Tormented Flesh

by James Nulick (Editor), Francesca Lia Block, Danielle Chelosky

Tormented Flesh is less an anthology than an infestation, a collection of voices that should have been silenced but weren’t. These are the testimonies of those who have seen beyond the veil of ordinary existence and returned with nothing but horror. It is a book that should not be read so much as succumbed to.
James Nulick has assembled something truly malign here—not a selection of stories, but a series of transmissions from a world where the flesh is not a vessel, but a prison. The writers in this collection understand that to exist is to suffer, that the body is a mistake, and that every moment of consciousness is an exercise in slow erosion. Their words will take root in you, spreading like a sickness.
Naturally, this book was passed over by those who still believe in meaning, those who think horror should resolve into something digestible, something polite. But Tormented Flesh is not interested in catharsis. It does not offer escape, only deeper entrapment. It lingers. It waits.
This is not a book to be enjoyed. It is a book to be endured, to be lived with, until it alters you in ways you cannot articulate. Open it, and you will not come away unchanged. Anxiety Press does not deal in comfort—we deal in inevitabilities.
Cody Sexton
Anxiety Press


Featured Authors/Stories:

Francesca Lia Block - Flayed

Danielle Chelosky - ABC

Matías Bragagnolo - Your Body as an Assembly Line for Public Humiliations

Matthew Kinlin - Rhinoplasty

djp - The Triple Bind

George Salis - Abiogenesis

David Simmons - Gigi’s Hands

Joshua Chaplinsky - The Toxicity of Our City

Bruno George - Wara Wara

Dave Fitzgerald - Squirrelbait

Mr. Omar King - Paul the (Optimistically Sadistic) Hound

Paul Curran - Rats in Paradise

Grant Wamack - My Gut’s Talking Crazy

Forrest Muelrath - Into the Mineral Kingdom

Justin K. Louie - Little Dreamer

David Kuhnlein - Return to Feeling

Belen Palacios - Fixture

Blake Butler - Shooter

283 pages, Paperback

First published April 22, 2025

Reviews

[Curtis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Body horror: I don't like it. I don't like being reminded I'm a body, period. There's too much going on beneath the surface, and I can't afford health insurance so I pretend it doesn't exist. I'd rather be an NPC in a matrix than a series of circulating blood vessels and connected organs. I find House and Nip/Tuck's medical scenes to be way freakier than any gory Jigsaw death.

Well, I read this book anyway. I only wanted to puke, like, five times, so I guess it could have been worse. There's a mix of straight forward stories and weird ones. I bought this for the weirder ones lol, namely Blake Butler, but I enjoyed the overall package. Matthew Kinlin's was definitely the grossest, so give him whatever sick trophy that earns him lol

[Benjamin Allee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Punctuated by standouts in David Simmons's "Gigi's Hands", Dave Fitzgerald's "Squirrelbait", and Blake Butler's "Shooter" (among more than a few others, not to mention a remarkably effective introduction from editor James Nulick), Tormented Flesh doesn't pin itself neatly to the traditional definition of 'Body Horror', allowing its bone-fragment menagerie of authors to weave in and out of the body, spirit, and mind across its highly original and unsettling tales. The collection errs toward the quick-reading and haunting, with plenty of stories that hide the 'action' in favor of more disembodied (haha) conclusions. Enjoy in the evening, avoid if feeling queasy, and if you go out running any time soon--for the sake of all that is good and holy--don't step on the squirrels.

(a 3.5 for me!)