It begins using a letter from a prisoner …

As he attempts to rebuild his existence in rural Oregon after a tragic incident, Malcolm Mays finds himself corresponding with Dusha Chuchonnyhoof, a mysterious entity who promises to be the owner of Malcolm’s home, jailed unjustly for 117 years. The prisoner needs that Malcolm perform a gory, bewildering job for him. As the clock ticks toward Dusha’s discharge, Malcolm must attempt to find out whether he’s helping a murderer or an innocent. The End of about The End of the Word the Word combines Kalapuya, Welsh, Scottish, and Norse mythology, having a dark dreamed history of the concealed corners of the American West.

Maria Dahvana Headley and Kat Howard have forged a fairytale of spirits and guilt, literary horror blended using the visuals of Jean Cocteau, failed executions, shapeshifting goblins, and magical blacksmithery. In Chuchonnyhoof, they’ve made a new sort of Beast, longing, generations later, for Beauty.

“Headley and Howard have the ability to throw Malcolm and the reader headfirst in to the darkness while making it feel like a steady, incremental journey…Even the pleasant things-the friendly librarian Lischen, the home spirits who leave Malcolm food and drinks-feel ominous in the coauthors’ stark but lyrical prose. Ultimately Malcolm and the audience must determine whether that is dark magic or something stranger completely.”-Publishers Weekly