by Stephan Friedman (Author)

Serpentine Supplications is a collection of strange tales and ecstatic poetry, carefully structured to form a twisted labyrinth that ends where it began, like a snake biting its tail. The journey starts with the protagonist, Victor Zander, undergoing initiation in a magical order and having a transcendental experience. Another story tells how Victor embarks on a phantasmagoric, transformative trip induced by a psychedelic drug. A grandfather's diary found in the attic of an old summer cottage describes childhood traumas and fears, otherworldly apparitions and occult research. Amongst the ruins of post-World War II Wroclaw, a Red Cross worker tries to save an orphan from a terrible fate. Young Mircea stops to spend the night in a quiet Sighișoara village and encounters a sex-crazed witch, a Walpurgis night sabbath, and secret Jewish magic. A nightwalker named Cioran pays a visit to a depressed divorcé and takes his friend away to the catacombs of vampires. In Jerusalem, a disillusioned journalist finds an ancient manuscript, meets an obscure Ophidian cult, and has a vision of Lilith. The sense of the supernatural and grotesque permeates these twelve pieces of macabre and decadent prose and verse, bouncing between biographical reality and ethereal dimensions. This book would be a worthy addition to any serious library of weird fiction.

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