Tracy Farnsworth at Roundtable Reviews called People Live Still in Cashtown Corners "dark and gripping", giving "Kudos to the author for taking a fictional story and making it seem incredibly real."
An interesting review of People Live Still in Cashtown Corners comes to us from Vook. The review is of the eBook version and focuses on the ways in which the book has been enhanced for a digital format. "It’s art. Good art. Not emotional art. But art that did something to my brain I didn’t expect. I enjoyed it. I had an experience. ...That’s one example of a piece of excellently effective enhanced literature."
"...it looks like the psycho-noir is experience a bit of a renaissance for those readers willing to seek them out and People Still Live at Cashtown Corners [sic] is a worthy addition." - Brian Lindenmuth, Spinetingler
Canadian Bookshelf has launched a new interview feature, In Conversation With. For its inaugural post, hostess Julie Wilson interviews Tony Burgess, author of Pontypool Changes Everything and People Live Still in Cashtown Corners.
"TB: The gore and violence, well, it's like this. The gore and violence isn't in and of itself meaningful. It's native to my imagination for small reasons. It is a neutral medium. Any story I tell is told in it. Sometimes it crosses over to change the story and sometimes it's something the story has known and adapted to for a very long time. It's as if you committed your life to writing people who yell all the time. The shock and tedium of it push at lives in a meaningless and extreme way. The commitment is important."
"Reading this novel by Tony Burgess was very much like my bookstore conversations with customers who may not have been completely sane – and after finishing People Live Still in Cashtown Corners, you won’t know whether to applaud Burgess’ impressively large literary cohones or arrange to have him committed to the nearest mental health facility..."
People who missed the two month window to pre-order the below titles now have a chance chance to own a CZP limited edition hardback! We're auctioning off some of our backlist hardbacks so hurry before they're gone!
Steven W. Beattie of the Quill & Quire has this to say about People Live Still in Cashtown Corners:
"It would be a mistake...to assume that Cashtown Corners is a work of exploitation, or a simple genre entertainment. Burgess uses the conventions of horror fiction to craft a deeply serious fable about human connection and the discordant consequences that can result from an inability to successfully integrate into the conventions of polite society. In this regard, Burgess numbers Flannery O’Connor and William Faulkner among his literary progenitors."
Come to the Pontypool screening, December 3rd at 9pm at the Toronto Underground Cinema (186 Spadina Ave). There will be book signings, a Q&A with Tony Burgess, Stephen McHattie and Lisa Houle, and a screening of the book trailer for Tony Burgess' latest book, People Live Still in Cashtown Corners!
Tony Burgess' People Live Still in Cashtown Corners gets a favourable review in the Globe and Mail.
"[I]t is his voice, with its plain-spoken common sense, that draws us into the story and is so convincing that we almost don’t question the peculiarity of his perspective. Until the murders begin to multiply, of course. But even these random killings make sense in a certain context. According to Bob, people are the problem: “They make us nervous and then we kill them,” simple as that."
TORONTO, Ontario (October 19, 2010) – A trailer for People Live Still in Cashtown Corners (Tony Burgess) is now available on ChiZine Publications’ website and in high definition on its YouTube channel.
The 60-second trailer was officially unveiled at the ChiZine Publications (CZP) launch party for its six Fall 2010 titles held on Friday, October 22 in Toronto, Ontario. Shot in a single afternoon at Tony Burgess’s Stayner, Ontario house, the trailer was directed by noted Canadian filmmaker Bruce McDonald (Pontypool, The Collector, Hard Core Logo, The Tracey Fragments.)
Burgess and McDonald collaborated before in bringing Burgess’s novel Pontypool Changes Everything to the screen as the 2008 film Pontypool. (McDonald confirmed on the day of the trailer shooting that Pontypools 2 and 3 are currently in development.) After the success of Pontypool, Savory looked to McDonald to bring to life what Burgess envisioned for the Cashtown trailer.
“I saw what Bruce had done on Pontypool and I wanted in,” Savory remarks, who was on hand for the filming. “Book trailers are a new phenomenon and everyone is experimenting with how to do them—from self-published authors to big publishing houses. Rather than try to talk about the plot or show the cover with a voice-over, Bruce and Tony nailed the feel of book. And having such a cinematic vision really takes it up a notch. Tony and Bruce have done something new that will build up excitement for the book, and raise the bar for book trailers. It’s bloody, it’s intriguing, and as always, Tony gave us a lot to work with.”
What’s more, Savory commented on how supportive the Canadian creative community is. “Watch the trailer and keep in mind: the director, author, actors, crew and publisher are all Canadian. I think for this to happen in Hollywood or with big names, it would take months of contracts and negotiations. That we could produce something as gorgeous as this speaks to the power of the creative industry in Canada.”
People Live Still in Cashtown Corners is a fictional retelling of a real murder case, told from the point of view of the culprit whose heinous acts make him feel more human than he’s ever felt. The photo inserts featuring real crime scene photos add an eerie depth to the novella.
In addition to People Live Still in Cashtown Corners, Tony Burgess is the author of The Hellmouths of Bewdley, Pontypool Changes Everything, Caesarea, and Fiction for Lovers.
Film Credits
Director: Bruce McDonald Writer: Tony Burgess Cinematographer: Michael LeBlanc Editor: Mina Sewell Mancuso Music Courtesy of Harmonia Mundi
Tony Burgess as Bob Clark Charlie Baker as Charlie Baker Jayde Barlow as Patricia Lerner Amber as Helen Lerner Ed Gataveckas as Jeffrey Lerner
About ChiZine Publications ChiZine Publications (CZP) is an independent publisher of weird, subtle, surreal and disturbing dark fiction. It is the book-length, print version outgrowth of ChiZine, an online professional market in operation since 1997 focused on the same type of story material. All of CZP’s publications are hand-picked by co-Publishers and Bram Stoker Award-winners Brett Alexander Savory and Sandra Kasturi.
TORONTO, Ontario (October 19, 2010) – People Live Still in Cashtown Corners by Tony Burgess and In the Mean Time by Paul Tremblay are now available in trade paperback and eBook formats from ChiZine Publications (CZP) and online retailers.
The final two of CZP’s fall 2010 titles, this novella and short story collection punctuate the season with both their haunting themes and ChiZine’s innovative marketing strategies.
People Live Still in Cashtown Corners is a fictional retelling of a real murder case, told from the point of view of the culprit whose heinous acts makes him feel more human than he’s ever felt. The photo inserts featuring real crime scene photos add an eerie depth to the novella. In addition, Bruce MacDonald, who worked with Burgess on adapting Burgess’ Pontypool Changes Everything into a film, has shot a trailer
Following People Live Still in Cashtown Corners is In the Mean Time, Paul Tremblay’s latest collection of short fiction. Though many of the selections take a quieter spin on the apocalypse and run rampant with paranoia with such stories as “The Balloons of Annotte” and “Blog at the End of the World”, Tremblay is still very interested in connecting with his audience. Not only does he blog actively about his work, CZP will also be releasing free podcasts of the stories to help promote their release. One story will be put out per week at a total of six stories with such readers as Sarah Langan, Michael Cisco, Stephen Graham Jones, John Langan, Mur Lafferty, and Paul Tremblay himself.
“It’s all about getting closer to the readers,” says CZP Co-Publisher Sandra Kasturi. “We always love to have some kind of free content to go with the book, such as PDF samples and now the podcasts, so that everyone can get an equal taste of what the books have to offer. We’re lucky we can experiment and branch out like this, especially in the age of smart phones and free WiFi hyper-available. In this way, we can get a better idea of reader response and what they want to see more of.”
Both books will be available in trade paperback editions as well as DRM-free eBooks in Kindle, ePub, and PDF formats. As always, CZP is offering a 30% discount off the cover price for all trade paperbacks purchased directly from them. Links on where to order both books can be found on their site at http://www.chizinepub.com.
About ChiZine Publications ChiZine Publications (CZP) is an independent publisher of weird, subtle, surreal and disturbing dark fiction. It is the book-length, print version outgrowth of ChiZine, an online professional market in operation since 1997 focused on the same type of story material. All of CZP’s publications are hand-picked by co-Publishers and Bram Stoker Award-winners Brett Alexander Savory and Sandra Kasturi.
As Chris Hallock at All Things Horror puts it, "[o]nce you take the plunge into Tony Burgess' "Cashtown Corners", you may never come back up."
"With his prose, Burgess has the ability to create highly philosophical passages pertaining to such everyday occurance as waiting for an intersection light to change, carrying on small talk with a neighbor, or even just deciding what TV channel to watch. These passages give astounding weight and depth to moments that would normally have someone fidgeting in their chair. Instead, Burgess channels those moments into one of self-reflection that dares to dive into the darkest of human emotions."
