Will Christopher Baer

Born in Mississippi in 1966. Old southern family. Lived in Montreal and Italy as a child. Spent high school years in Memphis, TN. Attended college in New Orleans, LA (Tulane) but soon dropped out. Finished B.A. at Memphis State. Headed west in 1990 and lived in Oregon for several years (Portland & Eugene). Received MFA 1995 from Jack Kerouac School at Naropa Institute in Boulder, CO. Has lived in California since '96, primarily in Bay Area and L.A. Worked as homeless counselor, taxi driver, bartender, video store geek, college professor (Evergreen State, Olympia, WA) screenwriter and journalist. Short stories have been published in numerous places, notably Nerve and Bomb. First of the Phineas Poe novels, Kiss Me, Judas originally pub. in '99, selected as Barnes & Noble best new voice, translated into five languages. Penny Dreadful was pub. in 2001. Married, one child by previous marriage. One brother, parents still living. [Read more]

Kiss Me, Judas
Penguin Books, 1998 (PhP 100.00)
"Dont worry," a voice whispers. "You really only need one." Phineas Poe, disgraced cop turned psychiatric case, turned murder suspect, turned reluctant kidney donor. Gives $200 to a beautiful woman in a red dress, a scar at the edge of her mouth and a body like a knife. Wakes up in a bath of melting ice, blood on his fingers and staples in his side. Now she haunts his dreams and his days. She's got his kidney onice and her teeth in his heart. Finding her means throwing himself into a drug-blurred underworld. Falling in love with her means fighting to avoid her becoming her accomplice as well as her victim. Fast, corrosive wit. Glittering, razor-sharp images. A cast of comic and sister characters. Part love story, part mystery, part hallucination, "Kiss Me, Judas" is a startling novel of modern noir.