo
was a handsome man with typically Italian features. He was dressed in a
nice, solemn suit and had his hair combed strictly back. His large
hazel eyes fell on his guest and there was an audible sound of shock, a
sigh and then a deep intake of air. He said, “Kincaid. Wow, I thought
you’d never come back to this place especially when you didn’t attend
your brother’s funeral. Everyone thought it was pretty scandalous. So,
how’s it going?”
Ignoring the crude judgment, Kincaid detected a
genuine surprise in Angelo’s voice. He was the same age and had been in
many of the very same classes as the Kingsley twins, he’d even been one
of the disapproving assholes who had put them through hell. Angelo had
been one of the popular kids, one of the over-exulted Wren Dragons, a
dumb jock destined to forever mourn his golden high school days. As an
adult, Angelo didn’t seem so intimidating anymore. He was just a man in
his late twenties, wasting away in the family business, no longer taut,
tan and toned, no longer important, no longer a Dragon…the toast of the
town. He had a beer belly which alone made Kincaid happy. “I’m okay,” he
replied. “How have you been?”
Angelo’s lips quivered when he forced a smile and answered, “Good. Thank you. How’s your mother?”
“As good as can be expected, I guess.”
Angelo
said, “Right. Well, how can I help you?” He was stiff, formal. The
fingers of his hands were entwined and resting at his waist. He cocked
his head to one side, the sympathy in his eyes was counterfeit, a
professional automation.
“I wanted to talk to you about my
brother’s funeral, actually.” Kincaid found he couldn’t look at Angelo
when he said ‘funeral,’ and so he diverted his gaze across the room to
nothing in particular. Everything about the place was so old.
Angelo’s
voice got deeper and there was a hint of umbrage to it. “I imagine you
would. Your mother expressed her disappointment in your brother’s
restoration. We’re very sorry she was so displeased. I assure you we
pro-rated our fees accordingly.”
Kincaid slowly brought his attention back to his host and said, “Yeah well, do you do the restoration?”
“No. My mother does.” Angelo’s stance changed, he was getting defensive both vocally and physically.
“May I speak with her, please?”
“Why?”
“I’m
not here to cause a scene or anything. I just want to talk to her.
That’s all, Angelo. I’m not going to berate your mother.”
The
Italian man just stood there for several tedious and silent moments
assessing the guest’s intentions. Kincaid refused to look away this time
no matter how nerve-racking or unsettling the situation slowly became.
He wasn’t in high school anymore, he wasn’t the frightened and belittled
teenager who shied away from everyone and Angelo wasn’t the pompous
cock-of-the-walk anymore. They were adults and far more equal now than
Angelo was probably even aware of.
Kincaid prepared himself for a
physical altercation. Being picked on mercilessly had prompted him to
take quite a few self-defense classes over the years. Angelo might have
been able to beat the shit out of him once, long ago, but his glory days
were long over. He was out of shape and didn’t have his buddies around
to back him up. Kincaid put on a confident little grin and stated, “I
said please.
Angelo’s shoulders slouched ever so slightly. He
swallowed hard and his eyes turned down as his voice became
professional, disengaged. He said, “Of course. If you’ll excuse me I’ll
see if she’s available. Please, take a seat.”
“Thank you, Angelo,” Kincaid said lowly.
Angelo nodded and disappeared behind the curtain.
Kincaid
turned and meandered into the small, dismal sitting room and over to a
stiff, uncomfortable sofa and sat down. A spider crawled over the
surface of the weathered coffee table. Not particularly squeamish about
such things, Kincaid watched it with a distracting fascination, the way
it moved, the legs click, click, clicking along. He frowned as he
realized that this spider was malformed. It had nine legs instead of
eight and yet the added appendage didn’t seem to impede it in the
slightest. He found himself leaning down, close, to get a better view of
the little creepy crawly. The spider stopped. Perhaps it was now quite
aware of its audience. It was perfectly still, frozen.
“Mr. Kingsley.” The voice was soft.
Kincaid
flinched. The spider lurched into motion and scurried over the edge of
the table and vanished. Being polite, Kincaid stood and turned his
attention to the petite woman standing in the entranceway. She clutched a
leather-bound portfolio to her bosom. Her salt and pepper hair was
pulled into a tight bun on her head. She had modest make-up on and was
dressed in a long, conservative black dress.
There was a beautifully
crocheted shawl draped over her shoulders perhaps utilized to hide the
slight curvature of her upper spine. Kincaid said, “Ms. Lombardi, thank
you for seeing me.”
She smiled courtly and entered the room,
moved gracefully around the back of the sofa and sat down next to her
guest. Kincaid sat down as well. Her eyes were down. He wondered what
she was thinking. He imagined she thought he was there to complain. He
wanted to reassure her he was not and so he said, “I didn’t come here
to…”
Without looking at him, she shoved the portfolio at him.
Sheepishly, he accepted it and took a deep breath before opening it. For
a moment he expected to see pictures of his dead brother, before and
after. It wasn’t something he was even remotely interested in. They were
pictures of the dead and indeed they were before and after shots,
instamatic snapshots, many of them yellowed with age. The first was an
old man whose face had practically been pulled off in some horrible
accident. After the restoration he simply appeared as though he were
napping. The second was a woman whose forehead had been cleaved open and
again the after picture was perfect. On and on the pictures went, each
turn of the page revealing flawless transformations.
She said demurely, “My work. As you can see, I am very good at it.”
“It’s
immaculate, you’d never know, but my mother said she could…” Kincaid
paused as a realization hit him. He turned his eyes away from the
Polaroid snapshots in the photo album. The widow Lombardi looked sad and
afraid at the same time. His voice was shaky, hesitant. He said, “You
did it on purpose.”
Mary Anne nodded and took the album back from
him, she closed it and pressed it, embraced it, to her breast. Her eyes
moved downward until she stared at the floor and there she focused for a
long time, barely breathing, silent and still. She was contemplating
something. Kincaid’s mind raced with what those thoughts might be. His
heart fluttered nervously. What secret was she about to reveal?
Blurb:
Kincaid Kingsley returns to the town of his childhood after the death
of his twin brother, Xander. Believing the crime to be motivated by
hate and prejudice, Kincaid sets out to discover why the police are no
longer actively investigating the case and hopefully uncover his
brother’s killer in the process.
Things in Wren are not
as they seem, however, and the closer that Kincaid gets to an answer,
the more danger he encounters. Why are all the townspeople so afraid to
share what they know?
As the mystery surrounding Xander’s
death unravels, the town becomes increasingly blind to what is actually
going on. Can Kincaid discover who killed his brother and save the town
from evil?
Tagline: A Profound and Powerful Gay Erotic Thriller
Author: Joshua Skye
Publisher: Pink Pepper Press
Number of Pages: 212 Pages
ISBN-13: 978-0615702100 (Pink Pepper Press)
ISBN-10: 0615702104
Release Date: October 19, 2012
Links for Purchase: CreateSpace Smashwords Amazon US Amazon UK Amazon DE Amazon FR Amazon IT Amazon ES
