Graven Image

Graven Image
by Ray Garton

Cover Artwork and Illustrated Endpapers by: Alex McVey

Interior Artwork by: Keith Minnion

This signed hardcover Limited Edition of Graven Image by Ray Garton was not available for purchase. Although there will more than likely be other unsigned editions down the road long after our World's First Edition (the only signed Limited Edition), the signed and traycased deluxe Lettered Edition listed on this page is the only signed edition of this book that is available for purchase. This edition will be bound in leather and includes a satin ribbon page marker.

About the Book:
Hal Dillon collects strange pieces of art — odd paintings and drawings, quirky sculptures. When he stumbles upon the bizarre crucifix in a curio shop, he decides to take it home and add it to his collection. On the wooden cross is a hideous figure of Christ — it looks angry and hateful, and its teeth have been filed down to sharp points. But this piece is unlike anything else in Hal's collection. It behaves in very un-Christ-like ways, and turns Hal's life into a living nightmare.

This is a controversial religious horror story as only Ray Garton can write: dark, thought-provoking, and gruesome...

"For its length, Graven Image covers an amazing amount of emotional territory. Curiosity, insecurity, love, rapture, terror, disbelief, rage, and despair float through this story, each registered carefully and well. When the horrors kick in, as they powerfully do, Ray Garton demonstrates a master's capacity for extending and maximizing the good old tension/fear affect so necessary in a story of this kind. His ending introduces a very satisfying ambiguity. Why did nice, attractive Jacquie wake up screaming in darkened rooms? Now, there's a question to haunt the reader of Graven Image, all the more so since the answer may never be given."
— Peter Straub, author of Ghost Story and In the Night Room

"Garton takes a classic horror setup--the bizarre antique store object you just can't help but buy and take home--and spins it to his own insidious ends. Graven Image finds Ray Garton at the top of his form."
— Christopher Golden, co-author of Bloodstained Oz

"There's a reason that Ray Garton's name is spoken with a certain amount of reverence. Garton is, simply put, one of the masters. If you've ever needed proof of that, then turn your eyes toward Graven Image, a powerful, deliriously paced tale that runs the gamut from love story to non-stop nightmare in the space of just over fifty pages. If you've never read the man's work, you're in for an eye-opening delight. If you, like me, are a long time fan, you're in for the perfect example of why Ray Garton remains one of the top names in the horror field."
— James A. Moore, author of Blood Red and the Serenity Falls trilogy

"Graven Image is the grandmaster at his chilling best.  Ray Garton never fails to push the envelope, and this brilliant, mordant tale mixes biting irony
with a terror so sheer it will make an iconoclast of everyone who reads it.  Don't start until you've read Exodus 20: 4-6 and checked your walls."
— Steven Spruill, author of Hellstone and Rulers of Darkness

"The images in Graven Image scared the living hell out of me—and still do.  What Ray Garton does with a (more than slightly distorted) crucifix is not only unique in horror literature, it sets a new standard for what we horror readers (and writers) think of as a really creepy and frightening... entity.  When you've finished Graven Image, read something tame before going to bed, because, if you don't, you either won't be able to sleep, or, if you are able to sleep, your dreams will haunt you through the night and well into the following day."
— T.M. Wright, author of I Am the Bird

"If one were to remove the theological elements from Ray Garton's Graven Image, one would still be left with a novella that is, at its heart, a howl of moral fury that cannot leave the reader unaffected; that Garton has chosen to give eloquent and frightening voice to this fury via the horror genre is our blessing. And make no mistake here, folks—this is the Ray Garton we've always known; horrific, surprisingly witty, suspenseful, thoughtful, and deeply humane—above all else, despite what happens to some of the characters, this is a deeply humane novella that also happens to be outright terrifying. If you remember his brilliant novella Monsters, then this is the companion piece you've been waiting for."
— Gary A. Braunbeck

"With Graven Image, Ray Garton really puts the fear of God into you! Simultaneously an homage and something frighteningly original--read it alone. Garton creates realistic and engaging characters, people you know and would like to meet for drinks, and then he puts them through Hell. The climax is brilliantly paced and nail-chewingly tense; once Ray puts the hammer down, he keeps your heart rate up until the final page. Great stuff from a real storyteller."
— Scott Standridge, City Slab magazine

Ray Garton is the author of over forty books, including the classic vampire novel Live Girls, the thriller Sex and Violence in Hollywood, the horror novel Scissors, and three short story collections, with two more to come. He also has written a number of young adult novels under the name Joseph Locke.

He lives in far northern California with his wife Dawn and their eight cats, where he is currently at work on his next book, Dismissed from the Front and Center, a comedy about his two years at a Seventh-day Adventist boarding academy.

In 2006, Ray received the World Horror Convention Grand Master Award at the World Horror Convention in San Francisco.

Published in two states:
• Limited Edition signed by the author, bound in full-cloth and Smyth sewn, limited to 457 copies, the number of collectors who qualified for a copy by purchasing the 2006/2007 Cemetery Dance Coupon Book (no retail price)
• Traycased Lettered Edition of 52 signed and lettered copies bound in leather with a satin ribbon page marker ($150)

Sample of the interior artwork by Keith Minnion: