Earthling Publications

Ghoul N’ the Cape (January 2022)
An original novel by Josh Malerman

Artwork by David Palumbo
Introduction by Peter Atkins
Afterword by Josh Malerman

The true first printing first edition of bestselling and Stoker Award-winning author Josh Malerman’s genre-spanning, epic adventure!

“The Naught is nigh,” the Cape tells Ghoul in a dark corner of a Manhattan tavern. The Naught – who the Cape claims to be a nefarious celestial entity capable of tipping the balance of good and bad for all on Earth.

They must leave at once, travel west. Will Ghoul go with him? Will Ghoul help the Cape outpace this horror while spreading the word of its arrival to all and everyone they meet?

So begins the adventure of a lifetime, as Ghoul and the Cape travel across America and beyond, picking up other eccentrics along the way, even as they duck the Naught’s many dark agents:

A destructor the size of a planet.

A man made entirely of flowing blood.

A knife that reflects Time and Space as it cuts.

From a haunted jail and a cowboy graveyard, to the home of the most famous actress in the world and the barge as it carries the Statue of Liberty to America, Ghoul n’ the Cape — equal parts thriller and meditation — is about people becoming more than what they thought themselves capable of being, about man’s place in the modern world: a world facing the irrevocable alterations of the Naught. An interstellar story, a slasher story, a late-bloomer coming-of-age story, and an American story, too. An unclassifiable, epic experience that promises to change the titular duo…even as it changes those who read it.

Features:

Cover and 7 interior color paintings by David Palumbo
7x10” oversized edition
Offset printed on acid-free 60# paper
Smyth sewing
Ribbon page marker
Fine endsheets
Introduction by Peter Atkins
Afterword by Josh Malerman
Only 1000 numbered and 26 lettered deluxe hardcovers will be produced
Estimated to weigh over 4 pounds and clock in at 750 pages!

PREVIEW:
An excerpt from GHOUL N' THE CAPE

Shipping notice (December 10, 2021):
GHOUL should have been shipping by now, but similar to other books (from our press and others) it is unfortunately delayed at least a few more weeks due to materials and labor shortages. For those customers who bought this as a Christmas or other gift, please find below color and B&W printouts you can consider using as a stocking-stuffer or placeholder to give to your loved one in the meantime.

DOWNLOAD GIFT CERTIFICATE (PDF):
Color
Black & White

"Phantasmagoric. Euphoric. Hallucinogenic. Picaresque. Ghoul n' the Cape transcends horror. It's funny and dramatic and wry and emotional. It will make you fall in love all over again with big, sprawling novels."
—John F.D. Taff

"Scheherezade possessed by the future ghost of Hunter S. Thompson while dancing the Rite of Spring all the way to its gory, inevitable end? Closest I can get. Ghoul n’ the Cape is story about story, it’s every story all at once, and it is dizzying, kinetic, and relentlessly alive."
—Glen Hirshberg

"An encyclopedia of the uncanny in the form of a road movie, Josh Malerman’s extraordinary Ghoul N’ The Cape is by turns terrifying and funny, wry and poignant, angry and amused. It’s a cornucopia of stories lived, imagined, and retold by a cast of unforgettable characters as they meet, part, and reconnect, fleeing from horror and rushing to love. What’s your taste in the macabre? Cinematic set-piece thrill rides? Quiet creeping dread? Haunting melancholia? Get in the car and hit the road with these guys and, whatever your flavor, you’ll get your fill. But get in quick. Because something terrible’s right behind you and it’s coming fast."
—Peter Atkins

"Josh Malerman’s magnum opus is brilliantly, beautifully bonkers! Ghoul N’ the Cape merges a dozen genres into a Kerouac journey of fear, philosophy, and against-the-grain optimism, with two lovable, unforgettable misfit protagonists and a legion of supporting characters worthy of your strangest dreams. Malerman possesses the most fearless imagination of his generation. Bravo!"
—Christopher Golden

"A cosmic goulash of Confederacy of Dunces and The Wizard of Oz with a pinch of The Stand, this grandiose novel is an epic road trip heading straight through Alice’s looking glass, and there’s a roaring engine under the hood bursting with a lust for life. Part philosophy, part horror, part barroom ballad, Ghoul N’ the Cape is a tour de force of the imagination, a feast that fills you up and empties you out again, leaving you delirious and wholly satisfied. This might just be Malerman’s Great American Novel."
—Philip Fracassi

"Flee, friends! The Naught is coming. Beloved for his ability to transport us to strange worlds, Josh Malerman sends us on a righteous, rollicking dream of a road trip from one end of America to the other. Half cosmic, half Vaudeville, Ghoul N’ the Cape is as timely now as Gravity’s Rainbow was in 1973, a madcap epic that delivers the news we know in our bones."
—and—
"The achievement of the book is just astonishing. The endless invention, the breadth and ambition of it, the wacky comedy that in the end is deadly serious—holy shit! And he keeps it rolling like a goddamn tank. Hats off."
—Stewart O'Nan

"A Great American Novel. An otherworldly thrill ride. This is the apotheosis of all road stories and an odyssey unlike any you’ve ever read. It’s like a long-lost collaboration between John Steinbeck and Rod Serling, but it’s much more than that. It’s a writer with an imagination vaster than space, and a storytelling voice unbound by time. It’s unexpected. It’s surreal. It’s terrifying and funny and so full of heart that the love drips from the pages. You’ll meet characters you’ll never forget, hear tales that will curl your toes. You’ll gasp, you’ll hold your breath, and by the end you’ll catch yourself staring at the stars with wide-eyed dread. In short, this book is magic. With Ghoul N’ the Cape, Josh Malerman has spun a bona fide classic."
—Jonathan Janz