Dear Sweet Filthy World, Caitlin R. Kiernan
Dear Sweet Filthy World, Caitlin R. Kiernan
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Dear Sweet Filthy World

Author: Caitlín R. Kiernan

Narrator: Kevin Kenerly, various narrators, Xe Sands, Lauren Ezzo, Lisa Flanagan, Natasha Soudek, Neil Hellegers, Paul Woodson, Natalie Naudus, Chelsea Stephens

Unabridged: 13 hr 5 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 04/24/2021

Categories: Fiction, Short Stories


Synopsis

What exactly is the difference between a love letter and a suicide note? Is there really any difference at all? These might be the questions posed by Dear Sweet Filthy World, Caitlin R. Kiernan’s fourteenth collection of short fiction, comprised of twenty-eight uncollected and impossible-to-find stories.Treading the grim places where desire and destruction, longing and horror intersect, the author rises once again to meet the high expectations she set with such celebrated collections as Tales of Pain and Wonder, To Charles Fort, With Love, and the World Fantasy Award–winning The Ape’s Wife and Other Stories. In these pages you’ll meet a dragon’s lover, a drowned vampire cursed always to ride the tides, a wardrobe that grants wishes, and a lunatic artist’s marriage of the Black Dahlia and the Beast of Gévaudan. You’ll visit a ruined postindustrial Faerie, travel back to tropical Paleozoic seas and ahead to the far-flung future, and you’ll meet a desperate writer forced to sell her memories for new ideas. Here are twenty-eight tales of apocalypse and rebirth, of miraculous transformation and utter annihilation. Here is the place where professing your undying devotion might be precisely the same thing as signing your own death warrant or worse.The stories in Dear Sweet Filthy World were first published in the subscription-only Sirenia Digest, run by Caitlin for her most devoted readers. This publication marks the first availability to the general public for most of these rare tales.

About Caitlín R. Kiernan

Caitlín R. Kiernan was born near Dublin, Ireland, but has spent most of her life in the southeastern United States. In 1992, she began writing her first novel, The Five of Cups (it remained unpublished until 2003). Her first published novel, Silk (1998), earned her two awards and praise from critics and such luminaries as Neil Gaiman, Clive Barker, Peter Straub, and Poppy Z. Brite. Her next novel, Threshold (2001), was also an award-winner. She is a prolific short fiction author, and her award-winning short stories have been collected in numerous volumes. Her short science fiction novel The Dry Salvages was published in 2004.

About Kevin Kenerly

Kevin Kenerly, an Earphones Award–winning narrator, earned a BA at Olivet College. A longtime member of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, he has acted in more than twenty seasons, playing dozens of roles.

About Xe Sands

Xe Sands has more than a decade of experience bringing stories to life through narration, performance, and visual art, including recordings of the Nightwalkers series from Jaquelyn Frank. She has received several honors, including AudioFile Earphones Awards and a coveted Audie Award, and she was named Favorite Debut Romance Narrator of 2011 in the Romance Audiobooks poll.

About Lauren Ezzo

Lauren Ezzo, an Earphones Award–winning narrator, is a commercial voice talent and Chicago-based actor and graduate of Hope College. She has acted in Peppermint Creek Theatre Company’s world premiere of Or You Could Kiss Me. Her narrations have placed her on several “Best of the Year” lists, including AudioFile’s Best Audiobooks of the Year list. In 2018, she was part of a full cast of narrators nominated for the prestigious Audie Award for Best Original Work.

About Lisa Flanagan

Lisa Flanagan is a classically trained soprano, comedian, voice-over artist, and Earphones Award–winning narrator.

About Natasha Soudek

Natasha Soudek was raised in the South, speaks native German, lived in Berlin and Vienna, and finally settled in the Lower East Side of New York City. After honing her stage presence by studying acting and playing hundreds of live music shows (singing and playing bass), she moved to LA to record with Channel/DreamWorks and act on TV. Her voice is as distinct and memorable as the range of characters she’s played on-screen.

About Neil Hellegers

Neil Hellegers grew up in New Jersey and attended the University of Pennsylvania, where he earned a BA in theater arts and a minor in psychology before getting an MFA in acting from the Trinity Rep Conservatory in Providence, Rhode Island. He moved to New York City in 2003 and, since then, has made a career of theatrical performance, percussion, theater education, and audiobook narration. He currently lives in Brooklyn with his wife and son.

About Paul Woodson

Paul Woodson has won SOVAS & Earphones awards, and has recorded close to 350 audiobooks in many different genres—including romance, fiction, history, biography, and mystery—in American and British accents—and received his BFA in acting at Boston University. In his theater days, he worked in many NYC shows, toured the USA and Europe, and starred in NYC as Vincent van Gogh in the sung-through, OOBR Award–winning musical Vincent. He enjoys backpacking the Appalachian Trail and visiting national parks in his spare time. He is a member of SAG-AFTRA.

About Natalie Naudus

Natalie Naudus is one of the most beloved audiobook narrators working today and now author of her debut novel, Gay the Pray Away.

About Chelsea Stephens

Chelsea Stephens is an experienced voice actor with a talent for mystery, sci-fi, and YA novels. She won an AudioFile Earphones Award for her narration of Pale Horse, Pale Rider by Katherine Anne Porter. She has a longtime love and appreciation for the performing arts, with experience in onstage acting, singing, and voice-over. Her love for reading books and the pursuit of the story led her to narration. She enjoys unfolding characters and bringing listeners into new worlds.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Sjgomzi on July 28, 2022

Cosmic horror, sea monsters, paleontology, serial killers, and alien sex. A kaleidoscope of weird and grotesque imagery, and Kiernan’s prose is always something special. A few of the stories here fizzled for me, but a strong collection overall.......more

Goodreads review by James on April 28, 2017

After being somewhat disappointed with her Agents of Dreamland novella that came out earlier this year, it pleases me to say that Dear Sweet Filthy World finds Caitlín R. Kiernan back in fine form (but then again, for the most part I've generally found her shorter fiction superior to her longer work......more

Goodreads review by Bookgasms on April 24, 2017

This was a set of tales like few others I have ever read. Culled from so many different ideas, each one had it's own personality and feel. Yet through them all was the seamlessly flowing writing, the grim feel of desperation, and the delightful darkness I was hoping for when I picked up this title.......more

Goodreads review by Marjolein (UrlPhantomhive) on February 26, 2017

Full review to come!......more

Goodreads review by Tiffany on June 06, 2018

My first experience with Kiernan's work was her short story Houses Under the Sea and by the final line I was infatuated. The other short stories I came across only added to my love of her as an author. I'd finally found a female author capable of taking the ideas of Lovecraft that had so fascinated......more


Quotes

“The twenty-eight stories…explore the human and inhuman conditions in all their filthy glory, and bravely wallow in the effluvia of mythology, murder, and depravity…Her many fans will be overjoyed to have these works collected.” Publishers Weekly

“Sinister and beguiling in equal measure, tracing the border between fear and obsession and asking powerful questions about desire along the way.” Kirkus Reviews