The Telltale Hardon and Other Perversions

In The Telltale Hardon and Other Perversions, Edgar Allan Pole (aka Andrew Shaffer) digs up seven of Edgar Allan Poe’s best-loved stories and gives them a post-mortem makeover.

In “The Telltale Hardon,” a college girl seduces her elderly landlord. Things go awry when his heart gives out and the co-ed must dispose of his body, only to be haunted by his ghostly erection. In “The Purple Death,” Pole reimagines “The Masque of the Red Death” as a post-apocalyptic orgy inside Prince’s fortified Paisley Park compound. And in “The Pit and the Pendulous Ballsack,” a condemned man is tortured in a terrifyingly perverse manner.

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies jumpstarted the literary mash-up genre; Edgar Allan Pole’s twisted take on classic Poe short stories such as “The Tell-Tale Heart” and “The Fall of the House of Usher” will pound the final nail into the genre’s coffin.