A hunted community. A haunted author. A horror that spans centuries. Men are disappearing from Toronto's gay village. They're the marginalized, the vulnerable. One by one, stalked and vanished, they leave behind small circles of baffled, frightened friends. Against the shifting backdrop of homophobia throughout the decades, from the HIV/AIDS crisis and riots against raids to gentrification and police brutality, the survivors face inaction from the law and disinterest from society at large. But as the missing grow in number, those left behind begin to realize that whoever or whatever is taking these men has been doing so for longer than is humanly possible. Woven into their stories is David Demchuk's own personal history, a life lived in fear and in thrall to horror, a passion that boils over into obsession. As he tries to make sense of the relationship between queerness and horror, what it means for gay men to disappear, and how the isolation of the LGBTQ+ community has left them profoundly exposed to monsters that move easily among them, fact and fiction collide and reality begins to unravel. A bold, terrifying new novel from the award-winning author of The Bone Mother.

Red X: A Novel

Literature & Fiction

Demchuk, David

Literary

Strange Light

WINNER OF THE 2018 SUNBURST AWARD 
NOMINATED FOR THE SHIRLEY JACKSON AWARD, AMAZON FIRST NOVEL AWARD, AND SCOTIABANK GILLER PRIZE 
For two hundred years, the Grazyn porcelain factory built its reputation on its magnificent thimbles. It is said that even the Czarina Anastasia Romanova had received one in her trousseau. The workers come from the three neighboring villages on the border of Romania and Ukraine. Nourished, dressed and educated, they are the envy of all at a time when a famine programmed by Stalin sweeps the countryside and cannibalism rages from city to town to farm. But what is the secret of this factory and why does the Grazyn family protect its employees so scrupulously? 
The Bone Mother revives the great figures of Slavic mythology on the eve of the Second World War, from rusalka and Baba Yaga--The Bone Mother herself--to the golem. The existence of mortals is intimately linked to that of witches and vampires, in a universe where strigois rub shoulders with mermaids, ghosts and seers...and all are in peril from the Nichni Politsiyi, the Night Police, which wish to eradicate them. 
'A master of bowel-loosening terror' The Globe and Mail 
'Demchuk gracefully pieces together a dark and shining mosaic of a story with unforgettable imagery and elegant, evocative prose.' Publishers Weekly (starred review) 
'This is a book that bends genres, using the monsters of imagination as a back door to understanding the monsters of the real.' Nino Ricci 
Award-winning author David Demchuk was born and raised in Winnipeg and now lives in Toronto. He has been writing for print, stage, digital and other media for nearly 40 years. The Bone Mother is his first novel.

The Bone Mother

Proving Ground Press

WINNER OF THE 2018 SUNBURST AWARD! FINALIST FOR THE 2017 SHIRLEY JACKSON AWARD! SHORT-LISTED FOR THE 2018 AMAZON CANADA FIRST NOVEL AWARD! LONG-LISTED FOR THE 2017 SCOTIABANK GILLER PRIZE! LONG-LISTED FOR THE 2018 TORONTO BOOK AWARDS! Three neighbouring villages on the Ukrainian/Romanian border are the final refuge for the last of the mythical creatures of Eastern Europe. Now, on the eve of the war that may eradicate their kind―and with the ruthless Night Police descending upon their sanctuary―they tell their stories and confront their destinies: <li>The Rusalka, the beautiful vengeful water spirit who lives in lakes and ponds and lures men and children to their deaths; </li>
<li>The Vovkulaka, who changes from her human form into that of a wolf and hides with her kind deep in the densest forests; </li>
<li>The Strigoi, a revenant who feasts on blood and twists the minds of those who love, serve and shelter him; </li>
<li>The Dvoynik, an apparition that impersonates its victim and draws him into a web of evil in order to free itself; </li>
<li>And the Bone Mother, a skeletal crone with iron teeth who lurks in her house in the heart of the woods, and cooks and eats those who fail her vexing challenges. Eerie and unsettling like the best fairy tales, these incisor-sharp portraits of ghosts, witches, sirens, and seers―and the mortals who live at their side and in their thrall―will chill your marrow and tear at your heart. "Demchuk gracefully pieces together a dark and shining mosaic of a story with unforgettable imagery and elegant, evocative prose. These stories read like beautiful and brutal nightmares, sharply disquieting, and are made all the more terrifying by the history in which they're grounded." ―Publishers Weekly (STARRED REVIEW)</li>

Science Fiction & Fantasy

ChiZine Publications

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Books by Demchuk, David

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Demchuk, David. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Red X: A Novel

The Bone Mother

The Bone Mother