A Natural History of Hell: Stories

World Fantasy Award winner * Shirley Jackson Award winner

Emily Dickinson takes a carriage ride with Death. A couple are invited over to a neighbor’s daughter’s exorcism. A country witch with a sea-captain’s head in a glass globe intercedes on behalf of abused and abandoned children. In July of 1915, in Hardin County, Ohio, a boy sees ghosts. Explore contemporary natural history in a baker’s dozen of exhilarating visions.

Praise for Jeffrey Ford:

Outstanding… . Ford uses … incongruously lyrical phrases to infuse the everyday with a nebulous magic. Publishers Weekly, Best Books of the Year(Starred Review)

For lovers of the weird and fantastic and lovers of great writing, this is a treasure trove of disturbing visions, new worlds and fully realized craft. Shelf Awareness (Starred Review)

Properly creepy, but from time to time deliciously funny and heart-breakingly poignant, too. Kirkus Reviews (Starred Review)

Jeffrey Ford was born on Long Island in New York State in 1955 and grew up in the town of West Islip. He studied fiction writing with John Gardner at S.U.N.Y. Binghamton. He’s been a college English teacher of writing and literature for thirty years. He is the author of eight novels including The Girl in the Glass and four short story collections. He has received the World Fantasy, Nebula, Edgar, and Shirley Jackson awards. He lives with his wife Lynn in a century old farm house in a land of slow clouds and endless fields.