Lord Byron's Prophecy
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9781590215531
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by Sean Eads
Lord Byron is troubled. Is his new poem a catharsis of self-loathing at being attracted to other men or an incantation that turns him into an incubus that seeks such sins? Or perhaps something much worse: an apocalyptic prophecy. Present-day Professor Adam Fane is beginning to suffer from what he believes is dementia, which causes him to have the same visions Byron experienced centuries ago. A closeted gay man, Professor Fane interprets these visions to be products of guilt. He's lived for decades with a terrible guilt over the fate of his childhood friend, George, with whom he was in love. His only son, Gordon has grown into more than a passing resemblance of George. Gordon, a star college basketball player, is unaware of his father's past. His heart belongs to a young English professor named Amber, who is a colleague of his father's. As Gordon pursues a relationship with her, he suddenly starts to experience visions similar to those of Byron, as well as a crawling sensation under his skin that makes him fearful of being touched.
The interlocking stories of three characters leading parallel lives tells a dark tale of impending personal--and perhaps even global--doom, is written by Sean Eads, a stunning new voice in speculative fiction, whose first novel, The Survivors, was a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award.
A finalist for the Shirley Jackson Award for Best Novel!
Paperback, 300 pages
Lord Byron is troubled. Is his new poem a catharsis of self-loathing at being attracted to other men or an incantation that turns him into an incubus that seeks such sins? Or perhaps something much worse: an apocalyptic prophecy. Present-day Professor Adam Fane is beginning to suffer from what he believes is dementia, which causes him to have the same visions Byron experienced centuries ago. A closeted gay man, Professor Fane interprets these visions to be products of guilt. He's lived for decades with a terrible guilt over the fate of his childhood friend, George, with whom he was in love. His only son, Gordon has grown into more than a passing resemblance of George. Gordon, a star college basketball player, is unaware of his father's past. His heart belongs to a young English professor named Amber, who is a colleague of his father's. As Gordon pursues a relationship with her, he suddenly starts to experience visions similar to those of Byron, as well as a crawling sensation under his skin that makes him fearful of being touched.
The interlocking stories of three characters leading parallel lives tells a dark tale of impending personal--and perhaps even global--doom, is written by Sean Eads, a stunning new voice in speculative fiction, whose first novel, The Survivors, was a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award.
A finalist for the Shirley Jackson Award for Best Novel!
Paperback, 300 pages
"...readers will be engrossed by Eads’s skillful weaving of the past and present through the troubled psychology of sympathetic, fully human characters." - Publishers Weekly
"A darkly hallucinatory and unsettling fever-dream of a novel, Lord Byron’s Prophecy offers doppelgängers, apocalyptic visions, ominous portents, and eerie hauntings as it recounts a centuries-spanning tale of guilt–and appetite–driven men whose suppressed secrets and illicit desires poison their own lives and those around them." - Brett Josef Grubisic for Lambda Literary
"The notorious Romantic poet spiritually presides over a modern-day fable of forbidden desire, apocalyptic foreboding, and campus melodrama." - Kirkus Reviews
"Lord Byron’s Prophesy is a tale of layered times that all share the same lurking, dizzying madness. From Byron himself, to current-day Professor Fane, and to Fane’s son Gordon--all of these men are dipping into the same waters of vision and dread, unable to resist their own destructive impulses, despite a serious sense of doom. This is a book of poetry, prophesy, and the dangerous pitfalls of paternity; it leaves a reader hoping for sanity, but suspicious that it’s not in their stars." - L.A. Fields, Lambda Literary Award finalist for My Dear Watson