Awards

• Short-listed for Page Turner Awards 2023

Overview

FINALIST FOR THE 2023 PAGE TURNER AWARDS 'The absorbing winter escape of a read that I had been seeking' -Prashanth Gopalan, Strange Horizons 'Riddled with mysteries, the darkest of human emotions, and it is a book that will instigate curiosity, yet send a shiver down your spine each moment you turn a page' -India Today Kingdom of Mysore, 1799. A guilt-racked British Army deserter tries to win safety for those he loves – but his reckless bargaining only leaves him trapped between destinies, condemned to facilitate centuries of suicide and murder. Death after death, each death diminishes him, until – a quarter of a millennium later – a Keralan astrophysicist has the chance to annul the soldier’s Faustian bargain. But Chandy John is weakened by his own burden of grief. Will this twenty-first century scientist become just another helpless nexus between undeserved death and undeserved life? Hangdog Souls is set in the Dravidian heartlands of South India– and in a blurred edgeland where alternative realities elide. Through linked narratives of guilt, shame and the search for absolution, this book takes readers from the arid Tamil plains to the highest peaks of the Nilgiris, and from occult horrors in Tipu Sultan’s kingdom to creeping madness in the world of particle physics. Spanning three hundred years, the stories in Hangdog Souls weave together the fates and fortunes of multiple characters – individuals that echo through the generations, asking always the same question: What weight can balance the death of an innocent?

Full Product Details

9781739708108

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Reviews

"'The absorbing winter escape of a read that I had been seeking' Prashanth Gopalan, Strange Horizons 'Riddled with mysteries, the darkest of human emotions, and it is a book that will instigate curiosity, yet send a shiver down your spine each moment you turn a page' India Today 'I find the astonishing stories collected -- and arranged chronologically by historical era -- to be consistently enthralling, amazing, and powerful. They are beautifully written and filled with both sharp characterizations of conflicted, complicated people and rich, multi-layered detail about the states, landscapes, history, and lingering myths of southern India. . . . I recommend Hangdog Souls heartily to all thoughtful readers who long to be immersed in a fulsomely realized world that skillfully combines very old mythologies and phenomenally new reflections on what they can still mean' Jerrold E. Hogle, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus of English, University of Arizona 'A complex and wildly ambitious novel which makes no apologies for bringing together contrasting genres and influences - from historical fiction to the Gothic, from intergenerational family drama to ""realist"" fiction, from supernatural horror to sci-fi, all infused with elements of philosophy, myth and spiritualism and conveyed in rich and beautiful prose' Ends of the World"

"""Darkly imaginative and very well-written. A thoroughly absorbing read – as rich and dark and fertile as a tropical night, and as perilous. A book of depth, intelligence, and imagination, it rewards and merits being re-read. It manages to successfully marry the historic, gothic, and scientific into a fascinating book that works new twists into those classic themes of betrayal, despair and redemption.' -Amazon, 5* ""Each sentence is a work of art. This book is one of the most well-written I've ever read. It follows a variety of characters over a period of hundreds of years, all tied together by a central storyline. The story is quite engrossing, covering realms of the magical and scientific, It's written in such a way that you really FEEL the weight of that guilt and the toll it takes on the characters – you experience that deep emotion vicariously through them.' -Amazon, 5* ""Delightfully Macabre. As a collection of shorts, it does a good job at throwing characters and archetypes, and in some cases styles at us, sketching historical actors and more contemporary sketches of Indian Middle Class."" -Amazon, 5* ""A very beautifully written, highly original work, with elements of horror, supernatural, science fiction and history. My heart sings when something this accomplished yet idiosyncratic gets published. A true literary curiosity, which manages to leave extraordinary images in the reader's mind."" -Amazon, 5* ""Even though it is not my usual genre of reading, I am glad I gave it a shot. The writing is very evocative – quite fascinating in that dark way."" -Amazon, 5*"

Author Information

Marc Joan, a biomedical scientist, is the author of the literary horror epic Hangdog Souls and the psychological thriller The Cartoon Life and Loves of a Stupid Man, as well as a number of award-winning and award-nominated short stories published in numerous magazines and journals. Marc was raised in South India, and he now lives in England.

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