ISBN: 978-1936383009

I bought this book.

The chances of readers not being familiar with either bizarro fiction or the “flying circus” storytelling form is pretty high. So let’s start there. Bizarro is a pseudo-genre that embraces Absurdism, irony, satire, surrealism and even outright silliness. Think Roald Dahl, Lewis Carroll, Jean-Paul Sarte, Samuel Beckett meets The Twilight Zone, Lovecraft and David Lynch. In fact this book comes out through Eraserhead Press.

The flying circus is an homage to Monty Python. It’s a collection of related (thematically, directly through characters and worlds, or merely grammatically) shorts that come together as a whole. How to Eat Fried Furries supposedly is a pamphlet included in the goodie bags at the American Association of Furry Farmers convention.

Cushing’s shorts start out as silly riffs on religion and genre (alien squirrel invaders led by the Squirrel Pope, readers will get that the stories are absurd, as is the bits of religion they’re reflecting). It disarms the reader with over-the-top stunts then subjects them to some pretty serious shorts that challenge the nature of human status quo and pretentiousness. In these darker pieces Cushing establishes that there are three people in the world: the Flesh, who uphold and define the status quo; the Flayed to reject it to the point of rejecting their own skin; and the neutral who are very screwed indeed.

While the premise might seem silly (and honestly the first mini-tale is quite far gone) Cushing deftly slices apart the reader with a wicked wit and almost playful viciousness. The power packed second act makes Furries an excellent, rattling read and a chance to get in on the ground floor of what will be a stellar career.