One or Several Deserts

by Carter St Hogan

Queer, strange, eight intimate fictions give voice to bodies at the margins as they yearn and claw at their own flesh. Some of these bodies flicker in and out of reality; some find rebirth in a sentient disease; some consume the bowels of their lovers; others wrestle with sexual awakening at the hands of a giant stone in the wide American prairie. Bristling with defiance, cruel but tender, "One or Several Deserts" bends reality with a logic all its own.

Genres: Short Stories, Horror, Queer, LGBT, Fiction, Adult

206 pages, Paperback

Published April 11, 2023

Reviews

[Bill Hsu · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don't know why this is not on more to-read lists. (I see it's on Sam Moss', but he works at the press.) This came out in 2023, and I only found out about it maybe a couple months ago, sigh.

I have to say this is one of the most exhilarating books I've read so far this year. The earlier stories might arguably be called magic realism, but it's the kind of harsh, depressing realism that we're all too familiar with today. The writing is so sharp, the situations are so problematic and without easy resolutions, I feel like I'm constantly grappling with the narratives and hoping for outcomes for the troubled characters that are a bit less bitter. The first story, "Pig", starts with a bang:

Pigs can't skin themselves. My husband says this to my son every morning over cereal. He says it to me also, but when he says it to me it's because he's being a jackass. This is an English word I learned recently from the pigs.

No, it doesn't let up. (Maybe the ending could be a bit less meta, but it works.)

"Me and Mona at the Table" is a tale about abusive relationships. Not the most subtle, but the writing is so cruel. Then "Little Skin Bag", I really can't tell you what this is about. But there's a party with a dj, attended by the titular character and friends with names like Lip, Right Tits (twin of Left Tits, of course), and Gutting Man, whom one does not mess with. And a Boar. And the kind of scratchy, squishy, scream-inducing, skin-crawling physical discomfort that I so rarely come across in fiction these days, my favorite since L.S. Johnson's brilliant "The Pursuit of the Whole is called Love". (From Johnson's Vacui Magia.)

From here the intensity is dialed down a bit. I don't get any references the title of "The Misdeeds of the Root" might be making, so I'm probably missing a lot here. But it's quite a contrast to the earlier stories, a (mostly) quiet, gentle narrative about a lesbian couple trying to survive in a post-apocalyptic world. Some of the writing reminds me a little of Sebald; there's a mention of "rings of Saturn", perhaps an oblique namecheck? The reveal and ending are tricky, but St Hogan pulls it off.

"Pasiphae: an Essay" is mostly a rant on what I'd agree is one of the most egregious injustices in Greek mythology: if Poseidon was mad at Minos, why did he make poor Pasiphae fall in love with the bull? (How about making Minos hide in the hollow cow and get impregnated by the bull instead?) The "essay" is not subtle, but the writing is enjoyable.

The title novelette ends the collection with a bizarre and fascinating menage. I hardly knew what's really going on, but it's a dysfunctional car crash that sucks up all my attention. The occult ritual is maybe over-reaching, but eventually all this comes down to earth beautifully:

I understood, in that moment, that I and I alone controlled the serpent. I could make it leave, dance, eat its own tail, feed itself to the hawk circling above.

I reached down, took its length in my hands...

So this is going straight to the top of my 2024 favorites list. Looking forward to more from Carter St Hogan.

(The description says there are 8 stories, but I only see 7. Maybe I have a defective copy.)

[Tessa · Rating 5 out of 5]

freaky and horny and lovely and tender

[Sam Hughes · Rating 5 out of 5]

YAAAAS! I am always in the mood for trans-horror collections. I am so thankful to 1111 Press and Carter St. Hogan for sending over this gem of a book chocked, complete with eerie and horrific tales with queer reps and futuristic terrors. Carter St. Hogan's book of short, frightening stories left me craving more and stunned with shock after each turning page.

We, as the reader, receive stories about a Hungarian transplant wife who fights back, a futuristic orgy party where bestiality is on the menu, and a familiar end-times infection that clones its victims and causes disarray. There's something here for everyone, even if horror isn't your typical cup of tea.

One or Several Desserts is set to publish on April 11, 2023, and I HIGHLY RECOMMEND picking up this baby. I'm so happy to have digested this book during the Trans Rights Readathon!

[Curtis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful, silly, scary, and disgusting in equal parts, the stories in this collection suggest what might happen if you took the work of several key 20th-century short fiction stylists and grew magnificent fungi all over and inside it. (I wouldn't presume to know the exact influences, but I was reminded of the pastoral grotesques of Flannery O'Connor, the disintegrating monologues of Samuel Beckett, the dreamworlds of Kelly Link.) At times I was reminded of the subtitle of the Ninja Turtles movie from 1991; Carter St. Hogan really knows the secret of the ooze.

[Kira Kuehl · Rating 4 out of 5]

I can confidently say this is a work of art because god damn it made me feel a lot of weird shit. truly, I don't have a word to describe this other than weird. what a ride

[Avery · Rating 4 out of 5]

Disliked it. Sat with it. Changed my mind.

[casey vieira · Rating 5 out of 5]

the most shattering, invigorating prose i have ever read. my heart was sobbing and living violently the whole time i devoured this collection. this is my favorite book now.

[Hannah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Scared myself reading this alone at a campsite. Weird and perfect.

[Alexandra · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have never read anything like this collection of stories. Exceptional prose with the hallucinatory imagery of only a truly great writer. Can’t wait to see what else Carter writes

[Briana · Rating 5 out of 5]

"𝑰 𝒘𝒊𝒍𝒍 𝒓𝒖𝒏 𝒎𝒚 𝒎𝒐𝒖𝒕𝒉 𝒕𝒐 𝒔𝒉𝒐𝒄𝒌 𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒎 𝒖𝒏𝒕𝒊𝒍 𝑰 𝒓𝒐𝒕 𝒊𝒏 𝒅𝒆𝒂𝒕𝒉'𝒔 𝒓𝒊𝒗𝒆𝒓𝒃𝒆𝒅.”

I hate it. I’m obsessed with it. I can’t handle it. I can’t help but sit in it. I don’t get it. I connect with it. I’m losing it!

Read this for:
🐖 queer, eerie, bizarre essays that grapple with identity, sexuality, and the body
🐍  grotesque meditations on the human experience
🪨  a bold collision of the corporeal and the surreal

I read this in a single sitting because I couldn’t look away. Immediately, I hated it. I proclaimed that I didn’t get it; it wasn’t for me. I assumed this must be in the farthest stretching corner of a genre that already asks too much of me. Body horror? It’s a ‘hell no’ from me.

Then I sat with it. Even as I resisted it, the disgusting, oozing prose of this short collection of essays seeped into my brain… and here we are.

As I continue to grapple with my relationship with horror and its many sub-genres, it only gets murkier…and I know that is, in essence, its purpose. I am repulsed by the things inside of my own skin, I’m forced to confront the aftershocks of my own traumas, and I feel myself unspooling in a terrifying freefall. Horror is universal, it’s empathetic, it’s vulnerable, it’s dangerous. Sometimes it is NOT a good time. Sometimes it scratches an itch. One or Several Deserts? Both.

What did I ingest? Why can’t I stop thinking about it? BRB while I have an existential crisis ✌️

[Adrian Dornan · Rating 5 out of 5]

The short stories found in One or Several Deserts all made me think about the body and trauma, how we store trauma in our body, and the ways it changes how we perceive our bodies. The bodies and traumas discussed in the stories are queer ones from voices seen as on the fringes of society: women, drifters, immigrants, and queer people. I love Hogan’s prose and the poetic rhythm found throughout the stories. The surreal bending of the characters’ corporeal realities is unnerving at times and, at others, eye-opening and soul-touching. The stories that hit me the hardest were: The Geodic Body, Little Skin Bag, and One or Several Deserts. I enjoyed all the stories quite a lot but felt most personally connected to these three. The formatting in the final story is incredibly interesting and vastly poetic in nature. It reminded me of Vi Khi Nao at times with the way Hogan plays with space on the page. I am very much looking forward to reading more of their work in the future.

[Sasha Antonakakis · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is tough to review because I think it's a good collection, but a lot of the writing style/language just doesn't really click for me. There were three stories that I particularly liked and the rest just didn't really do it for me. The first was a great, morbid start to the collection. The mona story was lovely and hit quite close to home being someone who has been in a toxic sapphic relationship (there's something quite unique to those relationships lmao). The highlight for me was the final story of the collection which I think was also the longest. One or Several Deserts (love the Deleuze and Guattari reference) was really good and incorporated cosmic/folksy horror(?) with fears and anxiety that are much more erotic, much more bodily that just really works.

[Gabba · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was a little bit of a mixed bag for me. The imagery and emotion of it were stunning and vivid which I loved even when it made my skin crawl (maybe especially then). Some of the prose I found a bit illusive, but that might be reader error on my part since this is somewhat of a departure from what I normally read. Overall, One or Several Deserts compelled my mind and exercised my imagination.

[Jess Hagemann · Rating 5 out of 5]

Experimental. Evocative. Erotic. Everything I want in my short stories. Weeks later I’m still thinking about the characters who lived with and talked to pigs and who lived with, fucked, ate, and shat out Anna and Lyle.

[Grace · Rating 5 out of 5]

What an unearthly gem

[Mathew Zuniga · Rating 4 out of 5]

There a couple stories in here that are fuck some of my favs ever

[Tanzia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wild, shocking, and brilliant. Loved this book! 🩷

[cyrus · Rating 5 out of 5]

strange and grotesque and beautiful. my favourite collection in recent memory. standouts: pig, little skin bag, one or several deserts.

[scottie · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 rounded up.
it's odd to give a lower score without having any real criticisms, but that is the case here. none of these stories felt out of place or flawed in any objective way, i just simply did not personally enjoy reading them. the stories delivered exactly what the blurb promised, and i feel betrayed by myself that i did not like them more.
rounding up half a point solely because i do love the first two stories so much.