A Quagmire In The Pine Barrens.  Handmade chapbook short story.

A local farmer and amateur wildflower photographer snaps the last picture he might ever take…one he thinks is of some monster that lives in the Pine Barrens.  Tall tales and superstition tell the story of what lurks in the woods.  A monster, the Jersey Devil or perhaps Ol’ Scratch himself.

In the true fashion of such stories as Washington Irving’s The Devil and Tom Walker and Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Young Goodman Brown, when faith and superstition provoked the lives of everyday people, here is a modern yarn coursing with the same fearful blood.  Based not on the fear of faith and religion but of a more sinister force driven by greed, power and the anthropocentric ideologies that take the wilderness for granted.  When the last tree is cut down what will be left of us?  Would you sell the last plot of wilderness for a quick buck?  What is your price…the devil wants to know.

Letterpress cover on forest linen weave 80lb cover stock. Digital printed interior pages on sage fleck 60lb paper.  Hand bound with hemp cord.

This chapbook was written and hand bound by Mathew Sabatino (founder of Barnaby Black) in Sayville, NY.  

First Printing limited to 50 copies.  Signed and numbered.  March 2023.  5.5 x 8.5 | 48 pages.

For local interest this book is available at Tiny Racoon Books in Sayville.

Note: These are individually printed by hand in small batches, no two covers will be exactly alike.