Caroline PicardCaroline Picard’s lyrical essay, The Strangers Among Us is a beautifully written exploration into the human obsession with cats and cat-like behavior. Picard makes use of philosophy, art criticism, YouTube videos, and James Joyce’s Ulyssess to reason through, not only the popular culture fascination with our feline companions, but her personal relationship with own her cats. Part philosophical exploration, part touching memoir, all head and heart, The Strangers Among Us is a must for animal lovers, artists, and book lovers alike. Limited to 100 copies.
Joanna RuoccoJoanna Ruocco’s, The Whitmire Case is a detective story on its ear. A journalist is recruited by a Sheep farmer to investigate an incident involving a young woman who has suddenly been forgotten by her family and community. Nathan Ruck and his wife are the only couple in town who still remember the teenage girl and are forced to take her in but their patience has run thin. Absurd and metaphysical, decentering and playful, The Whitmire Case is everything we’ve come to love about Ruocco’s work. Limited to 100 copies.
Talal AlyanAt the intersection of narrative and noise, the poems in Babeldom emerge to explore and translate the unheard and strange babel that surrounds our different worlds. These poems grasp at the hurried and ephemeral conversations within and outside of us that stretch from the quiet hours we spend alone to the anonymous faces that we pass on our daily commutes. Babeldom is the exploration of all of this, this kingdom of babel, that we all wake and sleep in, in which the muffled noise you hear from across the street might be the prayer or indignation or defeat of another protagonist in different story.
David GruberPoetry. "In David Gruber's SLEEPERS' REPUBLIC nature is dreaming, and we are its dreams. Time is slowed down or speeded up: 'suddenly, the sun / gives way to stars.' And: 'What we knew moves sudden / without warning / throwing us to the ground / an emptiness in the sea / The air above us filled with fruit.' It may be that love 'offers the opposite of a kiss,' yet Gruber's upended universe is nonetheless an exhilarating medium in which the reader can both swim and breathe"—John Ashbery.
Ellen WelckerPoetry. Winner of the 2009 Astrophil Poetry Prize. Foreword by Eleni Sikelianos. "I feel so grateful to live in a world that has books such as THE BOTANICAL GARDEN. Lyric elegy, futuristic science fiction, aliens and whales, Oulipian listing. It is all here in this beautifully moving book"—Juliana Spahr.
Mark TursiPoetry. In BRUTAL SYNECDOCHE, Mark Tursi transcends static genre markers of poetry and prose. BRUTAL SYNECDOCHE moves through different registers; there are language oriented poems, narrative poems, comical poems, and lyrical poems. Tursi has the ability to write through these modes with confidence. BRUTAL SYNECDOCHE has something for everyone.
"'I am here to hustle you,' writes Mark Tursi in his terrific second book, BRUTAL SYNECDOCHE. In his meditations on culture, identity, religion, language (which one cannot avoid any more than one can avoid piss in a swimming pool,according to the first poem of the book), Tursi writes in a very casual tone, but the imagery is incredibly intensive. The result is a kind of 'hustling': the poems not only tug the reader along, but are already hustling themselves, already at conflict. As in most of these poems, there is an obscene humor at work as well in this line—the slang connotations of 'hustling' have to do with seduction and prostitution. But these unresolved conflicts, such as the prominent one between the sacred and profane, become the key to Tursi's vision: 'But hell, who cares, we'll have a wild time later at the crematorium. Listening to the murmr and hust of dust to dust, ashes to ashes... Look there's God's grandeur...right underneath the lid of that coffin.' Perhaps Tursi is a great religious poet after all. No pervert. No visionary."—Johannes Göransson
Erica T. WurthSixteen-year-old Margueritte wants out. Out of her small town, where girls get pregnant young and end up stuck, like her mom. Out of a world where drugs are often the only relief. Out of a family where herNative American mother won’t leave her white, alcoholic, abusive father, no matter how much Margueritte pleads. Margueritte hopes if she and her cousin Jake sell enough weed, they can at least escape to Denver one day. That’s when Mike comes to town. Like Margueritte, he loves to read, he’s funny, and he’s Indian–though unlike Margueritte, he’s adopted out, and doesn’t really understand who he is. That’s when Margueritte gets pregnant. Now what’s she going to do? Get trapped like mom? And is Mike everything that he seems? A coming-of-age novel about the female, urban Indian experience, CrazyHorse’s Girlfriend is not only a gritty, unexpectedly funny, page-turning novel about a girl who just wants a little bit more–it’s an instant classic.
Ex-Members is a novel about punk scenes, old secrets, and hometowns that stalk us and break our hearts despite our best efforts to escape.There are ruined things in the town of New Dutchess, New Jersey. A hotel that was never finished; a train line that never came. This is the town that Åsa Morgan thought she’d leave behind; this is the town Virgil Carey couldn’t leave. It’s the town where Dean Polis first started writing songs, and the town where something awful fell from a building one day. It’s where the band Alphanumeric Murders got their start, and where a series of tape recordings reveal the troubled history of the band and the lives of its members.
From the author of Breathless in Bombay and Third Eye Rising comes an intensely engaging novel about life, family, friendship, and duty. In the heart of Pali Hill, the Beverly Hills of Mumbai, four friends await the arrival of Jonathan, a man “greatly appreciated for his wit, his effervescence, and his indignation,” a man exiled from his home state. Through their conversations, we learn of the tumultuous life of Jonathan – how he single-handedly breaks up a gambling den, disarms a rioting mob, charms a recovery agent, evades arrest at a drug-ridden rave party, and brightens up the lives of sex workers and their children. Jonathan has a solution for every crisis that strikes others, but not for his own dysfunctional family life. It is left to life then to resolve matters for him. Drawing on the terse intensity of a play, the sparkling wit of a stand-up comedy, and the insights of a thought-provoking novel, Waiting for Jonathan Koshy reflects the triumph of a spirit that refuses to let up on humor and quick thinking in the face of intense personal adversity. It is a book about friendship, perseverance, family obligations, and duty. Most importantly, about life’s late but redeeming powers.
Vincent James, Rowland Saifi, McCormick TemplemanSwerve is a dreamscape detective novel caught up in a multiversal calamity. Swerve jostles and hums. Swerve might be Galileo's cousin, Margaret Cavendish’s niece, and Stephen Hawking’s step-child. Swerve is a once in a generation book that tells the story of three distinct detectives who move across the United States and beyond, uncovering pieces of a mercurial puzzle spanning space and time. As each section unfolds and is interpreted through the others, the detectives’ stories begin to collapse, rewrite, and ultimately, illuminate each other. Taking on a set of constraints (involving dice, reference authors, and geographic points) reminiscent of an OULIPO novel, Swerve invites readers to participate in the investigation alongside the characters, gathering clues, assembling narrative, and piecing together resonances. Come join the mystery—Swerve will not disappoint.
Steve Von Till’s poems are lamentations—elegies for the loss of wildness, songs of hope, chants of spirit, and dreams of survival. In Harvestman, Von Till meditates on what it means to be human during a time of modern alienation from nature, the past, community, and ultimately from ourselves. This is the first collection from Von Till, who is primarily known as a singer and guitarist in the highly influential and genre defying collective, Neurosis, which has been credited with changing the face of heavy music over the last 35 years. In these tender passages, Von Till seeks meaning and mystical significance in the natural world, where he finds himself in the vastness of the ocean and the majesty of the forested mountain ranges. Shamanistic visions of ancestors and elemental forces create a unique form where gothic Americana merges with ancient mythologies in minimalistic poems that ask us to contemplate history, genetic memory, and the complexities of humanity. This worldly and weathered first work of poetry and collected lyrics is a history lesson from old punk rock bard turned rural spiritual poet, who connects us to the American West and older wisdoms.
Eric E. OlsonFiction. "Murder is afoot, or aslither, in Newport Bay, the setting for Eric Olson's bracingly odd, darkly infolding tale of a Pacific Northwest hamlet where the shellfish have come up to take the air, the townspeople are turning very strange and the television cameras are rolling. Twin Peaks meets The Living Planet (with a dash of Groundhog Day) in this brilliant debut--Olson is off to an exciting start"--Laird Hunt.
Keith AbbottLiterary Nonfiction. Memoir. In DOWNSTREAM FROM TROUT FISHING IN AMERICA: A MEMOIR OF RICHARD BRAUTIGAN, Keith Abbott paints a portrait of Richard Brautigan as a lovable and whimsical friend. Abbott explains the writer's dedication to the art of fiction and his quest to break beyond the pop culture, hippie label that haunted him until his suicide in1984. Brautigan's tight prose inspired authors such as Haruki Murakami, and his experimentation with the line won him accolades from authors like Ishmael Reed, Raymond Carver, and Michael McClure. His work is highly influential and Abbott draws a clear connection between Brautigan's life and his writing. This book is essential for anyone who is interested in the work of Richard Brautigan. As Raymond Carver wrote, "Truly the best thing I've ever seen written of the man."
Brian Evenson
CONTAGION AND OTHER STORIES is one of Brian Evenson's most sought after and lauded collections of fiction. It has been out of print for nearly a decade. With short stories like the O. Henry Award-winning "Two Brothers," Evenson takes his readers into a world that is at once apocalyptic, dark, observant, and grotesque without ever dipping into static genre conventions. CONTAGION AND OTHER STORIES shows Brian Evenson at his best—taunt sentences, sharp dialogue, and deep psychological subtext. A must have for any fan of contemporary fiction or fans of Brian Evenson.
"CONTAGION remains one of the most strange and powerful books of the new millennium."—The Believer
Erika T. WurthErika T. Wurth's Buckskin Cocaine is a wild, beautiful ride into the seedy underworld of Native American film. These are stories about men maddened by fame, actors desperate for their next buckskin gig, directors grown cynical and cruel, and dancers who leave everything behind in order to make it, only to realize at thirty that there is nothing left. Poetic and strange, Wurth’s characters and vivid language will burn themselves into your mind, and linger.
