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A whirlwind romance between an eccentric archivist and a grieving widow explores what it means to be at home in your own body in this clever, humorous, and heartfelt novel.
When archivist Sol meets Elsie, the larger than life widow of a moderately famous television writer who's come to donate her wife's papers, there's an instant spark. But Sol has a secret: he suffers from an illness called vampirism, and hides from the sun by living in his basement office. On their way to falling in love, the two traverse grief, delve into the Internet fandom they once unknowingly shared, and navigate the realities of transphobia and the stigmas of carrying the "vampire disease."
Then, when strange things start happening at the collection, Sol must embrace even more of the unknown to save himself and his job. Dead Collections is a wry novel full of heart and empathy, that celebrates the journey, the difficulties and joys, in finding love and comfort within our own bodies.
"Rife with dry humor and a creative mix of narration, texts, emails, and Facebook threads, the novel expertly balances the humorous and the heartfelt. Fellman thoughtfully examines gender, sexuality, and belonging through an unforgettable main character, who explores what it means to truly embody himself. This bold and self-aware story delivers the goods." - Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"Though Sol and Elsie's relationship sometimes veers into the saccharine, their shared vulnerability as each grapples with their sexual and gender identities is genuinely moving. Most of all, the book's musings about bodies—their trials, tribulations, and pleasures; the ways they sometimes serve and sometimes oppose their owners—provides a deep, rich undercurrent. Unique and emotionally deep." - Kirkus Reviews
"A moving and provocative novel, that caresses the decay nibbling at the hard edges of postmodern officescapes, exposing a sexy, neurotic, cinematic vampire love story bubbling up from the ruins." –Jordy Rosenberg, author of Confessions of the Fox
"I wish this book was a song so I could crank up the volume and play it on repeat. Dead Collections is so raucously funny, sexy and engrossing from page one that you may not immediately realize that Fellman has quietly revolutionized about four different genres in one single, masterfully-crafted book...a singular, gripping, tremendously fun story." – Calvin Kasulke, author of Several People are Typing
"This book kept delighting and astonishing me with little insights and conversations that felt like I was eavesdropping on people I desperately wanted to be friends with. Utterly refreshing and thrilling. Dead Collections is a marvel that left me feeling as if miracles might lurk behind every doorway and inside every old box of papers." – Charlie Jane Anders, author of Victories Greater Than Death
This information about Dead Collections was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Isaac Fellman is the author of The Breath of the Sun (published under his pre-transition first name), which won the 2019 Lambda Literary Award for LGBT Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror. He is an archivist at a queer historical society in San Francisco.
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