When you frequent literary circles you find yourself asked questions like, “What is the best opening line you’ve ever read?”

For many years now, my answer to that question has invariably been The Pig by Edward Lee. I won’t include the quote here, because it’s sure to force one algorithm or another to reject my review of this single-volume trilogy. Suffice it to say, it’s irreverent, humorous, captivating, and vile…all things that virtually insist that the reader keep on going. The discerning reader will be satisfied to discover that the rest of the tale is similarly irreverent, humorous, captivating, and vile. I had the pleasure of reading The Pig and The House in a single volume quite some time ago, but this new edition from Evil Cookie Press is a trifecta, in that it includes an additional installment, picking up the loose threads left behind and running with it until anything sane is unraveled. If there’s a trigger warning out there, this volume contains the associated trigger.

The meta commentaries from the perspective of the author are an excellent touch in this new installment, providing an amusing insight into the creative mind behind this perverse and sordid tale of an isolated house on an isolated tract of land where truly awful things have taken place over a handful of decades. If you had the pleasure of experiencing this unlikely vacation spot in the previous glimpses of the 1970s and the early 2000s, you won’t be disappointed. There’s a sense of coming home as Lee invites us to revisit the haunted house in the modern day–when everything comes full circle and we are truly introduced to the monstrous forces at work. If this is your first visit–well, then–I truly envy you the opportunity that awaits.