The Open Curtain

A taut literary thriller investigating the contemporary aftermath of Mormonism’s shrouded and violent past.

When Rudd, a troubled teenager, embarks on a school research project, he runs across the secret Mormon ritual of blood sacrifice, and its role in a 1902 murder committed by the grandson of Brigham Young. Along with his newly discovered half-brother, Rudd becomes swept up in the psychological and atavistic effects of this violent, antique ritual.

Publication date: February 9, 2016

Format: Trade Paper

Dimensions: 5.5 x 8.25

Page count: 270 pages 

ISBN: 9781566894173

Thanks to a 2013 ADA Access Improvement Grant administered by VSA Minnesota for the Metropolitan Regional Arts Council, this title is also formatted for screen readers which make text accessible to the blind and visually impaired. To purchase this title for use with a screen reader please email us at info@coffeehousepress.org.

Praised by Peter Straub for going “furthest out on the sheerest, least sheltered narrative precipice,” Brian Evenson is the recipient of three O. Henry Prizes and has been a finalist for the Edgar Award, the Shirley Jackson Award, and the World Fantasy Award. He is also the winner of the International Horror Guild Award and the American Library Association’s award for Best Horror Novel, and his work has been named in Time Out New York’s top books.

“There is not a more intense, prolific, or apocalyptic writer of fiction in America than Brian Evenson.”

—George Saunders

“There's a touch of the time-shifting of Lost Highway in here, and the colors of Suspiria, and the soundtrack of Burzum's Hvis Lyset Tar Oss , and a whole other strange register which throughout it all just seems like a calm story dictated to you by a stranger in your sleep.”

—VICE

“A contemporary gothic tale about the apocalyptic connection between religion and violence.”

—Publishers Weekly

“This is one of the bravest, most searching novels I know.”

—The Week