What if your possessions--the painting hanging in your living room or the photograph on your bathroom wall--could influence you to the point of action? Or worse yet, pass on some innate degenerate trait? Disease? Neuroses?

In Portland, Oregon, an inquisitive soul, Thom, spends much of his day having these thoughts. Obsessed by what is around him, he begins to question his own wishy-washy life philosophies. But as he and his husband, Howard, struggle to navigate their rollercoaster relationship and their shaky careers as freelance writers, Thom is faced with a challenge far greater than the persuasive power of their possessions. During a once-every-33-years meteor shower, an evil unlike anything on earth lands in their neighbor's tree, setting off a string of puzzling and unsettling events beginning with the appearance of an anthropomorphic squirrel named Gordito and an invisible presence capable of mind-control.

This debut novel from acclaimed poet and short fiction writer Craig Buchner, Fish Cough, is punctuated by gallows humor and finely attuned observations of the human experience. American in setting and style, Buchner presents an alluring, uniquely disquieting journey into the dynamics of the modern psyche. Fish Cough is a new breed of novel that blurs genre and tugs at the heart all while questioning the foundational ideas of the world we live in.