Cookie O'Puss: believed to have first introduced ice cream cakes to New Jersey in the Fifth Century.
(Image credit: aliceeats.com)
St. Patrick’s Day, when we celebrate the saint who brought Catholicism to Ireland, thereby embedding guilt in its national psyche to go along with the extant dark humor and obstinacy. Just the right combination for producing writers. Joyce, Yeats, Wilde, Shaw, Beckett, and Swift, to name a few.
CliffsNotes would’ve been out of business long ago without the land of my ancestors.
While you’re celebrating the day, we thought we’d highlight one of our favorite modern-day Irish writers, Graham Tugwell. We feel a special kinship for Graham not only because his mix of horror and humor is perfectly in sync with the JDP ethos but also because we were the first to publish one of his stories back in Issue 22.
(Sure, at the time, Eirik said rude things about Graham’s last name, but in fairness to Eirik, Graham’s last name is Tugwell.)
In the months since “Mammy’d Give Me Minds to Eat” appeared in our hallowed pages, Graham’s gone on to publish over forty stories in various and sundry lit mags, near and far. It has to rank as one of the best and most sustained indie lit debuts ever. You can find a full listing of his published works here and we’ve also highlighted some of our personal favorites below.
First, you’ll want to head over to Asbury Park’s finest, Splash of Red, to read the achingly beautiful “Into the Mouth of the Humbler Worm.”
Next, brace yourself for the dark and twisted horror of “Sweetly Tight Comiseratrix…Sadness Cultivating” over at The Write Room. It’ll make you feel, well, dark and twisted and probably really sad too.
After that, read something not-at-all more upbeat with the equally unsettling, “The Slender Help,” which resides over at The Spilling Ink Review.
Then there’s the simply incomparable and literally indescribable “My Son Is Now My Motorbike.” Tell me if it doesn’t leave you at least a little speechless. (It’s published by THIS Literary Magazine and they’re damn lucky to have it.)
Finally, don’t forget “We Left Him with the Dragging Man” in the January 2012 Issue of JDP. It’s my personal favorite and more than a little reminiscent of Stand by Me, if, you know, that movie (and short story) had had a large wormlike, dragging man in it.
So three cheers for Graham and a Happy St. Patrick’s Day to all. I’m off to get my annual green bagel.
