Just published from Anxiety Press:
Before the Giant Anteater is an outrageously humorous short story collection by Peter Clarke. The title story serves as a playful follow-up to André Breton’s poem "After the Giant Anteater."
Each story in this collection begins at a place just before absurdity strikes—like the moment just before Dali showed up in Paris with his giant anteater on a leash. As such, the stories all fall off the hook and venture into a realm of chaos as quickly as possible. But they also stick closely to related themes: the madness of technology, modern occultism, and the comedy of the impending end of the world.
Many of the stories in this collection were first published in literary journals including Juked, 3AM Magazine, Drunk Monkeys, Pacifica Literary Review, Fixional, Cheap Pop, Empty Sink Publishing, Red Fez, Weirderary, and Two Cities Review.
For a sample story, read "E-Therapy Girls," recently re-published in my Substack newsletter.