Coward

by Meghan Lamb

Meghan Lamb has given the world something tantalizingly lurid and explicit and gay. Zombiesque & this chatroom friendly, graphic and pornographic book will teach recreational or parttime lesbians how to give blowjobs in the most pithy, dastardly, post-suicidal ways. Beware. Be ready. Vi Khi Nao, author of Fish Carcass One of my favorite contemporary writers, Meghan Lamb’s Coward is an astonishing, jagged work. Channeling the oozing repetition of Swans, Lamb takes apart the bildungsroman in a form so visceral and jewel-like, you lose your breath. This work of transgressive genius, riddled with sex and fire and zombie love, is thrilling to behold. Alistair McCartney, author of The Disintegrations All of Meghan Lamb’s work disturbs and awes in equal measure and the apocalyptic COWARD is her strongest, strangest, and most dangerous vision yet. We are fortunate witnesses of her rise to greatness. Robert Kloss, author of The Genocide House

96 pages, Paperback

Published September 15, 2022

About the author

Author of Silk Flowers (Birds of Lace) and Sacramento (Solar Luxuriance)

Reviews

[Janie · Rating 5 out of 5]

was the passion ever real? did misrepresentation kill the mood? you were someone else, but not fully. Now that flesh has been parted, I can no longer see

what

comes

next

[Barry Paul Clark · Rating 5 out of 5]

Could not put this down. Finished it in one thrilling sitting. A rollercoaster riding rails built with beauty and disgust, swinging through turns in a harmonious dissonance that should be consumed by all folks who came into the early days of the network of the internet in conjunction with their budding awareness of sexual autonomy. It cuts deeply and it feels good. I can’t wait to see what Meghan Lamb puts into the world next.

[Padma · Rating 4 out of 5]

I gave Megan Lamb's Coward a four-star rating only because I recently read her 2021 title, Failure to Thrive. In both books, decay and rot take center stage as her protagonists navigate communities on the decline. I liked Failure to Thrive a little bit better, but if Coward had been written by a different author, I would have given it five stars. Most notable in Coward is the sheer, hypnotic poetry of her prose; in fact, I sometimes became so mesmerized by her language I would read and reread passages several times, savoring their juice out loud, as visceral as a steak grilled rare. While the content, homoerotic love and desire, and the coming to terms with one's own sexual nature, promised to be the highlight of this novella, I personally found those themes secondary to the larger theme of self identity within a decaying world. I continue to be startled and amazed at Megan Lamb's virtuosity, the sensuality of her language, and her sensitivity to the very human challenges of finding oneself in a bleak, unpromising world, where salvation and grace, absent external hope, are to be found only within or in spite of one's own fragility. I am humbled, and in awe.

[Eni · Rating 5 out of 5]

In COWARD, characters navigate and strive to combat internal and external desolation in an attempt to form connections that are facilitated and yet complicated by the internet. This book is engrossing, devastating, and haunting. Lamb is a remarkable writer, a magician of language, and an iconic voice for our time.