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Arts & Culture

Magic for Beginners: The Hortlak

Kelly Link reads "The Hortlak," from her short story collection Magic for Beginners. "The Hortlak" is a Turkish word, meaning revenant, or ghost. Eric and Batu work at the All Night Convenience store across the road from the Ausible Chasm, at the bottom of which lies a vast zombie city. Zombies stop in at the All Night on their way to the chasm. Are Eric and Batu part of some kind of "new retail" experiment designed to study the shopping habits of zombies? Will Eric ever get the nerve to talk to Charley, the woman who works at the local SPCA putting dogs to sleep?
Kelly Link

Magic for Beginners is my second collection. It includes some ghost stories, and also some stories that fall under the category of what the writer China Mieville calls “weird shit”. I like that label a great deal. Shelley Jackson, author of Half Life, provided the cover art and the illustrations. If you like “The Hortlak”, then you might enjoy reading some of these writers: M. T. Anderson, Joe Hill, Margo Lanagan, and both Jacksons — Shelley Jackson and Shirley Jackson.

This podcast contains music by The Cubby Creatures, Alison Faith Levy, Tobin Mori, Sonoptic, and Windowpain Industries.

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