Nothing Sacred

At a time when the American publishing industry increasingly perceives fiction lovers as rather delicate creatures—easily offended, allergic to ambiguity, afraid to venture outside their comfort zones—the present anthology was born of the opposite assumption. While the twelve authors represented here could scarcely be more diverse in their worldviews, cultural backgrounds, thematic obsessions, and prose styles, they all share two attributes: an abiding respect for their readers, and a ravenous appetite for audacity.

Among the characters you’ll encounter in these stories are a former child star who fears he has become just another piece of Hollywood jetsam; a band of Cuban immigrant children determined to celebrate Independence Day on their own terms; a Holocaust survivor turned serial killer; an alternate-history Malcolm X confronting J. Edgar Hoover’s squad of zombies; a medical student who supports himself by starring in video porn; a rogue AI in thrall to a notorious Christian heresy; and a Tennessee moonshiner with a gift for hypnotic rhetoric. They are all eager to meet you.