We Are All Completely Fine - Softcover

Gregory, Daryl

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1616961716 ISBN 13: 9781616961718

Publisher: Tachyon Publications, 2014

Synopsis

World Fantasy Award Winner
Shirley Jackson Award Winner

Harrison was the Monster Detective, a storybook hero. Now he’s in his mid-thirties and spends most of his time popping pills and not sleeping. Stan became a minor celebrity after being partially eaten by cannibals. Barbara is haunted by unreadable messages carved upon her bones. Greta may or may not be a mass-murdering arsonist. Martin never takes off his sunglasses. Never.

No one believes the extent of their horrific tales, not until they are sought out by psychotherapist Dr. Jan Sayer. What happens when these seemingly-insane outcasts form a support group? Together they must discover which monsters they face are within and which are lurking in plain sight.

About this title

About the Author

Daryl Gregory is the award-winning author of We Are All Completely Fine, Pandemonium, The Devil’s Alphabet, Harrison Squared, and Raising Stony Mayhall, which was named one of Library Journal's best books of the year. His comics work includes Planet of the Apes and Dracula: The Company of Monsters (with Kurt Busiek). His forthcoming novel, Spoonbenders, is a comedic tour de force starring a family of misfit psychics. Gregory lives in Oakland, California.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Chapter 1

There were six of us in the beginning. Three men and two women, and Dr. Sayer. Jan, though some of us never learned to call her by her first name. She was the psychologist who found us, then persuaded us that a group experience could prove useful in ways that one-on-one counseling could not. After all, one of the issues we had in common was that we each thought we were unique. Not just survivors, but sole survivors. We wore our scars like badges.

Consider Harrison. Once upon a time he’d been the Boy Hero of Dunnsmouth. The Monster Detective. Now he was in his mid-thirties and spent most of his time not sleeping. On the patient information form he’d filled out for Dr. Sayer, under job title he had written "nightmarist." He thought that would be an amusing conversation starter. He told the doctor that his primary reason for joining the group was to maintain his access to a variety of antidepressants and sleep aids. His psychiatrist would not renew his prescriptions unless he went into therapy.

And yet: Harrison was one of the first to arrive at the building for the first meeting. Dr. Sayer’s office was in a two-story, Craft-style house on the north side of the city, on a woodsy block that could look sinister or comforting depending on the light. A decade before, this family home had been rezoned and colonized by shrinks; they converted the bedrooms to offices, made the living room into a lobby, and planted a sign out front declaring its name to be "The Elms." Maybe not the best name, Harrison thought. He would have suggested a species of tree that wasn’t constantly in danger of being wiped out.

About this edition

• Publisher: Tachyon Publications
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 1616961716
• ISBN 13: 9781616961718
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 192