52. Percy Gloom

By: Cathy Malkasian

Earlier this year I decided that I disliked surrealism in fiction. Percy Gloom has caused me to reconsider.

Poor Percy, all he wants is to be left alone and secure a job as a Cautionary Writer. However, his journey to a secure a new job has placed him in a strange foreign land where, although he speaks the language, has a hard time finding his daily diet of freshly squeezed lemon juice and muffins (which is the only thing that he can digest that won't give him nightmares). In this new town he meets Tammy, a cultish leader in the town who demands babies from Gloom - as soon as he sees to having his lazy eye fixed. Tammy's goal is to destroy death (although she never learns that Percy cannot die), so as people in the town get closer to death, they get smaller until they disappear. Oh, and Percy's head turns on and off like a light bulb, although the significance of this is negligible.

Confused? The book can hardly be defined by its plot. Rather, look to the beautiful illustrations, the mood and tone that Malkasian creates- one that would certainly fail in any other medium, yet makes this book stand out as a keystone of the fictional surreal.