Emma is hitchhiking to the Badlands, trying to outrun a violent past, when a vicious scuffle with a driver leaves her bloody and stranded. She finds herself in an abandoned town in the Black Hills with an out-of-gas van, a loaded gun, and a snowstorm on the way.
The town is eerily quiet and Emma takes shelter in a deserted diner. There, she encounters Earl, a strange little boy in a tinfoil mask who begs her for help. As she is pulled into Earl’s bizarre, menacing world, the horrors of Emma’s past creep closer, and she realizes she can’t run forever.
Tinfoil Butterfly is a seductively scary exploration of evil—how it sneaks in under your skin, flaring up when you least expect it, how it throttles you and won’t let go. The beauty of this ferocious and harrowing debut is that it teaches us that love can do that too.Shortlisted for a Shirley Jackson Award, Longlisted in for Center for Fiction First Novel Prize and on the ballot for a Bram Stoker Award.
“A brutal, incredibly bizarre exploration of insanity, guilt, love, and the darkness inside all of us . . . This novel is a hybrid monster that’s part Lovecraftian nightmare and part literary exploration of evil.”
“Unrelenting and artfully crafted, this haunting debut and its tortured protagonist easily cement Moulton as a must-read writer in the horror genre.”
“The health of a genre depends, of course, on its ability to attract gifted new writers, and the past year has seen the emergence of several talented first-time novelists. ‘Tinfoil Butterfly,’ by Rachel Eve Moulton, is a visceral account of two lost souls ...” ”
“I have read no book like this. A dark adventure story that leads to an epic reckoning, all told in the most taut and vivid prose.”
“Rachel Eve Moulton’s deliciously terrifying and eerily poetic debut novel about a wounded young woman and the mysterious child she meets on a nightmare stop in the desolate Black Hills is irresistible. Fair warning: The snow comes with blood, the crows can’t be trusted, and Tinfoil Butterfly flutters with a dark heartbeat you won’t soon forget.”
