It Doesn’t Matter What We Do Here or The Many Lives of Isabella Pastore

“The ghosts would then repeat the words, “Life is a song. ‘Tis your chance to sing it again,” thirteen times.
Then, the ghosts would vanish.
Nonetheless, she knew they were still around watching.
They were doing the same thing right now.
The Recently Reborn Isabella then felt their watchful eyes and their eerie presence from all around her.”

IT DOESN’T MATTER WHAT WE DO HERE: OR THE MANY LIVES OF ISABELLA PASTORE is Andrew Buckner’s ninth book with Alien Buddha Press, following titles like BROADCASTING FROM THE END OF THE WORLD (2024) and THE BEAUTY IN THE WRECKAGE (2026).

A multi award-winning poet, filmmaker, and screenwriter from Ohio, Buckner continues to blur the boundaries between form and genre, bringing his signature experimental edge to horror.

Told in four parts, this novella ultimately bouts inward, breaking the fourth wall in its final act and reshaping the narrative itself.

One night, Isabella Pastore stumbles into the home of a man she both recognizes and does not, a figure she calls The Shadowy Man. Inside, thirty-six ghosts linger. Together, Isabella and The Shadowy Man must expel the demonic entity that has made his guilt into an unending purgatory and find out the secret of Isabella’s continued rebirth