The Chalice

by Joe Halstead

The haunted water of the Chalice is passport into unforgettable worlds. When our hero, Joe, enters, he finds Escarpa, a desert metropolis both unmistakable and unforgettable—and where sorcery is commonplace. There’s an infinite library. A pyramid that harbors an evil camel who’s already made one catastrophic appearance in Escarpa. Cell phones are charged with the arcane. Sex is a sacrament. There, Joe struggles to cope with the aftermath of a crisis that befell his marriage in his world. After being recruited to work for a secretive innovator of electronics that specialize in modern magic, he meets Vesper, a woman with whom the future looks bright. It’s complicated enough, but then Joe runs into his wife in Escarpa, and it revives memories from his marriage he thought he buried a long time ago. What really happened back then? What precipitated the bitter falling out with his wife? And, is there any magic left? Halstead has crafted a stunningly beautiful world that is both familiar and unfamiliar—and a love story that never loses sight of its mistakes and heartbreaks.

157 pages, Kindle Edition

Published August 19, 2021

About the author

Joe Halstead is a writer based in Santa Fe, New Mexico. He currently serves as a writer at Marvel Games. He is the author of two novels. His work can also be found in Literary Hub, Paper Darts, [PANK], Word Riot, Sundog Lit, Five Quarterly, The Saint Ann's Review, The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature, Slice Literary Magazine, Bird's Thumb, and others.

Reviews

[Ace Boggess · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Chalice is an interesting mix of styles, bringing Joe Halstead's brutally honest slice-of-life fiction (as in his novel West Virginia) together with elements of fantasy/sci-fi and altered-consciousness writing. It follows a man named "Joe" as he flees a trouble relationship by stepping through a possibly allegorical portal called The Chalice, beginning a new life in a strange world called Escarpa. The novel has elements of the spontaneous transportation of John Carter in Edgar Rice Burroughs's A Princess of Mars, and the escape realms hints at a resemblance to William Burroughs's Interzone from Naked Lunch. This book reads smoothly and feels at times like a drug-induced hallucination. It's filled with meditations on love, sex, mental illness, iPhones, chain restaurants, and anything Joe (the narrator) is thinking about. The story isn't perfect, but it is fun. Well worth your time.

[David Morris · Rating 4 out of 5]

I desire to give this work a 4.5 stars. The Chalice dwells with me and will continue to dwell with me for years to come. It’s a fever dream of novel that I’m still trying to grasp and how the world of Escarpa operates. My only qualm is that I feel like the world could have been expanded on more, but then I think Halstead’s ambiguity was intentional. A beautiful story of finding and redeeming love.

READ!!! Mr. Haltstead needs to keep publishing.

P.S. It’s noticeable that an independent printer (odd letter spacing) and a generic cover artist was used. Not a deal breaker, but just something to be aware of aesthetically.

[Ridley Melanson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Advance review copy

**Review to come**

[Isabella Gerlie · Rating 5 out of 5]

A brilliant writer!!

[Alex Kister · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Chalice as a concept, is one of the coolest books ever.

[Bryan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fans of novels like The Magus by John Fowles will feel at home visiting Escarpa in The Chalice.