What is Kevin Shamel reading?

The current featured contributor at Writers Read: Kevin Shamel, author of Rotten Little Animals.

The entry begins:

What am I reading? You can bet it’s weird. In fact, I’ll just go ahead and tell you, it’s extra weird. I’m reading Bradley Sands’, It Came From Below the Belt. It’s freaky times ten.

From what I’ve gathered so far, and I have to tell you that I’m not far into it, it’s about a guy named Grover who’s been thrown into the future and he’s met his detached, sentient penis. He’s fairly lost, and quite shaken by the experience.

He’s actually just started high school at the point I’m reading. He has a couple of Grover clones, and is defeating ridiculousness as best he can. Chapter eight begins a miniature choose-your-own-adventure story that I nimbly navigated. Others may not be so lucky.

It Came From Below the Belt is a gorgeous display of Bizarro Fiction with a heavy leaning toward the ridiculous and surreal. I’m loving it. I can’t wait to get to where Grover’s going.

Which brings me to the reason that you can bet whatever I’m reading is...[read on]

Kevin Shamel lives in the Pacific Northwest in an old haunted house with his whole wild family. He writes as weird as he can and does it often. Rotten Little Animals is his first published book, and he’s pretty happy about that.

Among the praise for Rotten Little Animals:

“Like a bionic Ralph Bakshi reborn from snorting Orwell’s ashes, Kevin Shamel drags cherished childhood fantasies into the gutter of adulthood, and makes you pay dearly to swallow them all over again. Intelligence is a universal disease, but never fear. Rotten Little Animals just may be the cure we’ve been praying for.”
–Cody Goodfellow, author of Radiant Dawn and Silent Weapons For Quiet Wars

“Looney Tunes amped up on cocaine, sex and soft, silky fur and feathers. Shamel’s debut is wildly entertaining and destined to become an instant bizarro classic.”
–Gina Ranalli, author of Mother Puncher, Sky Tongues, Swarm of Flying Eyeballs, and other bizarro books

“It begins as a zombie film, transforms into a deranged puppet show, and ends with a car chase. If you ever wondered what a Pixar exploitation film would be like, you need Rotten Little Animals.”
–Cameron Pierce, author of Shark Hunting in Paradise Garden, and The Ass Goblins of Auschwitz

Check out Shameless Creations for more of Shamel's writing and artsy sorts of things.

Writers Read: Kevin Shamel.

--Marshal Zeringue