Books published by Lethe Press

Death and pleasure. Freud's Todestrieb, his statement that "libido has the task of making the destroying instinct innocuous, and it fulfils the task by diverting that instinct to a great extent outwards....The instinct is then called the destructive instinct, the instinct for mastery, or the will to power." Few authors have spun stories of Thanatos and Eros as skillfully and powerfully as Livia Llewellyn. In his introduction to this volume, Laird Barron writes "Scant difference exists between exquisite pleasure and pain." An orphan girl with a mind for anthracite falls into the hands of a cult worshipping an entombed god. In the Pacific Northwest, evergreens lull prepubescent girls into their trunks to serve as wombs. A suburban housewife troubled by her present encounters the sixteen year-old girl she ached to touch in her dreams. These ten stories promise to indulge a reader's sensibilities, their fears and desires. A finalist for the Shirley Jackson Award in two categories: Best Novella and Best Collection!

Filmmaker Wakefield Poole wrote the rules for living on the edge with no safety net and no apologies. How a respected Broadway dancer, choreographer, and director became the infamous creator of beautiful, wildly successful gay porn is just part of a gripping story that takes us on a whirlwind tour of the early days of the sexual revolution, when "anything goes" was a way of life. While rubbing shoulders with the theatrical elite of the day, including Noel Coward, Marlene Deitrich, Richard Rodgers, Liza Minelli and Stephen Sondheim, Poole created Boys in the Sand, the film that would revolutionize pornography and gay film, start the "porno chic" trend of the 1970s, and serve as the ruler by which all adult entertainment is measured. This new edition of Poole's memoir is an honest and entertaining look at life in the worlds of theater and gay porn, the perils and joys of success, the horrors of drug addiction, and the resilient spirit of a man who continually re-invented himself and survived it all.

A house inches eight hundred miles to confess its horrible crime. The last resident of a mental institution discovers he's not alone. A middle-schooler performs an experiment to determine how much time we fit in dreams. Boys looking for wonder find more than they're expecting in the Adirondacks with Charles Fort. A detective learns everything he's ever wanted to know...and some things he hasn't. In Will Ludwigsen's short stories of strangeness and mystery--a finalist for the 2013 Shirley Jackson Award for Best Collection--the universe has a way of being weird in just the ways we need it to be. There are answers to many of our deepest questions...and they're usually far more personal than we expect. What are you in search of? And what is in search of you?Kirkus Reviews names In Search Of and Others as one of the Best Books of 2013! And the book was a finalist for the Shirley Jackson Award for Best Collection

Greek myths held that Oceanus to be a massive river surrounding the land. A Titan, son of sky and earth, he was depicted as a handsome, muscular man whose torso ended in a scaled tail. As the Olympians emerged, Oceanus retreated, his domain restricted to strange and dangerous shores, the realm of sailors' fortunes and worries. So, too, are the eleven tales within the pages of The Touch of the Sea: fantastical, at times eerie, with sightings of mermen, water spirits, and sea beasts (even the fabled "living island," the aspidochelone) as well as a smattering of pirates. What makes these stories memorable is that they affirm the masculinity of the sea, the taste of brine on another man's lips. Become mates with such award-winning authors as Joel Lane and Jeff Mann--seasoned storytellers 'Nathan Bourgeoine and Chaz Brenchley--and a wide array of coxswains: Brandon Cracraft, Jonathan Harper, John Howard, Vincent Kovar, Matthew A. Merendo, Damon Shaw--under the helm of editor Steve Berman.