A mysterious and richly evocative novel, The Portrait of Mrs. Charbuque tells the story of portraitist Piero Piambo, who is offered a commission unlike any other. The client is Mrs. Charbuque, a wealthy and elusive woman who asks Piambo to paint her portrait, though with one bizarre twist: he may question her at length on any topic, but he may not, under any circumstances, see her. So begins an astonishing journey into Mrs. Charbuque's world and the world of 1893 New York society in this hypnotically compelling literary thriller.

The Portrait of Mrs. Charbuque

Author of the fantastic and the bizarre, Jeffrey Ford's work has won awards and acclaim across the globe for his stories of humor, horror, and unconventional beauty. "Powerful and disturbing in the best possible way" (Gawker) and "Intensely engaging" (Publishers Weekly), Ford crosses speculative genres with literary ideals, which has earned him the World Fantasy Award (seven times), the Shirley Jackson Award (four times), the Edgar Allan Poe Award, and France's vaunted Grand Prix de l'Imaginaire. Dark Moon Books and editor Eric J. Guignard bring you this introduction to his work, the fourth in a series of primers exploring modern masters of literary dark short fiction. Herein is a chance to discover-or learn more of-the extraordinary voice of Jeffrey Ford, as beautifully illustrated by artist Michelle Prebich. Included within these pages are: Six short stories, one written exclusively for this book Author interview Complete bibliography Academic commentary by Michael Arnzen, PhD (former humanities chair and professor of the year, Seton Hill University) . and more! Enter this doorway to the vast and fantastic: Get to know Jeffrey Ford. Table of Contents includes:. Introduction by Eric J. Guignard. About Jeffrey Ford. A Natural History of Autumn. A Natural History of Autumn: A Commentary. Malthusian's Zombie. Malthusian's Zombie: A Commentary. Boatman's Holiday. Boatman's Holiday: A Commentary. The Night Whiskey. The Night Whiskey: A Commentary. A Night in the Tropics. A Night in the Tropics: A Commentary. Incorruptible. Incorruptible: A Commentary. Why Jeffrey Ford Matters by Michael Arnzen, PhD. In Conversation with Jeffrey Ford. Scratching the Surface: An Essay by Jeffrey Ford. A Bibliography of English Language Fiction for Jeffrey Ford

Exploring Dark Short Fiction #4: A Primer to Jeffrey Ford - Exploring Dark Short Fiction, #4

dans l'amérique de la prohibition et de la grande dépression, diego, un immigré mexicain de dix-sept ans, schell, un maître arnaqueur, et antony cleopatra, un ancien hercule de foire, soutirent de l'argent aux
riches en organisant des séances de spiritisme habilement truquées.
 un jour, lors d'une de ces arnaques, schell aperçoit dans le panneau vitré d'une porte l'image d'une fillette disparue. fantôme, hallucination ? ii refuse de trancher et décide de retrouver l'enfant, lançant ainsi sa fine équipe dans la plus dangereuse des aventures, car on ne s'attaque pas impunément aux membres les plus radicaux du ku klux klan.

avec ce roman humoristique et engagé, lauréat du prix edgarallan poe 2006, jeffrey ford dresse le portrait effrayant d'une amérique en plein naufrage, où les puissants se croient tout permis, y compris le meurtre d'enfant.

La fille dans le verre

The Portrait of Mrs. Charbuque - A Novel

The Great Depression has bound a nation in despair - and only a privileged few have risen above it: the exorbitantly wealthy ... and the hucksters who feed upon them. Diego, a seventeen-year-old illegal Mexican immigrant, owes his salvation to master grifter Thomas Schell. Together with Schell's gruff and powerful partner, they sail comfortably through hard times, scamming New York's grieving rich with elaborate, ingeniously staged séances - until an impossible occurrence changes everything.
While "communing with spirits," Schell sees an image of a young girl in a pane of glass, silently entreating the con man for help. Though well aware that his otherworldly "powers" are a sham, Schell inexplicably offers his services to help find the lost child - drawing Diego along with him into a tangled maze of deadly secrets and terrible experimentation.
At once a hypnotically compelling mystery and a stunningly evocative portrait of Depression-era New York, The Girl in the Glass is a masterly literary adventure from a writer of exemplary vision and skill.

The Girl in the Glass

Cley, l'ancien physiognomoniste désormais affranchi de la tutelle de Drachton Below, n'est plus aujourd'hui qu'un paisible citoyen, de la petite communauté rurale de Wenau. Or ses pairs sombrent bientôt dans un sommeil sans fin, dont il ne parvient à les libérer. À la recherche d'un remède, il doit retourner sur les ruines de la Cité impeccable, pour découvrir que Below, unique détenteur de l'antidote, est à l'agonie. Cley va donc devoir plonger dans le palace labyrinthique qu'est la psyché défaillante de l'autocrate dément, et s'enfoncer toujours plus avant dans les tréfonds ténébreux de son âme afin de découvrir la formule qui rendra la vie à ses compagnons...

Memoranda

These are Jeffrey Ford's personal selections spanning the decades of his career and representing his many styles-genre hybrids, literary approaches to SF/F/H tropes, forays into the New Weird as one of its early practitioners, realist-auto-biographical/fantastic/ horror mash-ups, and straight-on fantasy stories. Ford is at home across the map of speculative fiction but is tied to, and claims allegiance to, no country. If you are looking for a collection in which every story is a window on a new world, this book is for you. Within these pages, you'll visit with the mythic jinmenkins of Japan (dogs with human heads), the great poet of Amherst, Emily Dickinson, the Beautiful Gelreesh, a monster of sympathy, a young man who suffers from a rare form of synaesthesia, Stoodtladdle, the enormous flea mayor of Exo-skeleton town, and Charon, the boatman of Hell. You will travel to strange locales-a bottled city, under the bottom of the lake, the Hotel Lacrimose, and the Idiot Planet. In the words of Joyce Carol Oates: 'Jeffrey Ford is a beautifully disorienting writer, a poet in an unclassifiable genre-his own.'This volume includes an entirely new tale ("Mr. Sacrobatus"), an eloquent note on each story, and brilliant header sketchesby Derek Ford, the noted fantastic artist and son of Jeffrey Ford.

The Best of Jeffrey Ford

"Jeffrey Ford is one of the few writers who uses wonder instead of ink in his pen.. A rare and wonderful talent."-Jonathan Carroll, author of The Wooden SeaEclectic is certainly an adjective that can be used to describe the work of the phenomenal Jeffrey Ford-along with imaginative, provocative, mesmerizing, and brilliant. His powerful dark fantasy, The Physiognomy, was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year; his novel, The Girl in the Glass, won the Edgar® Award, mystery and crime fiction's most prestigious prize. Crackpot Palace is Ford's fourth superb collection of short fiction, and in it, his prodigious talent shines as brightly as ever. Here are twenty tales both strange and wonderful, filled with mad scientists, vampires, lost souls, and Native American secrets, from an author who has been glowingly compared to Kafka, Dante, and Caleb Carr (The Alienist).

Crackpot Palace - Stories

In the Well-Built City, Master Drachton Below's power is absolute, and he will not hesitate to use it. His primary method of control is through his physiognomists, who are trained to read a person's face and body, perceiving that person's past and secrets-and even events yet to come. These seers are the judges and jury. Now Drachton has found something that could extend his reign for eternity: a fruit that bestows immortality. To investigate its whereabouts, Below sends cold, collected physiognomist Cley to the remote mining town of Anamasobia. One at a time Cley interrogates the townspeople, performing his usual fact finding without issue. That is, until he meets the beautiful and bright Arla, who harbors a secret that could potentially turn Cley's world upside down-and topple the Well-Built City itself.
A Kafkaesque journey into the unknown, The Physiognomy is an award-winning trip through a land where the line between reality and imagination is constantly blurred.

The Portrait of Mrs. Charbuque

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