Marion’s novel Warm Blood, about a zombie who develops feelings for a living girl, was a massive worldwide hit, and was even turned into a successful movie. So there was something glorious about this collection of self-published stories emerging at around the same time – you could only order it directly from him, and he signed each copy.

Every story in the collection is weird, wondrous or wacky, and sometimes all three. You’re never quite sure where you stand, or even what you’re standing on. This story is a perfect example – a boy and a girl meet in a bar and then spend the evening walking along power lines and robbing banks. Are they not human in some way? Vampires? Lizard people? Or is this all just a metaphor for being high on someone else when you first meet them?

Marion continues to be super-interesting. He seems to have been burned by his fliration with Hollywood and Big Publishing, and now produces lovely music and videos from a shed he has built on land he bought in East Washington State. Look him up on YouTube. You’ll be intrigued.

Collected in The Hungry Mouth, self-published by Marion, 2012