Halloween is the Time for Gorey, Burton and… Woodruff?

GAINESVILLE, Fla., Oct. 1, 2020 /PRNewswire/ — In Edward Gorey’s famous gothic illustrations in the “Gashlycrumb Tinies”, 26 children met their fates in weird and wonderful ways.  For decades fans and readers have been left aghast, and perhaps feeling a little guilty, at the dark laughter and joy they have felt in response.

But questions have lingered.

Why did these children meet the fates they did? What dark hand of fate twisted their lives to these unusual outcomes?

When award-winning author Matthew C. Woodruff was young (that was a while ago), he was fascinated with Gorey’s images in “The Gashlycrumb Tinies”.  The very idea a sane person would illustrate, alphabetically no less, the absurd deaths of 26 children seemed to him to be… well, WONDERFUL. He would read and re-read the work every Halloween.

Fast forward a few too many years, fittingly it is Halloween, 2018 – a quiet night on the campus of the University of Florida, the heat and humidity of the day finally withdrawing its brutal relentlessness, crickets and frogs finding their voices in search of mates or ending up as snacks for the local alligators. Woodruff is peering out a darkened, third floor University window and a strangely unique answer of an age old question comes to him, as if whispered by that gothic master of Halloween. Woodruff now knows how and why Amy stumbled down the stairs.  Quickly, lest it slip away, he puts the tale down on… well, PC screen. 

It was good, very good.

The next night and the next and the next are repeats of the first; Basil and the bear attack, poor Clara wasting away, Desmond and the fateful sleigh ride… they all come, one after the other, whispered into Woodruff’s mind by the spirit of Gorey himself, or so the tale goes. Perhaps the same place Tim Burton gets his inspiration from?

All is now revealed in Woodruff’s macabre and darkly witty “26 Absurdities of Tragic Proportions” the companion stories to Gorey’s “Gashlycrumb Tinies”. Here one finds all the answers, all the hows and all the whys. These tales are the Halloween master work.

If you have ever wondered… the answers are here.

Visit MattWoodruffAuthor.com for further info, usable images and to request review copies of books.

Media contact:
Matthew Woodruff

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1-352-359-7089

SOURCE Author Matthew C. Woodruff