The year is 1928, and the Philadelphia Athletics are on the verge of supplanting the New York Yankees as the greatest baseball team the sport has ever known. How much easier their job would be if something catastrophic should befall the Yank's star player, Babe Ruth. Which it will, if Ruth's former minor league roommate and nemesis, embittered, shell-shocked World War I veteran Nick Hudson-who sometimes hears voices and sees things that don't exist-can execute his warped and devious plan.

Real estate mogul Russell Dodge has coveted Maine's pristine Sheffield Peak for years, so when its owner finally decides to sell, Dodge hurries to Maine to close the deal right before Christmas. On his drive to the plane that will take him back to Manhattan, he daydreams about his plans to turn the Peak into an opulent ski resort with a three hundred room hotel, two restaurants, a health club, condos and much more. Euphoric, he takes narrow Sheffield road to the airport instead of the highway in order to catch one more look at his prize - a fateful decision that sparks a traumatic turn of events that sends him into a very different world from the one he has always known, a world where people don't have much - just everything that matters - and makes him question the way he has always lived.

An elderly junk dealer finds redemption in a defunct burlesque theater. A middle-aged Jewish man discovers the aphrodisiacal powers of a Ku Klux Klan uniform. An annual street carnival provides the venue for legalized murder. A hopeless young factory worker uses her savings to pay for a fantasy tryst with her idol, a dead rock star, and is shattered by the experience. Welcome to the world of Christopher Fahy, a world of fantastical transformation, where the ordinary takes bizarre and macabre twists. These are among the twenty-two stories (which includes one extra story in this hard cover version) fantasy stories in the latest Overlook Connection Press release, Christopher Fahy's Matinee at the Flame.

Stephen King says Christopher Fahy .." is a wonderful writer" and Matinee at the Flame will show you why. Twenty-One stories have been collected here, over half of them appearing for the first time. The previously published stories are being collected here for the first time anywhere. Artist Glenn Chadbourn has created full-page artwork for each story in this collection, as well as the wonderful cover. Matinee at the Flame will take you on many different genre trails. From the Twilight Zone tempered title story, to stories of horror, science fiction, and the fantastic such as: The Blumberg Variations, Night Watch, The Man in Black, A Special Breed, Want, and Carnival to name a few.

"I thought that Chris Fahy's novel Fever 42 was both wildly funny and surprisingly sad. The combination made me think of the early J.D. Salinger period. ... I think it will attract a lot of attention. Chris is a wonderful writer." - Stephen King. Ted Wharton, 42, a teacher at Whitman High in Somerside, New Jersey, lives a routine suburban life with his wife and kids. Disenchanted after fifteen years of teaching, going thru the motions at work -and home-he feels the clock is ticking. Then it happens: on the same day that one of Ted's colleagues drops dead of a heart attack, Joy, 17, a bright and stunningly beautiful senior in one of his classes, makes a play for him. And he puts up no resistance. Fully alive for the first time in years, he revels in his wild trysts with Joy -many at Whitman High. Living on the edge, obsessed with Joy, but realizing the ultimate disaster this will become, tries to end his relationship with her. Only to see his world spiral out of control.

Ted, an English teacher, has found that life has become dull until Joy comes along. Joy takes him on a soul-shattering trip that makes his spirit soar. Alive for the first time in years, he revels in his wild trysts with Joy--a student at his high school. "Wildly funny and surprisingly sad. . . made me think of the early J.D. Salinger period. Christopher is a wonderful writer."--Stephen King.