What if the world ended, not with a bang, but a slow squelch?
That’s sort-of the premise of The Marigold, the brand-new novel from Andrew F. Sullivan. In this book a slow apocalypse is corroding Toronto. Above ground, urban development is driving ecological disaster, whilst in the basements and dark places a new fungal menace is squirming from the shadow. You may never look at your own athlete’s foot the same way.
Andrew and I talk about many things, mushrooms and mycology, the weird ‘third life’ of fungus and the cosmic horror to be found in the soil and loam. We also look at how grimy 80s exploitation movies influenced his book, and I discover an awful lot about raccoons.
A great conversation about a unique book.
The Marigold was published on April 18th by ECW Press
Other books mentioned:
- Annihilation (2014), by Jeff VanderMeer
- What Moves the Dead (2022), by T. Kingfisher
- The Deluge (2023), by Stephen Markley
- Follow Me To Ground (2018), by Sue Rainsford
- Night Terror: Troubled Sleep and the Stories We Tell About It (2023), by Alice Vernon
