Christmas in a Jugular Vein — David Benjamin

Author David Benjamin, who’s always been fascinated by Christmas, has been writing slightly offbeat yuletide tales since he was sixteen.Christmas in a Jugular Vein compiles 38 of Benjamin’s wildly variant and slightly transgressive holiday tales and poems. Among the contents of this sometimes startling, often humorous and occasionally poignant anthology:• Eight dramas set in Bethlehem on or around 25 December 0000 AD, with all the familiar players and a few surprises.• An email from the Parkers, who’ve been imprisoned through Christmas in their “smart home” by an electronic system called THING.• Parodies and take-offs after the style of Dickens (of course), Clement Moore, Lewis Carroll (“Santawocky”) and Robert Service.• The further adventures of Murray Lefkowitz, the drunk Santa kicked out of the Macy’s Thanksgiving parade by Maureen O’Hara in Miracle on 34th Street• Scrooge’s fourth ghost and the fourth King of the Orient.• The holiday depredations of George the cat.• And hey, what’s Christmas without a zombie or two—or lots of ’em?