By the Time We Leave Here, We'll Be Friends

By the Time We Leave Here, We'll Be Friends is the story of four prisoners who must escape from a Siberian gulag circa 1952. In order to successfully make it across the tundra, they must trick a fellow prisoner into following them, so that they can cannibalize him when they run out of food.

The book has dark, surreal elements such as: animals with no organs, a severed hand that tattoos people, an ear-pull competition from hell, and a parasite that lives inside the main character's throat, which writes strange messages on the walls while he sleeps. This one is particularly notorious for its ending, which some people loved, but some people HATED. If you're interested, the reviews for the first edition on Goodreads make for some fun hatereads.

I'm really proud of what I was able to do with this book. Giving it a fresh read-through brought back a ton of memories. It won the 2010 Wonderland Award for Best Novel, got me some cool friends, and stands as a damn good first novel, if I do say so myself.

My influences on this one were: Solzhenitsyn, David Lynch movies, body horror, the Silent Hill videogames, The Russian Dictionary of Tattoos Vol. 2-3 (I could never find 1), "Gulag" by Anne Applebaum, and James Ellroy

After the initial publisher (the powerful and immortal Swallowdown Press) went on permanent hiatus and the novel fell out of print, I decided to re-publish it myself! The first edition is going for between $100-250...so if you have that one, you can cash it in and buy this one and a new set of tires or something.

Pre-ordering this book helps me to cover some of the maintenance costs involved in getting it out in the first place. I appreciate you! It will ship no later than August 7!

PS: Seriously, if you have any questions about the ending, I can tell you what happened. :)

PPS: This page is for if you want the book signed! It's a bit more pricey but hey...it's signed!