Throat Sprockets
Report an issue
Tell us what's wrong and we'll take a look.
Thanks – we got it. We'll review and follow up if needed.
In a fading old porno theater in a town called Friendship, a mild-mannered young advertising writer watches a movie called Throat Sprockets and is never the same again. As he becomes increasingly obsessed with the film, it infects him with a new erotic aesthetic that finds expression through his advertising work, spreading its vampiric influence on a local, national, and eventually international level. As his old life crumbles and a new one begins to take shape, he sets out on a quest to discover the secrets of the film's creation and the identity of its mysterious creator.
Tim Lucas's genre-defying cult classic was featured in Stephen Jones and Kim Newman's Horror: 100 Best Books series and chosen by Rue Morgue as one of the Best Alt Horror Novels. This special 30th Anniversary Edition includes an introduction by Tananarive Due and a brand-new, novella-length penultimate chapter, filling in the past three decades of the protagonist's misadventure.
"Throat Sprockets, a dark, brilliant crow in the literary sky, is terrifying and euphoric both in its portrayal of obsession. Lucas is a first-rate writer." - Alexander Theroux
"To read Throat Sprockets is to understand that every vampire story before now has missed the mark." - Cosmopolitan
"Genuinely kinky and perverse and smart." - Bret Easton Ellis
"Witty and thoughtful and consistently surprising and above all deeply unsettling." - Ramsey Campbell
"A chic and darkly humorous study of sexual obsession ... a witty reworking of the Dracula myth starched stiff with irony ... a stylish, provocative debut novel." - The Times
"A brilliant novel." - Maxim
"Be warned: this is no ordinary novel. I searched my bookshelves for apt comparisons, and soon realized that I could only invent them: Dracula rewritten by J.G. Ballard, Last Year at Marienbad directed by Mario Bava.... Here, at last, is what readers have been waiting for: a new, and very dark vision ... This is the most original and unnerving first novel that I've read in years. Stunning." - Douglas E. Winter
Tim Lucas
Prior to writing The Book of Renfield: A Gospel of Dracula (2005), TIM LUCAS made his literary debut with Throat Sprockets (1994), which Terry Windling and Ellen Datlow's The Year's Best Horror and Fantasy singled out as the year's best first novel. It was later selected by Rue Morgue as one of 50 "essential alternative horror novels" and chosen for tribute by novelist Tananarive Due in Stephen Jones & Kim Newman's Horror: Another 100 Best Books. After a long but busy hiatus, he returned to fiction in 2021 with the genre-shattering novella The Secret Life of Love Songs (2021) and The Man with Kaleidoscope Eyes (2022), a fictionalized account of director Roger Corman's adventures prior to making his 1967 summer hit, The Trip.He is now in his sixth decade as a widely published film critic, essayist, and journalist, beginning with his first publication in Cinefantastique at the age of 15 and reaching its zenith in a near 30-year run as editor and chief critic of the influential Video Watchdog magazine, which he published with his wife Donna Lucas. He has also written for Sight & Sound (where his "NoZone" column ran for eight years), Film Comment, American Cinematographer, Cahiers du Cinéma, Starfix, Metro, Little Shoppe of Horrors, Eyeball, Fear and his own popular blogs Video WatchBlog and Pause. Rewind. Obsess. In addition to contributing to numerous film-related books and compendiums, he is also the author of the mammoth critical biography Mario Bava: All the Colors of the Dark (2007) and three book-length movie monographs, Videodrome (2008), Spirits of the Dead (2018) and Succubus (forthcoming).To date, his work in the horror/fantasy field has been honored with two Saturn Awards, the Independent Publishers Bronze Medal Award, the International Horror Guild Award, and a record 20 Rondo Hatton Classic Horror Film Awards, including their Legacy Award and his shared induction with Donna into their "Monster Kid" Hall of Fame.Since the turn of the century, Tim has gained particular notice for his work as a prolific DVD, Blu-ray, 4K/UHD audio commentator, having written, recorded, narrated and edited more than 150 feature-length film lectures included on disc, released in America and abroad. Now widowed, he continues to make his home in Cincinnati, Ohio.
Why Readwise Books?
Readwise Books is an ebook & audiobook platform that automatically logs how much you and your friends read, making it fun and easy to read more. Learn more →