The Tumours Made Me Interesting
Matthew Revert

Hello, my name is Bruce Miles and my life means nothing to no one.

When I was 12, I watched a falcon carry away my father, leaving me to care for my mother while a mysterious illness slowly transformed her into an arm. Events like these tend to ensure a bleak future and, until recently, I was making good on that promise.

I was the sort of person you didn’t notice. I wasn’t worth noticing. Just a talentless nobody destined to die alone and unremembered.

Then I was diagnosed with terminal cancer and everything turned around.

You see, it turns out I have a gift for illness. My tumours aren’t like other tumours. They’re special. And now that I’m going to die, my once miserable life may actually be worth living. There’s this lady, Fiona. She’s what you’d call a sickness enthusiast and she has a plan that’ll rocket me to superstardom in the underground world of disease fetishists. With her help, I’m going to chase the elusive perfect tumour that will be both my legacy and the key to being something I’ve never been…

…interesting.

Praise

“I remember looking at the clock and seeing a time I’d never seen before.” 

"You see, it really is that simple. Genius is always simple in the end, and I say that having known Raymond Carver and Stanley Elkin well, and having worked for Frank Zappa, Carlos Santana and Miles Davis. I used to think I was a genius. I wonder about that now, reading this latest book by Matt Revert. Maybe I’m just Max Brod and not Franz Kafka.  Revert truly is the Light and the Way. He’s not just good, he’s the very, very rare Good Thing. If you can’t hear it, then no one can help you. Not even me."

-Kris Saknussemm, author of Zanesville, Private Midnight, Enigmatic Pilot, Sinister Miniatures and Reverend America.

"Matthew Revert’s novel, Tumors made me interesting, is one of the finest pieces of liver-fried prose I have ever read. It has the familiarity of a Beatles’ song on bad acid, the social awareness of a Dickens raped by a chimp with rabies and the humor of André Breton trying to shave with a lawn-mower. Remarkably well written, full of genius word-plays and images, it is a great piece of fiction, which will make you laugh and cringe, not necessarily at the same time."

-Sébastien Doubinsky , author of The Babylonian Trilogy

"How does one define the works of Matthew Revert? 'Erotic surrealism' comes to my mind, but I fear that it does not fully suffice. Whatever the definitions, this is very unusual fiction that strikes out boldly and confidently on its own distinctive path of creativity."

- Tabish Khair, author of Thing about Thugs and Filming