The Man on the Ceiling Melanie Tem and Steve Rasnic Tem Two interwoven memoirs of love, loss, and family with a haunted, frightening edge. “The kind of . . . story that reminds you what fiction is capable of being, of doing, of making, for the reader and for the author.” —Neil Gaiman on the original novella. In 2000, American Fantasy Press published an unassuming chapbook titled The Man on the Ceiling. Inside was a dark-and-light, surreal, discomfiting and redemptive story of the horrors and joys that can befall a family. It was so powerful that it won the Bram Stoker Award, International Horror Guild Award, and World Fantasy Award—the only work ever to win all three. Now, Melanie Tem and Steve Rasnic Tem have reimagined the story, expanding on the ideas to create a compelling work that examines how people find a family, how they hold a family together despite incomprehensible tragedy, and how they find love. Loosely autobiographical, The Man on the Ceiling has the feel of a family portrait painted by Salvador Dali, where story and reality blend to find the one thing that neither can offer alone: truth. On sale March 2008 MSRP: $14.95; $19.95 CAN 384 pages SKU: 21726740 Trade Paperback ISBN: 978-0-7869-4858-1

Related Links

• Read a sample chapter.
• Melanie Tem and Steve Rasnic Tem's website

"The fantasy and horror tales that make up much of its bulk are lessons in living, lessons in how to disobey gravity until the last moment." --John Clute, SciFi Weekly on The Man on the Ceiling

"Melanie and Steve Rasnic Tem have given us a remarkable work. It is honest . . . painfully, almost embarrassingly so. It is frightening. It is full of despair. It is also full of wonder and laughs and love. The Man on the Ceiling transcends genre." --Horror Drive-In

"This visceral, psychological view of the horrors that occur in an average Person's life will draw in readers with delicate, exquisitely detailed and almost hypnotic language." --Publishers Weekly

“Told in a flowing, beautiful style that shucks linear plots (The Man on the Ceiling) is like a blanket woven from small moments, small realizations and individual perceptions that weave together into a great whole that should be a must read for those who have survived any of the many forms of abuse or those who seek to help them.” —Michele Lee, eHarlequin.com

“The Man on the Ceiling is as much about family, fear of loss, and the relationships between people as it is about the horror of what might or might not be on the ceiling. The genius of the book is in how it uses the horror as a hook to tell what is largely a set of realistic stories, possibly autobiographical, about the Tems.” —Jeff Vander Meer, Realms of Fantasy