Death and the Dream

“Subtle, soul-touching horror.”
14 haunting tales from contemporary New York make up this dark and thrilling short story collection. Death suddenly becomes an inescapable part of life in scenes set in the Catskill Mountains, Brooklyn, the Lower East Side, Greenwich Village, City Island, and the City’s science research labs.

A child left home alone plays with matches in a deserted rural valley on a hot summer day. A college student searching for love in New York City gets trapped in a dream of a lost boy. A young scientist accidentally gets locked in a laboratory room with her research mice in an experiment turned nightmare. An aging hitman confronts the murderer of their childhood trauma in a Lower East Side park one fateful spring morning. An abandoned German Shepherd bolts in front of a newlywed couple driving home for Christmas in a blizzard.

J.J.Brown expertly weaves lyrical and poetic stories of psychological terror reminiscent of Edgar Allan Poe.