08/14/2017
In Thompson’s chilling novella, Molly Southbourne has an unusual problem: when she bleeds, a copy of her is made, and it eventually turns murderous, forcing her to kill it. There are precautions she can take, and from the time she’s a little girl, growing up on a farm with her mother and father, she’s taught how to deal with her blood when it escapes her body. The rules are thus: “If you see a girl who looks like you, run and fight. Don’t bleed. If you bleed, blot, burn, and bleach. If you find a hole, find your parents.” The psychological implications of a child having to kill identical copies of herself (called mollys) is nightmarish, but otherwise Molly thrives, and eventually she heads out on her own. She attends college and attempts to use sex as a balm, hoping to find meaning in her existence. At a particularly grim point, she calls the rules “useless, an attenuation at best.” Thompson (Rosewater) ratchets up the body count, but this isn’t just gore for gore’s sake; there is a real aching sadness in Molly’s isolation, and when she discovers a possible explanation for her condition, it does nothing to assuage her hopelessness. This bloody exploration of identity and self in a changed world will stay with readers long after they finish the last page. (Oct.)
"The Murders of Molly Southbourne is so strange and well-written and well-conceived. I read it in one sitting and yet it follows me around wherever I go. I loved it." —Paul Tremblay, author of Disappearance at Devil's Rock
"A bold outpouring of flesh and crisis at once horrifying and familiar." —The New York Times
"Inventive, chilling, and professionally rendered." —Elizabeth Bear, author of Karen Memory
"This premise fleshes out the strangeness and the grace of the human condition as well as anything I've read." —Stephen Graham Jones, author of Mongrels and Mapping the Interior
"Tade Thompson's writing is as inexorable as a march to the executioner's block, layered with cold dread and an exquisite understanding of body horror." —Cassandra Khaw, author of the Persons Non Grata series
"The Murders of Molly Southbourne is bloody, quiet, haunting, and sharp—a book worth savoring." —Max Gladstone, author of the Craft Sequence
"This bloody exploration of identity and self in a changed world will stay with readers long after they finish the last page." —Publishers Weekly
"A bloody, intriguing puzzle of a novella." —Kirkus
"An enormously vivid, enormously peculiar novel... compellingly written." —Locus
"Excellent, bloody, unsettling." —The Book Smugglers
"The Murders of Molly Southbourne reaches deep into the heart of existence and drags our fears into the sunlight. An excellent, terrifying read." —Fran Wilde, award-winning author of Updraft, Cloudbound, and Horizon
"Tade Thompson weaves a subtle, surreal tale of life, death, love and damnation around an absolutely unforgettable heroine. Molly will terrify you, even as she breaks your heart." —Stephanie Saulter, author of the (R)Evolution books
"By turns disturbing, fascinating and heartbreaking, and mesmerizing from first to last." —Simon Bestwick, author of the Black Road series and The Feast Of All Souls
“Viciously real. Chillingly absurd. There's a visceral, bloody logic to Tade Thompson’s tale of self murder.” —Jon Courtenay Grimwood, author of The Fallen Blade
"A story to make your skin crawl and your veins feel full of dark secrets." —Sophia McDougall, author of the Romanitas trilogy, Mars Evacuees and Space Hostages
“A darkly compelling, offbeat tale punctuated by memorable characters and an endlessly fascinating mystery. The dark imagination of Tade Thompson is a wondrous thing to behold.” —Maurice Broaddus, author of Buffalo Soldier
“A novella that showcases the emotional depth of this writer, Tade Thompson’s The Murders of Molly Southbourne is utterly compelling, dark and disturbing.” —Kaaron Warren, author of Slights
