Tone-Bone

Mr. Dinosaur #2

by Kyle Winkler

A side-sequel to The Nothing That Is, TONE-BONE tells the travails of a queer anarchist biker in her 50s. Born Antonia Boniface, Tone-Bone is uncageable. She runs with a motorcycle gang called the Fuck Offs, who host punk shows and deal drugs. They're getting into the occult and have found a rural priestess in Paducah, Kentucky to help "separate life from the living." But the priestess has summoned more than she expected in her dilapidated trailer. And Tone-Bone is the target. Haunted, she roams the country trying to escape the necropotence that chases after her until she is forced to eliminate the contradiction that is her life.

This is a story that’s an entropic love song for all things anti-fascist, whether the enemy is human or from the grim depths of distant stars.

Genres: Horror

Paperback

Published September 13, 2024

Reviews

[Quinn · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you're ever bored of reading the same old sh**, pick up a book by Kyle Winkler. You'll simultaneously reinvigorate your soul and melt your face off. Winkler's style is like a modern and more socially conscious smoothie of Vonnegut, Robbins, Pynchon, and Palahniuk, but totally his own voice. Tone-Bone the book is as fast moving and tough as Tone-Bone the character. I had no clue where this book would go, and was delighted, grossed out, and inspired all the way through.

[Madison McSweeney · Rating 5 out of 5]

A hard-boiled and mind-bending cosmic odyssey.

[Books For Decaying Millennials · Rating 5 out of 5]

I bought this book from Castaigne Publishing, and am bound what Magicks and unspoken Arte they infused into the book. All views and opinions are my own.
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What is it with Kyle Winkler and strange mobile home trailers?

Tone-Bone is a story spoken in whispers around burning trash cans. It's a tale dispersed, scattered like so much detritus on the wind. The words found pamphlet's pinned to neglected gas station corkboards, left in scribbled on napkins in dive bars at 2am. Her story is a ballad sung in a voice that pitch and tone echo Lydia Lunch, the words accompanied by a pawn shop gibson guitar, sonic waves emitting from a rebuilt Amp left in dumpster.
Tone-Bone pulses with a troubling strangeness that only Kyle Winkler can muster. Though much of country is mentioned in passing, it's those disquieting midwest liminal spaces that draw the most attention. Tone-Bone moves in those layers of life removed from the "Real World". These are the half glimpsed activities most only spy in passing, as their cars headlights briefly illuminate figures gesticulating in the door of an old diner, half over grown with weeds.

If you find yourself holding a copy this book, it's too late to turn back. Turn the page and hold on, it's gonna weird and wrong, very quickly.

[RP · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kyle Winkler is a true original, and TONE-BONE is a triumph of cosmic horror, literary elegance, noir atmosphere, snarky language, bizarro imagery, and most importantly exciting storytelling. A page turner with a black heart, this short novel has everything: a queer tough-as-nails protagonist with real complexity, a mysterious unbeatable horror, breathtaking set pieces, and wildly imaginative images. A refreshingly female adventure. Tone-Bone herself is strong, yes, but she's utterly imperfect, struggling with her feelings about the world, life itself, and haunted by something she can't understand and can't escape.

[Matt Polen · Rating 5 out of 5]

The energy in this book is palpable. It’s electric. It is rotten and pungent, dead yet infused with a crackling energy from an unknowable cosmic void. It takes place in an America both dystopian and decrepit, palpably real even as it takes place in what feels like a ruined future that is actually the past. It’s a book that hates Nazis. Winkler’s best work yet.

[Sam · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best books I've read all year. Beautifully written with a compelling and real feeling protagonist. Weird, off-kilter, and unique cosmic horror.

[Micah Castle]

The most no-fucks-given and misanthropic/nihilistic book I've ever read by Winkler, and I enjoyed every minute of it.

[Bones99 · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is one crazy book! Tons of gore, crazy parallels, and mystical bad guys. The heart of the story asks deep fundamentals questions about humanity but wholly crap what a way to get to it.