I am thrilled to be hosting a spot on the THE AURORA
REVELATIONS by Michael Walker Blog Tour hosted by Rockstar Book Tours. Check out my post and make sure to enter the giveaway!
About The Book:
Author: Michael F. Walker
Pub. Date: September
17, 2024
Publisher: BookBaby
Formats: Paperback,
eBook
Pages: 340
Find it: Goodreads, https://books2read.com/THE-AURORA-REVELATIONS
In April 1897, a strange airship
crashed in Aurora, Texas and the "unearthly" pilot was buried in the
local cemetery. Today, the pilot finally awakened. God help us all.
In July 2015, supernatural sleuth Kevin Starkly disappeared mysteriously in the
New Jersey Pine Barrens. What secrets did he uncover about the Aurora UFO
crash, and has he paid a terrible price for his curiosity?
Four twenty-something paranormal investigators, a self-styled "Nerd
Legion," ―Tony Fermia (a psychic who talks to ghosts in his dreams), John
Walters (an art curator), Rich Harrigan (a skeptical science teacher), and
Angel McQueen (an alien abductee and Tony's high-school crush)―travel across a
haunted America searching for their old friend Starkly. The group soon find
themselves entangled in a terrifying conspiracy to resurrect the alien pilot―a
plot that brings them face-to-face with a ghastly enemy and has them fighting
for their lives and for the future of humanity.
Like a grown-up Stranger Things on a cursed road trip, or The X-Files with no
FBI boss and no filter, the harrowing exploits in The Aurora Revelations will
captivate readers of Paul Tremblay, Dan Simmons, Edgar Cantero, or any fans of
paranormal thrills, mystery, and supernatural suspense.
Reviews:
"Ghosts, extraterrestrials, dreams, and suicide cults
are just a few topics in The Aurora Revelations by
Michael F. Walker. A satisfying tale akin to setting in place the last piece of
a jigsaw puzzle, fans of bizarre and original stories, your dreams have come
true." -- Gaius Konstantine, Readers' Favorite
"Walker's sprawling but gripping debut follows the antics of paranormal
hunters as they uncover an alien conspiracy...The paranormal intrigue is
infused with humor, true science, and literary and pop culture references for a
playful and suspenseful adventure. Fans of The X-Files will
feel right at home."--Booklife Reviews (Editors' Pick)
"Walker pulls an amazing aggregation of borderline satire and surreal
terror into a coherent and spooky whole...A supernaturally effective oddity
odyssey."-- Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
By Michael F. Walker
Cabinets of curiosities and collectors of strange curios play a major role in my novel, The Aurora Revelations. However, I decided to toss this piece on the cutting room floor—a make-believe curator’s introduction describing a modern reimagining of the pack-rat Collyer Brothers mansion as an art gallery installation—because it really didn’t move the plot ahead. Although much takes place in the Collyer Brothers Redux exhibition in the story, including a grisly murder and the discovery of a major clue, there was no need to describe the installation in detail. But then again, I had great fun researching the captivating true story of the Collyer Brothers and their horrifying tragic fates. And I particularly enjoyed inserting sly references to the patchwork narrative of my own book—it is a collection of found documents after all. So I resisted the urge to press DELETE and instead I present this exclusive excerpt that you won’t find anywhere else. Hope you enjoy it.
From an email sent by John Walters
July 9
Hi Pat,
I’m sorry to get this to you so late, but you know how I am about writing these damn exhibition introductions. I always procrastinate until the last possible minute. Next time can we get someone else to write the curator’s remarks?
Anyway, please look this over once or twice—check my punctuation and make sure all the spelling is correct—before you send it off to Barbara for layout. She said the catalogs will be ready and printed just in time for the opening. God bless her!
Just a reminder re: the exhibition opening—I’ll be off on my cross-country adventure with some old high school buds, so I will not be seeing you for the rest of July. I know it’s bad timing but what can I do? I promised Kevin I would join him months ago before I finalized the exhibition opening date—so I’m stuck. Please send my heartfelt apologies to all concerned and make sure they don’t make too much of a mess. I know you will handle this all perfectly well on your own. You always do!
I’ve cut and pasted the intro text below. I’ll try to check my email while I’m on the road, but if you can’t reach me just double check with Barbara. She’ll know the right thing to do. And before I forget—please, please, please check the final funding credits or I’ll never hear the end of it! – JW
John
Walters
Director&
Curator, Last Call Gallery
Brooklyn,
New York
--------------------------
Attachment: Collyer Brothers Redux – An Introduction
The old, dilapidated Harlem brownstone at 2078 Fifth Avenue held many secrets. The owners of the building, Homer and Langley Collyer, lived like hermits hardly ever seen by their neighbors. In the absence of facts, rumors and legends flourished around the strange reclusive Collyer Brothers. Some said that Langley roamed the streets at night looking for small children to take back to the house. Some said the house was packed with the rotting corpses of their victims hidden in the walls. Others insisted that the brownstone was filled with treasure that the wealthy brothers had accumulated over the years since they had inherited the place from their mother in 1929.
But on March 21, 1947, all the secrets were revealed when police broke down the doors of the Collyer House and discovered a maze of papers and debris piled to the ceiling. And in the middle of the labyrinth, they did find a corpse—the body of Homer Collyer who was blind and paralyzed and had been cared for exclusively by his brother Langley for years. But where was Langley? Police came upon his rotting remains three weeks later after they hauled away most of the garbage that filled the house, the victim of one of the many booby-traps he’d set up to discourage curious strangers from uncovering their secrets.
Investigators found the place filled to the rafters, not with treasure or money or valued antiques, but with 120 tons of old newspapers, magazines and assorted junkyard finds, including 3,000 books, 14 grand pianos, and most of the parts of a Model T Ford.
Langley never threw away a single newspaper because he believed that Homer’s blindness would eventually be cured, and once that day arrived, he would want to read everything possible to catch up on the world’s affairs. Langley prowled the streets at night, not to kidnap unwary children, but to forage for food and water and to add to his strange collection of artifacts inside the house. He would find an old sewing machine tossed in the garbage, or a discarded mattress, or bicycle tire. But why did he do it? Some have speculated that it was part of an obsessive-compulsive disorder. Doctors called it “disposophobic” and named the Collyer Brothers the patron saints of all pack-rat collectors.
But I believe the Collyers, particularly Langley, were pioneers in conceptual art. Langley Collyer was a misunderstood installation artist, decades ahead of his time, who meticulously curated a masterpiece that filled the whole of 2078 Fifth Avenue. Following consciously or not the lead of Marcel Duchamp and Andre Breton, Langley created masterful arrangements of found objects to profound effect. When his acts are reconceived in this light, we open a new appreciation and understanding of the oeuvre of the Collyers. We see the accretions of “junk” as a brilliant metaphor for the 20th century, in the same league with the aborted masterpiece Training Ground for Democracy by Christoph Buchel or the apocalyptic labyrinths of Mike Nelson (Psychic Vacuum). In fact, an even more appropriate antecedent might be found in the Kunstkammers and Wunderkammers of the 16th century. The whole of the Collyer House is a “cabinet of curiosities” writ large, or if you prefer, a Joseph Cornell box on steroids.
{Insert here the section on Kunstkammers I wrote last week. End with “You can see that the best specimens in every cabinet of curiosities were truly gasp worthy. They could produce that sharp intake of breath reserved for expressions of awe and/or horror.”}
The Collyers spent most of their lives examining their own cabinet of curiosities in complete privacy, not unlike the Renaissance princes who entered their hidden studiolos, and grottos to contemplate the mysteries and marvels of the world. Perhaps Langley believed that the sheer accumulation of artifacts, the collections of papers, magazine clippings, assorted letters, and photographs would randomly fall into place to reveal some compelling narrative promising salvation. Perhaps a startling juxtaposition opened a gateway uncovering secrets of the world.
But these assemblages are a tricky business, offering us multiple meanings and competing, perhaps unintentional, narratives. As Christine Davenne writes in Cabinets of Wonder, “…the cabinet was a room full of enigmas to be deciphered.” Did Homer and Langley see their home as a work of hope, or of despair? Were they offering us belief, or doubt? In the end, the narrative only makes sense to one person—the collector or the aggregator. I think the rest of us are only intended to savor the mystery.
In that spirit, the Collyer Brothers Redux is not an historical recreation, but more a modern re-imagining of the brothers’ interior lives. I have thus invited local artists, sculptors, musicians, antique dealers, friends, neighbors, and total strangers to donate whatever items they can spare to add to this gloriously messy maze that now occupies the gallery. Although the exhibit is already open to the public, we will still accept new acquisitions as the installation continues to grow organically with a life of its own. I encourage visitors to explore the narrow passageways and make their own unique discoveries around every corner.
The installation reflects the desire, shared by collections over the centuries, to build connections between past and present, between the artificial and natural, between dreams and realities. And in no small way, I hope this will remind us that the act of collecting is an art in and of itself. Collyer Brothers Redux is a modern mirror image of the Collyers’ brownstone, and while some of the found objects in our special collection would be puzzling and unfamiliar to Homer and Langley, I think they would appreciate the effort nonetheless.
# # # #
About Michael Walker:
Michael
F. Walker is a
lover of the strange and macabre. His debut novel, The Aurora Revelations,
is coming soon in 2024. He lives with his wife and daughter in a ramshackle old
house in Brooklyn, NY that looks haunted but (probably) isn’t.
Sign up for
Michael’s newsletter!
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Giveaway Details:
1 winner
will receive a finished copy of THE AURORA REVELATIONS, US Only.
Ends October 22nd, midnight EST.
a Rafflecopter giveawayTour Schedule:
Week One:
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10/7/2024 |
Guest Post/IG Post |
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10/8/2024 |
Guest Post/IG Post |
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10/9/2024 |
Interview/IG Post |
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10/10/2024 |
Excerpt/IG Post |
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10/11/2024 |
Review/IG Post |
Week Two:
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10/14/2024 |
Review/IG Post |
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10/15/2024 |
IG Review |
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10/16/2024 |
Review/IG Post |
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10/17/2024 |
Review/IG Post |
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10/18/2024 |
IG Review/LFL Drop Pic/TikTok Post |
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