Description:

Are you the one who helped him kill the angel?
Twenty years of repressed anger and memories. A bitter knot of hatred that binds and divides two friends. The dark secret that fuels and devastates them both.
He killed it. I only helped him to bury it.
Eddie's doing his best to get by, but every day the good fight just gets harder. And now there's a new burden to shoulder. Gray - his best friend and nemesis in literature, romance, and life - has landed in a bizarre mental hospital, known for its radical treatments, because Gray couldn't bear the weight of an unspeakable trauma.
The last time they met, Gray almost killed Eddie, but it seems that all is finally forgiven. Tonight, there's a wild hootenanny up at Gray's house.
The nuthouse.
And Eddie's invited.

This thrilling novella, a sleeper hit of 2007, will knock your dear socks off and have you scratching at the door for yet more Piccirilli.
Our stunning hardbound signed edition is limited to 450 numbered copies and has a full-color wraparound dustjacket, foil-embossed cover, and an illustration for every chapter.

Review

I read this in one sitting because it was so original in every aspect that it left me no choice. I d discovered literary gold. --Ed Gorman, author of The Day the Music Died

If Donald Barthelme, Kobo Abe, and Dashiell Hammett had somehow been able to collaborate on a novella, the result might be something very much like Tom Piccirilli's Frayed. No, wait, that's not quite right; they would have needed to bring in Buster Keaton as their gag-man. And Kahlil Gibran as spiritual adviser. Shit, even that's not right, but it's close.
It's impossible to give this marvel of a novella a quick, witty, soundbite blurb because--like most of Piccirilli's work--it defies genre boundaries and literary comparisons.
Piccirilli's work is genuinely unique, and Frayed is a testament to his intensely surreal, sometimes absurdist, often horrifying, and, in this case, surprisingly heartbreaking vision as a storyteller. There is nothing so exciting in a reader's life as watching, dumbfounded, as a favorite author reaches closer to the height of his or her powers, and with Frayed, Tom Piccirilli is damn near there.
You'll know when he reaches the paramount--which will be soon, judging by this book; you'll know because the Earth will shake. --Bram Stoker and International Horror Guild Award-winner Gary A. Braunbeck, author of Prodigal Blues and Mr. Hands

Piccirilli explore[s] the relationship between creativity and madness. This beautifully written tale brought to mind different aspects of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, SLEUTH, and THE WICKER MAN.
Best Novella of 2007. --Greg Lamberson, author of JOHNNY GRUESOME and PERSONAL DEMONS

About the Author

Tom Piccirilli lives in Colorado where, besides writing, he spends an inordinate amount of time watching trash cult films and reading Gold Medal classic noir and hardboiled novels.
He's the author of seventeen novels including The Coldest Mile, The Cold Spot, The Midnight Road, The Dead Letters, and A Choir of Ill Children. Tom is a winner of the International Thriller Writers Award, a four-time winner of the Bram Stoker Award and a final nominee for the World Fantasy Award and the Mystery Writers of America Award.
To learn more, check out his official website, Epitaphs, at tompiccirilli.com.