Detox Mansion

“Imagine you had a heart attack and... died and then, like, woke up in rock ‘n’ roll heaven surrounded by the people who beat you to it. And if all this really is happening and these people really are dead rock stars, then...”

Have you ever wondered where rock stars go when they die? Serenity Knolls is a holding station for deceased musicians, a place to detox before they face “the real deal”; the next stage of their journey on the way to the Big Note.

‘Detox Mansion’ has surprise guest appearances by Frank Zappa, Jimi Hendrix, Brian Jones, Duane Allmann, Tommy Bolin, Paul Kossoff, Rory Gallagher, Lowell George, Janis Joplin, ‘Mama’ Cass Elliot, Karen Carpenter; Jim Morrison, John Lennon, Roy Orbison, Hank Williams, Les Harvey, Gram Parsons, Marvin Gaye, Bob Marley, Peter Tosh, Jackie Wilson, Marc Bolan and Nick Drake. On keyboards, Nicky Hopkins, Rod ‘Pigpen’ McKernan and Graham Bond, Carl Radle, Gary Thain, Keith Moon, John Bonham, Jeff Porcaro and Robbie McIntosh, Jaco Pastorius, yes, as well as many more… and not forgetting you!

“If Chris Bell’s work has a unifying theme, it might be that of wandering; if there’s a style it might be the quality of collage or assemblage, the narratives tuning in and out of each other like voices from Holger Czukay’s shortwave radio. His short fiction puts me in mind of a pointillist: thinking big and zooming in on detail” CHAD TAYLOR, from the foreword to The Concentrated Essence of Any Number of Ravens

“Other highlights include … Detox Mansion (an afterlife fantasy in which the lead characters are Jerry Garcia and Frank Zappa)...” GARY COUZENS, writer and critic, on The Bumper Book of Lies in Zene (Britain), winter 1996

“Bell is very, very good indeed. His work is smart, mythical, intimate and wonderfully international in flavour” TERRI WINDLING, The Year’s Best Fantasy & Horror

“Chris Bell’s Saccade is a beautifully constructed, heartfelt work … He has a gift for emotionally loaded, short, concise statements” SOPHIA IOANNOU, Seven Stories Press

“Exhibiting a tremendous facility with style and form, Bell can produce everything from vigorously plotted cyberpunk narratives to whimsical daydreams” PAUL DI FILIPPO, Asimov’s Science Fiction

This wordsSHIFTminds e-book edition includes a ‘Recommended playlist’ of 10 pieces of music to listen to while reading, as well as a table of contents, biographical note and author bibliography.