Children of the New Flesh is a wide-ranging compendium of reflections on the ongoing influence of David Cronenberg, one of the most significant filmmakers of all time, and an inspiration for many of the most vital writers and artists at work today. Focusing on a series of short films that Cronenberg directed in the 60s and 70s, many of which have rarely been seen, the book considers the significance of these works in their own right, as well as the seeds and glimmers they contain of the masterpieces to come in the 80s and 90s.
“CHILDREN OF THE NEW FLESH IS A MUST-READ FOR FILM FANATICS AND FANS OF DAVID CRONENBERG. EDITED BY CHRIS KELSO AND DAVID LEO RICE, THIS COLLECTION EXPLORES THE DARK PERIPHERIES OF CRONENBERG’S INFLUENCE AND EARLY WORK, EXAMINING A WORLD OF STRANGENESS AND MYSTERY.” – BRANDON HOBSON, NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST AND AUTHOR OF THE REMOVED
“THE LIVING LEGEND OF ECCENTRIC CINEMA BEGETS WEIRD NEW PROGENY IN CHILDREN OF THE NEW FLESH” – RUE MORGUE MAGAZINE“NEW AND LONGTIME CRONENBERG FANS WILL DEVOUR THIS INTELLIGENT, EARNEST, AND COMPREHENSIVE TRIBUTE.” – KIRKUS REVIEWS
Much more than a work of tribute, Children of the New Flesh aims to consider the nature of influence itself, and to tease out and respond to many of the queasy, gooey, uncanny resonances in Cronenberg’s body of work, obsessed as it is with secret signals, infectious transmissions, and psychic and bodily viruses that have much to say to our own paranoid, hyper-networked, and sickened times.
Featuring original fiction and essays from luminaries such as Brian Evenson, Blake Butler, Michael Cisco, Graham Rae, Joe Koche, Tobias Carroll, and Charlene Elsby, and interviews with figures such as Kathe Koja, Patrick McGrath, Tim Lucas, and Bruce Wagner — not to mention an exclusive interview with Cronenberg himself — this book is at once a study and a living example of the singular power of hybrid forms. It’s an invitation to seek undead materials in the dark recesses of the past, and to use them as a means of tuning into the singularly strange wavelengths of the present.