Beautiful Ghosts

Sherilyn Connelly is a San Francisco-based writer and librarian.

• Table of ContentsHymnalIntroduction: Out of the Bag and into the AbattoirPrologue: Infernal Cartography1. Six Feet Down at Age ­Twenty-FiveHow the End Always Is 17 delete• deleteBaby Doll, Check Your Cheek 22 delete• deleteLeave Your Expectations at the Door 27 delete• deleteLove in the Dying Moments of the 20th Century 382. Honor Thy Error as a Hidden IntentionEl Ritual de la Caja Para Gatos 44 delete• deleteThe One to Walk in the Sun 47 delete• deleteChoking on the Dirt and Sand 49 delete• deleteGood Morning, It’s Possum Day 513. eXistenZ Is unPauseDJosie and the Vampire 56 delete• deleteKeep Circulating the Tapes 62 delete• deleteSpang of the Loathsome Dead 68 delete• deleteShe Gets to Sing Just Like a Bird 754. Dead Cats and Cab DriversFor Rent: Black Sheets, Never Reported 79 delete• deleteYou Probably Think This Book Is About You 84 delete• deleteThe Midnight Sisters Convene in Kopenhagen 91 delete• deleteWere You Jerking Off to Her or Were You Jerking Off to Me? 97 delete• deleteA Large Room, Full of People 1035. The Epoch of RecombinationMechanism of Occupant Ejection 106 delete• deleteKeep Your Tracking Knobs Properly Adjusted 109 delete• deleteJohn Calvin, He’s Long Dead (We Gotta Get That in Our Head) 113 delete• delete“Someday, This War’s Gonna End” 116 delete• deleteBleeding Like a Polaroid 119 delete• deleteI’m Not an Angel, But at Least I’m a Girl 1246. The Lightning of Early MayA Walking Study in Demonology 133 delete• deleteIncept Date: 22 Sept. 2006 138 delete• deleteVisions of Dazzling Rooms 142 delete• deletePerilous Night, Their Voices Calling 148 delete• deleteA Flicker of Light Before the Dawning 1517. Welcome to AnnexiaPartners in a Benevolent Psychopathology 155 delete• deleteTwo ­Semi-Metallic Human Beings 158 delete• deleteSome Semen Is Saltier Than Others 163 delete• deleteProphecy Is Ragged and Dirty 169 delete• deleteA Universe Gone Quickly 171Epilogue: Under the Zodiacal LightThe Beautiful Ghosts MixtapeIndex

“Sherilyn Connelly is a brazen, brilliant, and brave anti-hero who suffers no misogynistic fools, and her book Beautiful Ghosts is a metropolitan fairytale where the scares are dangerously real but the saving magic dust is all her. Her self-acceptance comes at a calculated rate fueled by Connelly’s interpretation of disreputable blondes like Courtney Love until she herself becomes not the marginal villain that so-often inspired Connelly, but indeed, our own villainous heroine of the marginal space populated by women, mythical or ordinary, who leave abusers, who don’t hide their snappy brilliant selves, who find that living and yelling their truth is how life becomes legend.”—Shar Rednour, co-director of Sugar High Glitter City