Violent Faculties

“I’ve never read anything quite like Charlene Elsby’s Violent Faculties and I suspect I never will again. Part tenure application, part manifesto of sadistic feminism, Elsby’s story of a professor pushed to rational excess by administrative powers-that-be reads like an overview of Western philosophy as written by your brilliant and bloodthirsty best friend who happens to be a malignant narcissist. Elsby’s voice is daring, original, and wholly uncompromising. Violent Faculties is a work of true transgressive transcendence.” —Paula Ashe, Shirley Jackson award-winning author of We Are Here to Hurt Each Other

“One of my favorite contemporary writers… Elsby’s voice winds its way into your head and smashes about like a trapped heron.” —B.R. Yeager, author of Negative Space and Burn You the Fuck Alive

“Elsby is a dark magician with words.” —Samantha Krewulak, author of Horror Bound

“Charlene Elsby is in a class of her own invention—a voice to follow all the way into the dark.” —Mila Jaroniec, author of Plastic Vodka Bottle Sleepover

“Elsby engulfs the reader in an oppressive interiority, draping her characters’ damaged psyches over our heads and slowly, diabolically, cinching them ‘round our necks, until all we can see is just how snugly they might fit us. Even if you think it’s you who’s getting inside these characters’ minds, rest assured, by the time you’re finished with them, you’ll never get them out of yours again.” —David Fitzgerald, author of Troll

"Fusing philosophy and horror, with a sinister dose of torture porn, Charlene Elsby's Violent Faculties is a masterful tale of human misery and the macabre, a story that transcends its innermost psychosocial experiments and becomes a cautionary tale by way of academic study. Elsby is at the peak of her powers, and this book is her calling card. I can't wait to see what sadistic experiments she has in store for us next." —Michael J. Seidlinger, author The Body Harvest and Anybody Home?

“Elsby’s commentary is razor-sharp, her brutality, unflinching. Violent Faculties has earned a place in my top reads of the year.” —Rae Knowles, author ofMerciless Waters

"A disturbing dissertation on humanity that lures you into its extreme experiment in philosophical flagellation and doesn't dismiss you until the final footnote."  —Brian McAuley, author of Curse of the Reaper and Candy Cain Kills

"Fierce, clever, and wholly unapologetic, Charlene Elsby's Violent Faculties will mash your brain into mush."—Ronald Malfi, author of Shamrock Alley and Floating Staircase

"An absorbing, twisted tale of psychosis, murder, and grief." —Kirkus Reviews