Cul-de-sac

by Nick Perilli

The Oughtside has slipped in through the cracks in the world and judgment has come for Habre Circle. Some boy rips himself out of sleep paralysis to find his dead-end street overtaken by the Oughtside, a limbo where the dead are remade as clay bones, shadow and porcelain. An opaque mass of a human figure meets the boy at his front door, offering him employment as judge and jury of his neighbors’ banal lives. He accepts this unpaid call to adventure seemingly plucked from the video games and narratives that consume him, descending into the homes and experiences of his childhood friend, a former babysitter who is now a skeleton, a bitter elder, and more through cracked storytelling mediums. The neighbors, in turn, see the boy’s true maladjusted self, interacting with him and each other in a strange limbo the way they never could in life, all of them hurtling towards salvation or damnation.

Cul-de-sac is an experimental fantasy that playfully explores the boundaries of genre and the power of a story’s medium. The book deftly weaves a narrative that guides you through the suspended places between life and death, the hunger and drive behind reconciliation, and the true cost of your past catching up with you.

“Nick Perilli is a one-of-a-kind voice, and Cul-de-sac is a hauntingly creepy and sneakily poignant tour of suburban limbo.”
—Stephanie Feldman, author of Saturnalia

“An unsparing glimpse of a fried Levittown where teens and miscreant geezers freeze into gooey stasis. Like Finnegan’s Wake or Deadwood, Cul-de-sac is a brilliant dead-end, the Last of the Beaver-hicans, a dread well [Perilli’s] fallen into so you don’t have to.”
—Ron Dakron, author of Tricky

“A beautifully-realized portrait of adolescence in paralysis, Nick Perilli’s first novel is luminous, surreal, hilariously bizarre,
and strikingly original. From the start, we are thrust into a mind-bending adventure through suburban purgatory—a supernatural realm where one›s salvation or damnation rests in a teenager’s hands—and the suspense never lets up from there. Cul-de-sac is part absurdist coming-of-age, part phantasmogorical thriller, and it may be the most unforgettable
book you read this year.”
— Jonathan Koven, author of Palm Lines and Below Torrential Hill

“All roads lead to the Oughtside, and if you are not terrified you should be. Cul-de-sac opens readers’ eyes to the red, dead world that awaits us all in the next life. In the Oughtside, all life is as fragile as a cracking porcelain mask, and judgment awaits around every dark turn. Perilli’s Cul-de-sac is a page turner that asks the reader to reconsider everything we know about life and death. Are you ready for judgement?”
— Ed Bonilla, author of 5 Clones

370 pages, Paperback

Published October 6, 2022

About the author

I'm a writer and librarian living in Philadelphia with loved ones and a Netflix DVD plan. My debut novel, Cul-de-sac, will soon be available from Montag Press (it might be available right now, depending on when you’re reading this). Short work of mine can be found in Milk Candy Review, XRAY Lit Mag, SORTES Magazine, and elsewhere.

You can find everything on my website www.nickperilli.com.

I'm also on Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok (cause I'm hip) as @nicoloperilli.

Reviews

[Nick Perilli · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is my debut novel! This is my open wound in a literary form. An interrogation of the insufferable sadboy, my universally specific suburban childhood, and the mediums we use to tell ourselves stories. It's a cracked, warped revenge tale, an overly long Twilight Zone episode, a distant relative of Nathaniel Hawthorne's short story Young Goodman Brown but it's not like too much or haughty or anything unless it is and I'm just too close to it. It was equally inspired by Super Mario 64.

Are there skeletons? Of course there are.

My veil is off. I hated it. 5/5.

[Amber Dalzell · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved reading this book! The surreal landscapes were vividly described and made for an amazing journey. The characters at first had me considering representations if the seven deadly sins. But after some twists, they are so much more. Relationships in life and after, grief, and awkward developmental stages even as skeletons. So many unique elements in a story that felt original and unpredictable.

[Ella Loseby · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing ! Had me hooked from the first page, one of my favourite books I’ve read this year !

[Josh Dale · Rating 4 out of 5]

A labyrinthine novel that surpasses genre and conventions, Cul-de-sac is a journey of the mind and soul, despite all the horrors that are laid before us. An imaginative mind, Perilli unpacks the homes and occupants with care, adding adventure, wanderlust, and perils evenly and smoothly. Take your time and you will be rewarded with Salvation. Rush, and Damnation is your fate.

[David Massengill · Rating 5 out of 5]

Readers who venture into Perilli’s Cul-de-sac will find themselves looking at their neighbors under a whole new—and possibly more forgiving—light once they emerge from the narrative. Perilli’s debut novel is a skillful blend of the experimental, the literary, and the macabre. Uncanniness abounds in this Bildungsroman that has hints of Dante’s Inferno and Donnie Darko and references to TV sitcoms and video games. How easy would it be to judge others if you had to choose between damnation and salvation for those people? This question lingers throughout Cul-de-sac, and Perilli keeps us wondering all the way to the deeply gratifying ending.

[Nick Mehalick · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cinematic in its vision, Perilli’s “Cul-de-Sac” takes the reader to a truly unique world of confrontation and reckoning with that which makes us human, even if we aren’t anymore. Layered with humor, the macabre, and touches of heartbreaking pathos, Perilli has created a story and cast that only he could imagine. An incredible debut from an already established voice in modern literature.

[Daniel DiFranco · Rating 5 out of 5]

Perilli does it again! Grab a mug of something and put on your voyeur goggles as you weave through space and time and general oddness and spookiness. Perilli gives us tenderness and horror in this dead end of a novel where the only way out is to go all the way in and then circle back.

[M Kay · Rating 3 out of 5]

Started off strong, middle was hard to get through, and then came together again in the end. I didn’t like the characters and just found them hard to relate to. Found I kept rereading pages trying to make sense of what was happening. Would be better as an audiobook I think.