The Red Tree

“I never would,” Michelle assured her.

“Very well,” Andrea sighed, closing her eyes. “But only because Scheherazade always did carry a torch for her sister. Whenever she was getting banged by that fat old bastard Shahryar, she would shut her eyes tightly and think of Dinazade, instead.”

“Well, there you go,” said the whore.

There was a long moment then when neither of them said anything; there was no sound but a few cars down on the street, and a police siren somewhere in the distance. Then Andrea opened her eyes, and she took a deep breath, breathing in the cider sheets. And then she began.

“Not long ago, there was a very talented painter named Albert Perrault, but, before he could finish what would have been his greatest painting, he died in a motorcycle accident in Paris.”

“Wasn’t he wearing a helmet?” the whore asked.

“I have no idea,” Andrea replied, sounding slightly a

AUTHOR’S NOTE

In August of 2006, while walking in the woods near Exeter, Rhode Island, I happened upon an enormous oak tree. There were a number of peculiar objects set all about its base — dismembered doll parts, empty wine bottles, a copy of the New Testament missing its fake leather cover, faded plastic flowers, and other things I can’t now recall. For no reason I could put my finger on, I found the sight u

There are a great number of other sources of inspiration that I feel I should acknowledge, some of which have been quoted and/or alluded to in the text of the novel. These include: Michael E. Bell’s Food for the Dead: On the Trail of New England’s Vampires(2001); Jorge Luis Borges’ “The Garden of Forking Paths” (1941); various works by Edgar Allan Poe and H. P. Lovecraft; Peter Straub’s Ghost Story(1979); Arthur Machen’s The Great God Pan(1890, 1894); Te

I would also like to thank my agent, Merrilee Heifetz of Writers House, and my editor, A