Welcome to Tallapoochee, a Southern backwater plagued by an experimental toxin that’s turning townsfolk into genetically modified freaks. Follow a puzzling trail of atrocities committed by an enigmatic river cult. Delve into thrilling tales of body horror, bizarro, and the weird. Read the unthinkable testimonies of the living and the dead.

This “water-breaking” collection of twelve intertwined stories combines body horror and Southern Gothic humor in a clash between a cabal of dark scientists and gospel-preaching wrestlers with a secret past. In turns terrifying and bizarre, Lee Rozelle’s new fiction is a shocking journey into murky medicine, conspiracy, and the horrors of watershed destruction.

Like Flannery O’Connor, but with toxic mermaids and body horror.

The twelve tales in Backwaters pulse with unforgettable characters, deeply imagined plots, and speculative elements that are simultaneously thought-provoking and dread-inducing. A powerful, arresting collection of connected stories with haunting images that will stay with you.
— TAMIKA THOMPSON, author of Unshod, Cackling, and Naked

Rozelle pierces—and pins open—a juicy vein of the Southern Grotesque with this collection of linked stories. The artful mutation that is Backwaters will have you both worrying about what’s in the water and checking that you haven’t sprouted an extra appendage.
— DAVID MASSENGILL, author of Grave Regrets and The Skin That Fits

Rozelle serves up a stellar collection. An absorbing and engaging feast of the abstract and uncanny.
— KEITH ANTHONY BAIRD, author of Nexilexicon