Hey there friends, Just a heads up that my story, “Tell Someone”, is in the latest issue of the Stinging Fly, which you can order here.
“Tell Someone” is the story of two brothers – Luke and Adam – and a terrible family secret which haunts every corner of their lives. It’s a very very dark story. Darker than Hawk Mountain, even. If that’s possible.
Speaking of Hawk Mountain, the audio book was just named one of Audible’s Best Mysteries and Thrillers of 2022! If you haven’t yet read it or listened to it, you can buy it here (and if you sign up for Audible, you get a free download). I narrate it, so you can enjoy my sweet soothing voice in your ears, telling you a story that massively messes up your mind. Enjoy! X C
Tell people about the show and, if it feels okay, to support it on patreon (especially if you already know your pals are fans of the show but don’t support it).
Give the show a 5 star rating and positive review on Apple Podcasts.
Tweet and Insta quotes from and thoughts inspired by episodes (with a link!)
Happy Halloween, friends, As we move into a new chapter of AEWCH, I wanted to start off with something both eternal and of the moment: horror. Horror has played such an important part in my life since childhood, and continues to grow in its influence on me. But I find most explorations – especially academic ones – into horror a bit banal. Can we think of horror beyond its political/economic function and metaphorical value? What does it do to us spiritually and culturally? What does it offer? I’m very excited to share this episode with you.
“In my town, there was nowhere to go and nothing to do. We were land-locked, far from any cities except the post-industrial landscapes of shattered factory windows and fenced-off parking lots that made up Allentown and Bethlehem. There were diners open all night and those were saving graces. Kids met and sat in booths, drinking coffee and eating breakfast food, talking about whether or not God was real and what post-punk bands from DC we liked. We would joke about gruesome things. A favourite prank was concealing a packet of coffee creamer with your hand and rubbing your eye vigorously until the packet burst, the false white of your eye spilling across your fingers. We skipped school and gathered under the bleachers at the football game and got drunk and high at parties. Some kids started shooting up and selling heroin, and in our final year, it seemed like all the golden favoured kids, good-looking bullies who got good grades and played sports, started doing coke. I was lonely and didn’t want to do coke, so I set up punk rock shows and started a record label. There are probably easier ways to not be lonely, but I didn’t know them. The shows were loud, crowded, sweaty. They were dotted with Nazis, who showed up everywhere, and you’d be too afraid to kick them out. They were our classmates, after all. They’d pass you in the hall the next day.”
A feature on me in Gay Community News (GCN) here in Ireland – you know, one of those free gay magazines? But this one is really good. That’s me holding, um, me, in GCN in the pic up there.
As for AEWCH, I just wanted to give you a heads up about the three great episodes coming up… queer podcasters, an Italian philosopher/theologian, and an esoteric healer… all leading up to a massively special episode on AEWCH 200.
The only way Against Everyone With Conner Habib exists is through its relationship with its listeners. Do you enjoy the show? Does it inspire new thoughts and conversations in your life? If so, SUPPORT THIS PODCAST via Patreon
Friends, So happy to share an extended contemplation about fiction and this podcast, and then one of my very favorite book tour events with you: a live conversation about horror, transhumanism, and Hawk Mountain in Dublin with your fav death expert Caitlin Doughty and nonfiction writer/cultural critic Mark O’Connell.
It was a sold out event and one of my favorite on the tour, which will continue in the UK in September. (I’ll also post one of the other tour dates as exclusive content for patreon patrons only.)
SHOW NOTES
WHAT BOOK YOU SHOULD READ? One of the greatest horror novels – which, like Hawk Mountain is also not really a horror novel – is Disgrace by JM Coetzee. Don’t read anything about it, just get it and read it. It’s incredible.4
WHAT OTHER AEWCH EPISODE YOU SHOULD LISTEN TO? I talked about the horrors of technologies – as well as its occult promise and beauty – with anthroposophist writer Andrew Linnell on AEWCH 183.
MORE ON CAITLIN AND MARK If you follow the links to their respective AEWCH episodes you’ll find lots there -here’s Caitlin Doughty on AEWCH 174 and Mark O’Connell on AEWCH 105.
Hey there friends, Wanted to let you know that there are three Hawk Mountain events coming up in Dublin, and each one is very different.
1. A book launch at the legendary Hodges Figgis with my friend Una Mullally on WEDNESDAY, JULY 27 This is a reading in the standard sense. I read the book, I answer a few questions, we hang out, we drink wine! To go to this FREE event, email ldermody@penguinrenadomhouse.ie and say you’re coming by! (you can cut and paste/ use this text – just include your name: Hi I’m excited to attend the Conner Habib event on the 27th. Thanks!)
2. I’ll be talking horror and darkness in fiction with author, podcaster, and tarot reader Sarah Maria Griffin, on FRIDAY, AUGUST 5 at Museum of Literature Ireland (MoLI). Here’s the link! The event is FREE and will be awesome.
3. My event on THURSDAY, JULY 28 with Caitlin Doughty and Mark O’Connell is SOLD OUT! But go to one of the other two with the also awesome AEWCH guests here!
Friends, Hawk Mountainis now available in the US in book and audio formats!
(Irish/UK/Australian readers, you have a couple more weeks to preorder/wait until it comes out on the 21st!)
So…I made myself the guest, and my friend and collaborator Una Mullally, who is an expert interviewer, asked me the questions. This was an extremely satisfying conversation — the kind of experience I always hope my guests will end the show feeling — and I’m honored to have had it. What comes up? The horror of high school, Kate Bush, the mystical presence of animals, Meister Eckhart, the soundtrack to my novel, time and manipulation, and more.
I don’t think I’ve ever had a better interview, to be honest.
And? THERE ARE NO SPOILERS! Somehow she managed to turn this into a great conversation about literature without messing with it.
The US tour starts next week, and I’ll post a normal ep then too. Until then, enjoy, and go get the book and come to the readings and tell your pals and say hello!
One of the New York Times’s 12 Books To Read in July 2022
“Hawk Mountain is a suspenseful, shocking and ultimately poignant study of anguished conflict, both domestic and internal. Incisively written and intensely imagined, it’s the novelistic debut of a real original.” – Ramsey Campbell
“The opening lines of HawkMountain plummet you into an atmosphere of creeping dread and precarious restraint that won’t let up until the final, shocking moments.” – Caitlin Doughty
“A moving and unflinching portrayal of a man caught in a trap of his own making, but willing to do almost anything―to almost anybody―if it will keep him from having to face up to himself. HawkMountain is a wonderfully bleak and beautifully written debut.” – BrianEvenson
“A brilliantly disturbing, expertly crafted literary noir that will stick with you long after you put it down. Conner Habib has written a flawless meditation on the fruitless, but eternally human, effort to kill off the parts of ourselves we cannot love―literally and metaphorically. I love this book.” – Sara Gran
“HawkMountain is deft horror, made of precise strikes into our most vulnerable psychic terrain… Finally, a horror story that knows cisheteropatriarchy is the villain!” – Andrea Lawlor
“Tender, horrifying, utterly transfixing.” – Kelly Link
“Dripping with menace from the first page, this story of childhood enemies meeting up fifteen years later is utterly enthralling. Brilliantly written with homoerotic undertones, this savage tale is uncompromising in its reflection of teen friendships and isolation, and unflinching in its examination of the delicacy of the human body. There is gold among the gore. I found it compelling, shocking, and beautiful.” – Liz Nugent
“Conner Habib writes with an hallucinatory precision, and a kind of merciless humanity, about the poisonous work of repression. His forebears-Poe, Highsmith, even classical tragedy-are clear, but his originality is clearer still. Hawk Mountain is a work of strange, glittering darkness.” – Mark O’Connell
“A deeply disturbing yet, somehow, soaring novel I won’t soon forget. It plumbs the depths of traumatized characters trapped within our damaging culture. I couldn’t look away, even when I was looking from between my fingers.” – Paul Tremblay
Holy shit friends it’s my BOOOOOOK! It comes out from Norton on July 5 (Doubleday/Penguin in Ireland/UK/Australia July 21), so preorder to have it delivered on pub date and be the coolest literary horror reader on your block. Here’s how to order from Amazon and indie booksellers!
Friends, Here’s a special episode of Against Everyone With Conner Habib about my debut novel of psychological tension, desire, and violence, Hawk Mountain. I read from the novel’s first pages, I talk about how it came together, about being a writer, and also about a blurb from one of my heroes which is still blowing my mind.
Importantly, though, I also talk about preorders! Preorders are so important to an author, a fact which I just discovered since, uh, I’ve never published a book before. But anyway, instead of just saying “it’s important,” here’s why.
WHEN YOU PREORDER MY BOOK YOU
Boost the first week of sales! Preorders are tacked on to the first week of sales figures, which are key in how much publicity/promotion the book gets.
Get all the right people talking about the book! This includes distributors and publishers in foreign countries, then media and…well, you can see where this is going. A book with strong pre-sales enters into the world dancing!
Get bookstores and organizations interested in events with me. Which means there’s a better chance that I’ll come to your town*
Get the book right away! Like, right away. The day it comes out with some sites below.
SO PREORDER HAWK MOUNTAIN HERE! US RELEASE DATE, JULY 5
Bookshop.org US– The site is the site I use for all book recommendations, since it supports independent bookstores. When you order a book from Bookshop, it finds the closest indie store and sends it to you from there. It works just as well as Amazon 99% of the time, in my experience.
Amazon US – the big cheese, of course. The best thing about ordering from Amazon is that you’ll get it day of publication.
The Gutter Bookshop – Ireland only. If you want a signed copy from a local store in Dublin, order from this gay-owned shop!
Look, obviously I think my novel is good, but if that’s not enough to convince you, here’s some of the advanced prasie:
“Conner Habib’s debut novel is a bleak, dark adrenaline rush.”** – Clive Barker
“Hawk Mountain is a suspenseful, shocking and ultimately poignant study of anguished conflict, both domestic and internal. Incisively written and intensely imagined, it’s the novelistic debut of a real original.” – Ramsey Campbell
“The opening lines of Hawk Mountain plummet you into an atmosphere of creeping dread and precarious restraint that won’t let up until the final, shocking moments.” – Caitlin Doughty
“A moving and unflinching portrayal of a man caught in a trap of his own making, but willing to do almost anything―to almost anybody―if it will keep him from having to face up to himself. Hawk Mountain is a wonderfully bleak and beautifully written debut.” – Brian Evenson
“A brilliantly disturbing, expertly crafted literary noir that will stick with you long after you put it down. Conner Habib has written a flawless meditation on the fruitless, but eternally human, effort to kill off the parts of ourselves we cannot love―literally and metaphorically. I love this book.” – Sara Gran
“Hawk Mountain is deft horror, made of precise strikes into our most vulnerable psychic terrain… Finally, a horror story that knows cisheteropatriarchy is the villain!” – Andrea Lawlor
“Tender, horrifying, utterly transfixing.” – Kelly Link
“Dripping with menace from the first page, this story of childhood enemies meeting up fifteen years later is utterly enthralling. Brilliantly written with homoerotic undertones, this savage tale is uncompromising in its reflection of teen friendships and isolation, and unflinching in its examination of the delicacy of the human body. There is gold among the gore. I found it compelling, shocking, and beautiful.” – Liz Nugent
“Conner Habib writes with an hallucinatory precision, and a kind of merciless humanity, about the poisonous work of repression. His forebears-Poe, Highsmith, even classical tragedy-are clear, but his originality is clearer still. Hawk Mountain is a work of strange, glittering darkness.” – Mark O’Connell
“A deeply disturbing yet, somehow, soaring novel I won’t soon forget. It plumbs the depths of traumatized characters trapped within our damaging culture. I couldn’t look away, even when I was looking from between my fingers.” – Paul Tremblay
I can’t wait to share my first novel with you, friends. Please do get your copy preordered today! C
Friends, my debut novel of murder, desire, and high tension, Hawk Mountain, is out from W.W. Norton in the US and Penguin/Doubleday in Ireland and the UK next July, but if you pre-order it now, you get it delivered straight to your door the day it comes out (or maybe even earlier, since Amazon sometimes surprises you with early delivery!). I can’t wait to share this novel with the world. I’ll be posting some videos, podcasts, and interviews about the book and writing it in the days to come. But be one of the first people to read the book by clicking one of the following links and ordering it!
An English teacher is gaslit by his charismatic high school bully in this tense story of deception, manipulation, and murder.
Single father Todd is relaxing at the beach with his son, Anthony, when he catches sight of a man approaching from the water’s edge. As the man draws closer, Todd recognizes him as Jack, who bullied Todd relentlessly in their teenage years, but now seems overjoyed to have “run into” his old friend. Jack suggests a meal to catch up. And can he spend the night?
What follows is a fast-paced story of obsession and cunning. As Jack invades Todd’s life, pain and intimidation from the past unearth knife-edge suspense in the present. Set in a small town on the New England coast, Conner Habib’s debut introduces characters trapped in isolation by the expansive woods and the encroaching ocean, their violence an expression of repressed desire and the damage it can inflict. Both gruesome and tender, Hawk Mountain offers a compelling look at how love and hate are indissoluble, intertwined until the last breath.
FRIENDS:Do you find this podcast meaningful? Support it! This podcast is only possible because listeners like you support it. Do contribute to my mission by supporting Against Everyone With Conner Habib on Patreon! Thank you so, so much.
Buy Ramsey’s books and all the books mentioned on/related to this episode via my booklist for AEWCH 168 on bookshop.org! The site sources from independent bookstores in the US, not a big corporate shipping warehouse where the workers are treated like machines. Plus when you click through here to order, the show gets a small affiliate kickback!
Friends,
Happy Halloween. I don’t really need to introduce legendary horror author Ramsey Campbell, but I will just say it was an honor to have him on the show. Very few people have done as much as Ramsey to deepen horror narratives, and very few have shown – with dozens of books penned – such a commitment to the genre.
• The calm moments in David Lynch films are the half smile on the government agent’s face thing I mention brought to you by Jon Ronson, who I spoke with on AEWCH 163.
Conner Habib 