Houses of the Holy
You can buy here at Uncivilized Books, and at your better bookstores!
A young woman undertakes a Dantean journey into the center of her psyche. Every door she encounters opens labyrinthine viewing galleries, macabre installations, and occult rituals where nothing is as it seems. Answers lead to more questions. She must abandon her false self - through despair and self-surrender - on the way to an encounter with the inner void. Houses of the Holy is a nightmarish vision of the timeless psychic struggle that makes us human.
Praise for Houses of the Holy:
“Variations of the phrase "Doesn't your heart break?" appear throughout the book, and it seems that the intense labor of making these drawings--the sheer, physical labor to create something beautifully decorative-- had an almost ritualistic quality. In other words, the decorative aspects of the book blend in with the poetic and metaphorical moments regarding accepting death's inevitability while coming to terms with one's own existence, grief, pain, and mental illness in the moment.”
—Rob Clough, The Comics Journal
"On her walk through a landscape equal parts wonder and despair, Skaalrud’s protagonist endures a series of trials, confronts haunting memories, and grapples with what seems like a constantly-escalating level of insanity. She also strips away her childhood innocence, accrues her tokens of power, and engineers her own rebirth…. An evocative journey through pain and torment, Houses Of The Holy is traumatic and defiant; raw like a cut that refuses to heal. It’s also transformative and magical, and the most wonderful reading experience I’ve had in what feels like years.
Why You Should Visit Caitlin Skaalrud's 'Houses Of The Holy'
—John R. Parker, ComicsAlliance
"Skaalrud’s drawing is so sharp and visceral […] It’s the mind and body laid bare to itself and the reader, representing childhood in the form of the bow in her hair and adulthood in the form of the trials faced."
—Foxing Quarterly
"It’s a mysterious presentation and, honestly, kind of exciting — a two-dimensional art installation skillfully rendered in real-world terms as well as the figurative ones it portrays. In this way, Skaalrud’s book is a triumph and not like anything else."
—John Seven, Vermicious
