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The Harlequin and the Train book cover
The Harlequin and the Train
2009
First Published
4.00
Average Rating
155
Number of Pages

Limited to 400 copies, this novella from critically-acclaimed author Paul G. Tremblay expands upon the short story of the same name (published in Compositions for the Young and Old, 2004, rev. 2005). The Harlequin & the Train is an experimental fiction narrative that requires you to interact with it using a simple yellow highlighter. This novella is about paranoia, choice, and the horror of individual and collective consequence. Plot Summary: Rudy has only been on the job as a train engineer for a few months. While at the helm of a commuter train headed to Boston, Massachusetts, it hits a harlequin clown, and in the chaotic aftermath, he witnesses the horrific and inexplicable actions of a group of people who were seemingly laying in wait for the accident. There are other accidents and as the group infiltrates his life (present and past), and as random global acts of violence and suffering seem to be connected, what Rudy believes about others and himself will be forever warped as he makes his final choice.

Avg Rating
4.00
Number of Ratings
47
5 STARS
30%
4 STARS
51%
3 STARS
11%
2 STARS
6%
1 STARS
2%
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Author

Paul Tremblay
Paul Tremblay
Author · 34 books
Paul Tremblay has won the Bram Stoker, British Fantasy, and Massachusetts Book awards and is the author of The Pallbearers Club (coming 2022), Survivor Song, Growing Things, The Cabin at the End of the World, Disappearance at Devil’s Rock, A Head Full of Ghosts, and the crime novels The Little Sleep and No Sleep Till Wonderland. His essays and short fiction have appeared in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Entertainment Weekly online, and numerous year’s-best anthologies. He has a master’s degree in mathematics and lives outside Boston with his family. He is represented by Stephen Barbara, InkWell Management.
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