BLACK PILLS is a collection of genre-bending short fiction exploring the unmitigated sh*tshow that is our present reality.
“Garth’s work is not literary, and yet it is. He hides his considerable emotional intelligence under a bushel of belchingly funny, low brow humour and sickening concepts. I find myself throwing up and eating it up at the same time, which I put down to his talent for making me laugh while sliding a shiv-like human theme between my ribs, which is not so much a flex as a hex” – from Queensland Literary Award winner Steve MinOn’s foreword.
BLACK PILLS features seven heroic doses of uncut gonzo fiction, each 110% guaranteed to astonish and confound:
💊 THE ISSUE OF THE FERAL PIG DOWN AT COFFIN CREEK
💊 HUGO GARRETT’S EXEMPLARY MOWING TECHNIQUE (Winner, short fiction, Ronald Hugh Morrieson Literary Award)
💊 THE QUADRATIC ABDUCTIONS OF PRIQUE JEJUNE
💊 THE INSATIABLE S*XUAL WITCHES OF WRIGGLER’S BEND
💊 THE HORIZONTAL BALLERINA
💊 RENTAL HELL!
💊 RENNIE ‘N ‘RELLE SMASH SOME NAZIS: A ROMANCE
Early praise for Black Pills
“An abject/object lesson in schlock and awe, Jones is the pulp ocker lit cowboy the world needs right now. In Black Pills, he brings an electrifying fantastical twist to the bogan gothic, where Antipodean vernacular shines at its authentic best”
– Alexandra Heller-Nicholas, 1000 Women in Horror, 1895-2018
“Garth Jones drags us into the uncanny vortex of the terminally online, overloading our smooth brains with homicidal gore, suburban perversities, and socio-political absurdity. He holds us captive like the best of barstool storytellers, pushing our faces down in the oozing muck of our new reality. Black Pills is my favorite dystopic action-packed B-movie that's never been put to film...yet” – Jillian Luft, Scumbag Summer
“An exciting and accomplished avant-garde writer who rips up the rules and produces genre-bending, provocative, action-packed pulp-fiction” – Poppy Gee, Vanishing Falls
“Oozes class, is bathed in cool, and sneers at you - daring you to open it and let yourself in. It’s Garth’s best work yet” – Dave Musson, Once More Around The Sun
“If you want to show reluctant readers that sex, drugs and rock ‘n roll sometimes come in prose form... show them this book” – Michael Botur, Glass Barbie
“It’s vulgar and excessive, but also erudite and clearly informed by an extensive and eclectic stock of creative influences” – Dr Lara Cain Gray, The Grown-Up’s Guide to Picture Books
“Witty and clever… lucid, restrained and always appropriate” – David Hill, OAM, Seeya Simon
“Garth Jones isn’t pulling punches, he’s landing every bloody strike. Black Pills is a collection of seven relentless stories that blur the line between the mundane and the extreme, delivered in raw, rage-fueled prose. Each tale drags you through the mud, leaving you hobbled like the antagonists who stumble through Jones’ brutal, unflinching worlds. This is fiction that draws blood and breaks bones—you won’t walk away unscathed. Buckle up and take your lashes.” – William M. Brandon III, Eternity: The Long and Short of It, The Exile The Matriarch & The Flood, Welcome to Spring Street, and SILENCE & Selene. AGENTOFDISCORD.COM