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Haunted Girlfriend
The acclaimed and accomplished author of Valencia and Distemper returns with a collection of seven unclassifiable, genre-bounding, style-splicing stories spanning the thematic breadth of a novel, seven stories of modern alienation, techocratic dystopia and embattled love. In veiled tributes to male models and ex-basketball players, James Nulick delves unblinkingly into scarred psyches and the mentally ill fringe, examining soul-harming designer drugs, desperate homelessness and wasteful capital punishment with radar eyes on the clinical, dog ears tuned to the humane. The nature of cruelty is confronted in “Peach,” a searing portrait of abuse and trauma. In “Husk,” Nulick subverts the macabre to cross-examine aging, decrepit libido and codependency. In “Vinyl-Hearted Boy,” Nulick punctuates the eras of his youth through music and frank sexuality with a poignant tenderness and rhythm in his heart. Adolescent prurience and wide-eyed exploration, as well as a longing for the familial, glows off the page in “The Most Beautiful Question in the World.” And, in the novella-length centerpiece “Body by Drake,” a sprawling creation to single-handedly spawn new literary movements, a future world both bleak and arrestingly human is imagined— a love triangle, Biblical themes and satire of corporate culture collide in dazzling, heartrending fashion. Like a breathtaking album that’s over much too quickly, you’ll want to reread Haunted Girlfriend the second you turn the last page. This is no less than a virtuoso shrug from a master of forms, a writer who gleefully flies in the face of rules and orthodoxy to remind us why we read, to expand our minds and empathy, a writer impartial to evil, unafraid to walk among the wretched, the crestfallen, and the nuanced, shadowy contours of this world with the irrepressible fascination of a preternatural saint. Nulick’s stethoscope to the human condition serves as a penetrating diagnostic of our times and the frightening days to come. His writing is invariably informed by the bracing audacity and radical clarity of a life fully-lived and learned, dangerously and poetically, with concessions to no authority. Make contact with strange life while you’re on this rock. Haunted Girlfriend is a once-in-a-lifetime literary homecoming. Let your heart break so it can form again, open.
- GenresShort StoriesFiction
198 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2019
3 people are currently reading
251 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
April 12, 2022
These stories are fascinating, intelligent, and dig deeply into the emotions of different situations. Humor cannot be overlooked, either. Recommended.
May 30, 2019
HAUNTED GIRLFRIEND, the first collection of short stories to flow forth from the pen of James Nulick, is proof of his chimeric talents (and I use the word "chimeric" in the mythological bestiary sense, which is to say a hybrid creature of many parts). I say this because stylistically many of the 7 stories collected herein cover different ground, from the confessional (and I'm assuming semi-autobiographical) reflections of the book's closer "Vinyl-Hearted Boy" to the epic fey futurism and plasticated sci-fi dystopia that is "Body by Drake" (the collection's centerpiece, and almost a short novel in its own right), to the rambling stream-of-consciousness that is "Delonte Lost"... Nulick even proves he has a dab hand at the body horror genre with the short but effective "Husk." The book also covers a variety and diverse range of topics: the ethics of corporal punishment, "utopian" architecture, Delonte West, race and gender and sexuality, the horrors of aging, the loss of innocence, and death, among other things. What links the stories together is the Holy Grail that most of Nulick's characters seek, be they visionary architects, corpse liquidators, rapists and murders, failed basketball players, aging pop stars, or dying teachers: a quest to find beauty in the lapsarian wasteland that is their reality.
October 1, 2019
This book is filled with immaculately rendered shadow worlds inhabited by corporate owned grave desecrators, youth-eating vampires, and Luka Magnotta. Nulick switches effortlessly from speculative to memoir, the fantastic to the beautifully mundane. Throughout the darkness, there is much warmth and tenderness.
April 5, 2020
Floored by the honesty in James’ writing. The humanity in the characters, as if each one were a real person he knew intimately, even in the most speculative, the most barbaric of fictions. Everything is considered and committed to the page. I want to bottle his sincerity and if I cannot replicate it in writing of my own, I would at least like to do so in life.
These stories are all necessary but standouts are “Body by Drake” and “Vinyl-Hearted Boy.” I cannot imagine a more important time to read “Body by Drake” than right now. It’s such a brilliant indictment of the inherent classist hypocrisy of global capitalist empires eg. Amazon. “Vinyl-Hearted Boy” is a beautiful coming of age story told through vignettes around the songs tied to the narrator’s—author’s?—memories.
These stories are all necessary but standouts are “Body by Drake” and “Vinyl-Hearted Boy.” I cannot imagine a more important time to read “Body by Drake” than right now. It’s such a brilliant indictment of the inherent classist hypocrisy of global capitalist empires eg. Amazon. “Vinyl-Hearted Boy” is a beautiful coming of age story told through vignettes around the songs tied to the narrator’s—author’s?—memories.
November 26, 2020
Contemplative yet writhing transgressive/speculative memoirish short stories as if tied together by some bloodshot-eyed seance. Science fiction/dystopian elements guide my favorite story "Body By Drake," envisioning a convincing future where the dead are exhumed in favor of real estate. At its most intimate, this book contains everything you never told your parents or everything your parents should have told you, written by a master author who simply knows too much. My first introduction to Nulick and definitely not my last. Highly recommended.
June 30, 2019
‘Body By Drake’ is the ice cold midpoint between Harry Harrison and Yevgeny Zamyatin - sadly no references to Champagne Papi though.
The other story’s are the duck’s nuts as well.
The other story’s are the duck’s nuts as well.
November 26, 2020
I've read Haunted Girlfriend, a collection of short stories, twice and it's excellent. Incredible writing. Haunting stories. Dark humor. The writing shocks you awake, the vulnerability hooks you, and the author dares to examine taboo, transgressive topics in human nature, including violence, sexuality, and intimacy.
One of my favorite pieces is "Vinyl-Hearted Boy" for Dennis Cooper, which is a collection of songs (George Clinton -- Atomic Dog, America -- Sister Golden Hair, Color Me Badd -- I Wanna Sex You Up, etc) that evoke memories for the narrator from different times in his life. It's all just so well-written and avoids the traps of stereotypes (queer content, diversity) while opening up territory that most writers can't or won't cover.
Another favorite is "The Most Beautiful Question in the World," which is an excerpt from a forthcoming novel. It's really beautiful writing and takes on challenging topics (love, lust, race) in a nuanced, original way.
The author's Twitter is amazingly creative, and I'd recommend following James on Twitter at @Plexibubble. Some of the material is quoted song lyrics or other quotes, and, like the book, the posts are unconventional (not boring!).
One of my favorite pieces is "Vinyl-Hearted Boy" for Dennis Cooper, which is a collection of songs (George Clinton -- Atomic Dog, America -- Sister Golden Hair, Color Me Badd -- I Wanna Sex You Up, etc) that evoke memories for the narrator from different times in his life. It's all just so well-written and avoids the traps of stereotypes (queer content, diversity) while opening up territory that most writers can't or won't cover.
Another favorite is "The Most Beautiful Question in the World," which is an excerpt from a forthcoming novel. It's really beautiful writing and takes on challenging topics (love, lust, race) in a nuanced, original way.
The author's Twitter is amazingly creative, and I'd recommend following James on Twitter at @Plexibubble. Some of the material is quoted song lyrics or other quotes, and, like the book, the posts are unconventional (not boring!).
July 7, 2019
James Nulick presents an exquisite collection in the form of Haunted Girlfriend, here giving voice to a widely divergent cast of characters from right across the social spectrum and out into the dystopian near-future of this book's centrepiece story Body by Drake. Whether sci-fi or the most intimate confessional, the writing is sometimes brutal but always deeply affecting.
July 23, 2019
What we reap from bereavement may alleviate the pangs of loss and mortality itself. Knowledge expands with increasing rapidity, proliferating unprecedented advances. But even the savviest technologies may not be enough to spare us from an asteroid approaching earth. However, should some of us manage to survive its impact, we can gear our ingenuity towards respite and repair. Conversely, we may lose ourselves in greed, devising society’s demise through omission, selection, and an ultimate complacence. The dualism in the all-too-human capacity for nurturance and upheaval sears the conscience in James Nulick’s Haunted Girlfriend.
I do not typically read horror novels, or horror stories, and it was eye-opening to witness the overlay of literary poignancy with grotesque realities we often deny in favor of prettier things. Nulick couples contemporary contentions with the gravity of implication. The first story in his collection addresses capital punishment and the salience of compromise. Rather than having murderers repay their victims’ loved ones with their lives, society forces them to watch certain aspects of their treachery projected on a screen. This viewing proceeds in perpetuity, until the murderer dies a natural death. One may argue that this is crueler than an execution itself, and while it may seem an appropriate sort of retribution, the practice might contribute to an eventual desensitization to deeds that resulted in the murderers’ very incarceration. Elements of this piece are traced throughout the story collection, prodding us to contemplate the destruction of which we are capable, despite our well-meaning intentions to rectify perceived wrongs.
“Body by Drake,” carves the animus of Haunted Girlfriend, submerging its audience in a chlorinated pool that rises in depth the further we swim. Headlines continue to occasionally touch upon Earth’s dwindling resources and human attempts to compensate for such. Food is produced in multitudes, but pounds upon pounds are wasted. It becomes questionable as to whether our systems lack resources, or if these resources are subjected to inefficient use and stagnant distribution. “Body by Drake” warns of the abuse of systems by systems themselves. Through the perceived loss of the planet, society tries to reclaim what it’s owed, albeit arbitrarily. People are compensated to “recycle” at an earlier age to assuage an overcrowded Earth. Compensation for this “recycling” varies from group to group, highlighting eugenics as a mechanism for public policy. Those who differ from the status quo are deemed “Ethnics,” but it is unclear as to what makes these individuals so different and thus, promptly recyclable. Nulick incorporates contemporary debate in his ever constricting dystopia. We can interpret the varied degrees of monetary compensation as a form of affirmative action, though these polices which target minority groups only marginalize, rather than empower them. To further appreciate Nulick’s social commentary, readers should first read the glossary attached to “Body by Drake.” Re-reading this glossary after ending the story only sharpens our understanding of possibilities we prefer not to acknowledge.
Haunted Girlfriend finds itself cradled in the aches of growing. “Peach” is one of those grittier reads that makes the unspeakable more of a tangible reality. Nulick’s delicate prose accentuates the trauma of disillusionment that comes with spiritual and physical violence. He paints his images with soft pastels, cradling our line of vision until we hit a charcoal boundary. The story as a whole is like a carefully upholstered futon, eventually perforated by insatiable moths. This hunger proceeds in its ravenous haunt throughout “Vinyl Hearted Boy,” a heart-wrenching pinnacle to its emotionally dizzying predecessors.
Nulick is a writer of emotional depth and acuity. His images, though provocative, diverge from the vulgar in that they echo in their horror. He juxtaposes the shocking with the ordinary, allowing us to visualize consequences that we may have laid the foundation for, however inadvertently. In the face of a dwindling planet, we strive to recover what we only think we’re entitled to, through flawed means and dogmas even asteroids fail to dismantle.
I do not typically read horror novels, or horror stories, and it was eye-opening to witness the overlay of literary poignancy with grotesque realities we often deny in favor of prettier things. Nulick couples contemporary contentions with the gravity of implication. The first story in his collection addresses capital punishment and the salience of compromise. Rather than having murderers repay their victims’ loved ones with their lives, society forces them to watch certain aspects of their treachery projected on a screen. This viewing proceeds in perpetuity, until the murderer dies a natural death. One may argue that this is crueler than an execution itself, and while it may seem an appropriate sort of retribution, the practice might contribute to an eventual desensitization to deeds that resulted in the murderers’ very incarceration. Elements of this piece are traced throughout the story collection, prodding us to contemplate the destruction of which we are capable, despite our well-meaning intentions to rectify perceived wrongs.
“Body by Drake,” carves the animus of Haunted Girlfriend, submerging its audience in a chlorinated pool that rises in depth the further we swim. Headlines continue to occasionally touch upon Earth’s dwindling resources and human attempts to compensate for such. Food is produced in multitudes, but pounds upon pounds are wasted. It becomes questionable as to whether our systems lack resources, or if these resources are subjected to inefficient use and stagnant distribution. “Body by Drake” warns of the abuse of systems by systems themselves. Through the perceived loss of the planet, society tries to reclaim what it’s owed, albeit arbitrarily. People are compensated to “recycle” at an earlier age to assuage an overcrowded Earth. Compensation for this “recycling” varies from group to group, highlighting eugenics as a mechanism for public policy. Those who differ from the status quo are deemed “Ethnics,” but it is unclear as to what makes these individuals so different and thus, promptly recyclable. Nulick incorporates contemporary debate in his ever constricting dystopia. We can interpret the varied degrees of monetary compensation as a form of affirmative action, though these polices which target minority groups only marginalize, rather than empower them. To further appreciate Nulick’s social commentary, readers should first read the glossary attached to “Body by Drake.” Re-reading this glossary after ending the story only sharpens our understanding of possibilities we prefer not to acknowledge.
Haunted Girlfriend finds itself cradled in the aches of growing. “Peach” is one of those grittier reads that makes the unspeakable more of a tangible reality. Nulick’s delicate prose accentuates the trauma of disillusionment that comes with spiritual and physical violence. He paints his images with soft pastels, cradling our line of vision until we hit a charcoal boundary. The story as a whole is like a carefully upholstered futon, eventually perforated by insatiable moths. This hunger proceeds in its ravenous haunt throughout “Vinyl Hearted Boy,” a heart-wrenching pinnacle to its emotionally dizzying predecessors.
Nulick is a writer of emotional depth and acuity. His images, though provocative, diverge from the vulgar in that they echo in their horror. He juxtaposes the shocking with the ordinary, allowing us to visualize consequences that we may have laid the foundation for, however inadvertently. In the face of a dwindling planet, we strive to recover what we only think we’re entitled to, through flawed means and dogmas even asteroids fail to dismantle.
March 19, 2025
So, let's get the big one out of the way first. "Body by Drake" - the 85-page story that comprises nearly half of James Nulick's deeply unsettling Haunted Girlfriend - is amazing. It is not - as I blithely assumed when I first picked up this loosely interconnected collection of tales about both present and near-future socioeconomic decay - the story of some unhealthily dysmorphic Peloton-style workout coached by a holographic Canadian rapper, but rather of a strange love triangle in a wholly believable dystopian landscape where true love and friendship are largely a thing of the past, buried beneath metastasized classism, recreational anesthetics, and the wholesale commodification of the human body. Against this backdrop, we get to know Eli and Benji - two hardworking employees of Drake Industries, a megalithic real estate developer primarily in the business of digging up and recycling the dead so as to repurpose cemetery land for new, affordable housing - and Nicole, the woman they both love. I don't think any of that qualifies as a spoiler, but I'm going to stop there as far as plot recap is concerned, and just rave for a few more sentences about the eyepopping expanses of ground Nulick manages to cover in this tightly-constructed fable of American deconstruction. The side-trips into the history and inner workings of Drake's business ventures feel so real and relevant to the coming decade as to suggest some authorial equivalent of insider trading (and the occasional nods to Elon Musk still being a major player in the realm of global tech innovation ties everything that much closer to home). And the way Nulick explores humanity's relationship with our bodies - working and playing, stoned and sexed, living and dead, womb to tomb (to bigass woodchipper) - amidst this familiar drudgery is positively sublime. I felt as though I knew all these characters, and that the bleak reality in which they were flailing about searching for meaning in one another was not so much A future, as THE future. Presumably these are the heights that all dystopic fiction reaches for, but in my experience, very little of it actually achieves. "Body by Drake" is a truly exceptional vision; full-on crystal ball.
As for the six shorter pieces that surround "Body by Drake" they tend to focus on one or two characters each, all living on the margins of the lower class as it was taking shape in the years leading up to that central story. "My Name is Luka" tells the story of a new piece of Black Mirroresque torture tech meant to eliminate the expense - if not so much the cruelty - of capital punishment. "Peach" narrows one young girl's existence down to a fateful pinpoint - a day, a moment, a decision to follow the wrong person into the woods. "Delonte Lost" imagines the real-life encounters of bipolar former NBA player Delonte West as he wanders the streets in a Seroquel haze after fleeing a rehab facility. "Vinyl-Hearted Boy" traces the author's own sexual history through his record collection. Twining all these seemingly disparate tales together is a deft talent for character- and world-building, and what feels like a pretty hard-won authenticity. A cameo figure in one story might be a lead in the next, or just a half-remembered acquaintance someone mentions in the one after that, but the tissue connecting them is there, like shimmery spiderwebbing in the moonlight. Likewise, Nulick's characters are drawn via masterful, internal monologue that often borders on stream of consciousness, such that in the end Haunted Girlfriend feels less like a short story collection and more like a profoundly empathic collage - not unlike the myriad afflicted and tormented folk populating Faulkner's Yoknapatawpha County - of those whom the American experiment has most unforgivably failed. Though not without hope, this book will make you think twice about what exactly it is you're hoping for, and who all might be hurt by you're getting it.
As for the six shorter pieces that surround "Body by Drake" they tend to focus on one or two characters each, all living on the margins of the lower class as it was taking shape in the years leading up to that central story. "My Name is Luka" tells the story of a new piece of Black Mirroresque torture tech meant to eliminate the expense - if not so much the cruelty - of capital punishment. "Peach" narrows one young girl's existence down to a fateful pinpoint - a day, a moment, a decision to follow the wrong person into the woods. "Delonte Lost" imagines the real-life encounters of bipolar former NBA player Delonte West as he wanders the streets in a Seroquel haze after fleeing a rehab facility. "Vinyl-Hearted Boy" traces the author's own sexual history through his record collection. Twining all these seemingly disparate tales together is a deft talent for character- and world-building, and what feels like a pretty hard-won authenticity. A cameo figure in one story might be a lead in the next, or just a half-remembered acquaintance someone mentions in the one after that, but the tissue connecting them is there, like shimmery spiderwebbing in the moonlight. Likewise, Nulick's characters are drawn via masterful, internal monologue that often borders on stream of consciousness, such that in the end Haunted Girlfriend feels less like a short story collection and more like a profoundly empathic collage - not unlike the myriad afflicted and tormented folk populating Faulkner's Yoknapatawpha County - of those whom the American experiment has most unforgivably failed. Though not without hope, this book will make you think twice about what exactly it is you're hoping for, and who all might be hurt by you're getting it.
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June 21, 2020
Conglomerations. Cars. Death. Life. Love. Sexuality. Transgressions.
July 14, 2019
Haunted Girlfriend is the literary equivalent to the perfect album. The stories are angry, bleak, hypnotic, touching, and horrifying (somebody get Stephen King's eyes on Husk), but all of them beautiful. I wish I could write like this.
August 8, 2019
So good it hurts.
May 17, 2020
A wonderful collection -- humane, incisive, and very affecting.
September 18, 2022
Seven short stories by someone who knows how to create a good character. Nulick is a talented writer, who balanced darkness in a way that makes it seem normal, who can make you uncomfortable but in a good way. My favorite was 'Body by Drake", a futuristic sci-fi story which reminded me of something Vonnegut would dream up dealing with how we control the population in the future. I also particularly enjoyed the vampiric "Husk", which was the only "horror" story in the book, and also "Vinyl-Hearted Boy", a fantastic work of auto-fiction, which you don't get a lot of in short story collections like this. Would recommend to anyone who likes dark short stories or experimental fiction.
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