Bone Horn - BookWyrm

1 pages

English language

Published 2025 by Cipher Press.

ISBN:: 978-1-917008-11-2

(1 review)

Gertrude Stein and Alice B Toklas are the most famous married couple of Modernism, icons of literary queer history. But what if Alice had a secret? What if, underneath her thickly cultivated fringe and low brimmed hats, there was something sinister growing? What if, as Picasso claimed, Alice B. Toklas really did have a horn?

This is what the mysterious voice on the phone is asking of her. And she’s in no position to hang up; a newly registered Private Investigator, she recently walked away from an exploitative job in academia, is bereaved following the sudden death of her partner, and has a kid to support. The case sounds ridiculous, but she needs the money. Okay, she tells the voice. I’ll find the horn. The job takes her from London to Paris to San Francisco, from a Hemingway’s kitchen table to a Beat-inspired hotel run by an investment bank. Just …

Gertrude Stein and Alice B Toklas are the most famous married couple of Modernism, icons of literary queer history. But what if Alice had a secret? What if, underneath her thickly cultivated fringe and low brimmed hats, there was something sinister growing? What if, as Picasso claimed, Alice B. Toklas really did have a horn?

This is what the mysterious voice on the phone is asking of her. And she’s in no position to hang up; a newly registered Private Investigator, she recently walked away from an exploitative job in academia, is bereaved following the sudden death of her partner, and has a kid to support. The case sounds ridiculous, but she needs the money. Okay, she tells the voice. I’ll find the horn. The job takes her from London to Paris to San Francisco, from a Hemingway’s kitchen table to a Beat-inspired hotel run by an investment bank. Just when she thinks the case is dead, that no horn exists, she finds herself knee-deep in trouble with someone hot on her heels…

At once a reimagining of the lone wolf detective and a hilarious take down of self-important scholarship, Bone Horn is a smart, hilarious, sexy, and poignant mystery novel about queerness, unbearable grief, and the question of stories, and which are ours to tell.

1 edition

Jaelyn reviewed Bone Horn by Prudence Bussey-Chamberlain

"They mostly want it in the EE Cummings section"

5 stars

A private investigator and former academic gets an unusual mystery from an anonymous client: Find the secret horn of Alice B. Toklas, hidden from the world under her thick fringe and low brimmed hats.

Needing the money to support her kid and still looking for direction amidst the grief left by the death of her partner, she scours archives and interviews contacts from Paris to San Francisco hoping for a lead.

This book is perfect if you've ever been tempted to spice up your English Lit dissertation with high stakes tension, noir-esque monologues on the nature of grief and copious amounts of gay sex*. Indeed it seems every supporting character with a name is rapidly identified as queer and fucked (yet in a very unsatisfying, grief ridden private detective way); and I am here for that energy.

It strikes a wonderful balance of sincerity and absurdity that kept me laughing …

A private investigator and former academic gets an unusual mystery from an anonymous client: Find the secret horn of Alice B. Toklas, hidden from the world under her thick fringe and low brimmed hats.

Needing the money to support her kid and still looking for direction amidst the grief left by the death of her partner, she scours archives and interviews contacts from Paris to San Francisco hoping for a lead.

This book is perfect if you've ever been tempted to spice up your English Lit dissertation with high stakes tension, noir-esque monologues on the nature of grief and copious amounts of gay sex*. Indeed it seems every supporting character with a name is rapidly identified as queer and fucked (yet in a very unsatisfying, grief ridden private detective way); and I am here for that energy.

It strikes a wonderful balance of sincerity and absurdity that kept me laughing yet deeply invested. It's also a great way to pick up some queer and literary history!

*=Disclaimer: I don't care how subby you are, if your ACAB doesn't include fit lesbian policewomen who want to dominate you, it's not ACAB. Get some standards, girl.