Cover for my 2012 NaNoWriMo novel titled Cicatrix.
A novel-thing about longing, identity, space and the sea, being a monster of both body and mind, queer love, maggots rewriting history and the “great” ideas of “great” men, birth, origins, folklore, art, disgust, linguistics, and the creation of stories and reality.
Structured in three parts, loosely based on the ideas of growth, decay, and transformation, it begins with (MC1) Lux; gamine, born in the gutter with a crooked spine during an eclipse, a proclivity for list making and collective nouns, and a penchant for mischief. From there the narrative moves along back and forth via a train of thought rather than linearly, from Lux to (MC2) Talis and various vignettes that I'm tentatively referring to as Veritas de Verme. Talis was spat out by the sea during a storm of epic proportions, composed mostly of salt, steel, and stone, afflicted with leucoderma, and promptly dragged to the reformatory thus beginning a life of longing and inky transformation.
________________________________________
There's no plot really but there will be: lots of lists; full body tattoos a la Zombie Boy; gender ambiguity; blood and the sea; nuns; cameos from Judith and Artemisia Gentileschi, Henrietta Lacks, the Donner Party, Andy Warhol's torso, and Frida Kahlo; allusions to numerous historical events such as the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire, the Molasses Flood, the Salem Witch Trials, and the Black Death; a slaughterhouse and a crematorium; queer love; a butcher and a typesetter; anagrams; deer; a dog called Horehound; a person longing for their twin; a person longing for their "soulmate" a la The Origin of Love; questions about reality, history, objectivity, identity, and binaries; poetic maggots; possibly a place called Saville; did I mention a lot of blood?















