About the Book

The Ceremonial Armor of the Impostor combines dark fantasy, Gothic horror, period drama, and furry literature in two thematically intertwined sequences of narrative poems. In one, a 16th-century mercenary soldier makes a phantasmagorical journey across the continent, perhaps even across time, in search of his lost comrade. In the other, a young, disaffected aristocrat of the 19th century becomes smitten with a mysterious lion-headed baron who may hold the keys to his family’s secrets.

Does a salamander god still live at the heart of the mountain? What really happened to the patients of the sanitarium? Stuffed with lurid details, yet grimly serious in tone, the book sits in a cozy spot between Proustian high literature and campy Poe-inspired midnight movies starring Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee. This is as much a loving tribute to some of Kimbrell’s favorite things as it is a brooding exploration of identity shaped by the past, societal norms, and repressed homoerotic longing.

Finding inspiration in everything from Alexandre Dumas to horror anime, The Ceremonial Armor of the Impostor is an ornate, eerie, and affecting book that begs to be read by the fire on a long, quiet winter night, when the ghosts of the past have awakened.