Baller, Book 3 in the Eucalyptus Lane series, arrives later this spring from Outcast Press. This is the first snippet I’m sharing from that, and I’ll be back soon sharing work from my fellow writers! Click here to see the video.
Bedtime Noir #13: Percocet Summer
It's still summertime here in the US, but going by fast, so I'm sharing a sample of Paige Johnson's summer-themed transgressive poetry to try and help capture some of these last lanquid days of the season in a bottle (or pill bottle, as it were). Click below for a fix from Percocet Summer.
You can find & follow Paige on Twtter @OutcastPress1
Bedtime Noir #12: Murder and Mayhem in Tucson
Tonight I’m sharing a snippet from Patrick Whitehurst’s nonfiction book about murderous goings-on out in Tucson, Arizona, the subject and setting of Murder and Mayhem in Tucson (History Press). As both reader and writer, Patrick is no stranger to noir, horror and mystery, and his encyclopedic knowledge of all things Perry Mason and Columbo (two of my fave shows) is nothing short of amazing.
You can find out more about Patrick’s work, including his Barker Mysteries and “Sam the Thug” stories and much more at his web site, https://patrickwhitehurst.com/fiction/ .
Bedtime Noir #11: Sneak Peek at Starlite Pulp Review #2
Excited to see my short story, “Scattershot,” in the new Starlite Pulp Review #2! I’m sharing a snippet right here, and you can go to the Starlite Pulp web site or wherever you like to go to buy books and get your copy for a collection of pulp fiction (noir, crime, sci-fi, horror!) by established and emerging authors.
Bedtime Noir #10: L.A. Stories
This week I’ll share a tidbit from L.A. Stories, a trio of grindhouse novellas from Alec Cizak, Scotch Rutherford and Andrew Miller. If you’re a fan of gritty noir and dirty realism in literature and the “grindhouse” aesthetic in film, you should check it out this summer! It’s like a late night at grungy drive-in, or an illicit later-night visit to that downtown theatre you weren’t supposed to go to (but did). I wrote a more in-depth review of this book last year, so you can check that out here.
Click here for this week’s video.
More posts coming up this summer with new and recent works of noir, pulp and transgressive fiction, and more on my fave minor (though major inspo for me!) characters of noir film, TV and lit. Stay tuned!
Bedtime Noir #8
Noir and transgressive fiction often intersect; I know it does in my writing! Tonight I'm sharing a snippet from the first Outcast Press anthology, In Filth It Shall Be Found. The snippet is from “Sugar Baby,” by CT Marie. Click here to watch!
Bedtime Noir #7: O'Connor Country Edition
This week in a change of pace, I’m in downtown Milledgeville sharing a couple of my favorite stops for evening walks: Cline House, former home of Flannery O’Connor, and Memory Hill Cemetery.
While there’s much in Milledgeville that’s new, evidenced by the influx of Georgia College and Georgia Military College students from all over the country and the world, the past is ever present in the architecture, historical artifacts and the history of the place itself. It was here at the old State House (renovated and still in use at GMC as a classroom building and administrative offices; I’ve taught several English classes there) that after a night of contentious debate, Georgia voted to secede from the Union. Everywhere at Memory Hill Cemetery are graves of the Confederate dead, along with veterans of the American Revolution and their family members. There are also the graves of patients of Central State Hospital (once known as the Georgia Lunatic Asylum built in 1845), and of former slaves.
Often when I talk to people from other parts of Georgia, they speak of Milledgeville as if it’s an off-the-beaten path part of the state that they’ve never been to, and don’t know much about. There’s a lot that’s new here, as old houses are renovated and repurposed into college offices, and sorority and fraternity houses. Still, something odd about walking past white-columned mansions at sunset, glowing within from strings of bright blue, red or yellow LED lights hanging from the ceiling, with hammocks on the porch, and the occassional painted party cooler or card table on the roof.
As Milledgeville continues being constantly updated to accommodate more new students each year (it is a college town now, after all), places like Cline House and Memory Hill retain the Southern Gothic aesthetic that conjures up the mood of Southern noir, and the spectacular sunsets that inspired O’Connor herself continue to dazzle, accompanied by the sound of evening chimes from the steeple of the Catholic church where she attended morning Mass.
Whether a wrinkle on the map, or in time, O’Connor country still occupies a place in central Georgia and the imagination, populated by Misfits, discontented Ph.D’s, “freaks,” and everyone in between. O’Connor famously declared that the south claimed to be “Christ-centered” but was actually “Christ-haunted.” Just another characteristic of Southern noir that deepens its mystery, and to this day, influences life in the deep south, socially and politically.
Click here to see the video on Cline House, and here to see a bit of Memory Hill.
Bedtime Noir #6: Reading from My New Novel, Cracker!
Tonight, I’m sharing a passage from the latest book in my Eucalyptus Lane series from Outcast Press. Cracker picks up where the first book, Poser, leaves off. Much more about Cracker soon, some exciting news about upcoming publications and events (!) & more posts about film, writing, reading and life. But for now—here are a couple of scenes between Jessica and Ambrose (and Beau!) from Cracker. Click here to watch!
Bedtime Noir #5: Mediterranean Noir
This week I’m reading a short passage from Garlic, Mint, & Sweet Basil, a book of essays by Jean-Claude Izzo. He writes beautifully about Marseilles, the orgins of the noir novel, and with his Marseilles trilogy (Total Chaos, Chourmo, and Solea), is credited as the founder of modern Mediterranean noir. The bite-size little essays in the book are amazing, with lovely description. Whether you consider them short essays or flash non-fiction, each chapter only made me want to visit Marseilles that much more! Click here for video.
Bedtime Noir #4: Dead Dogs by Manny Torres
Reading from Manny Torres's debut novel. Manny has some other novels as well, including Father Was A Rat King, and Perras Malas. He’s also an accomplished visual artist. I interviewed Manny for Deep South Magazine last year, so if you’d like to know more about Chuck and Phobos from Dead Dogs, and Manny’s other work, click here for the interview.
Click here to watch my short reading from Dead Dogs.
Bedtime Noir #3: Meet Sonny Haynes
Tonight I’m reading from Brian Townsley's book of short stories, Outlaw Ballads, featuring detective Sonny Haynes. If you like southern California settings, tough guys-and women-and classic noir, you’re in for a treat! Click here for video.
Bedtime Noir 2: Valentine's Edition
Tonight, a short selection from Cracker, the next book in my neo-noir Eucalyptus Lane series from Outcast Press. And, meet Mitzi!
Source: http://www.nevada-mcpherson.com/
Slim Pickens & My Mid-Century Modern Apocalyptic Wet Dream
“It’s the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine.” --R.E.M.
Ever since I was a child, I’ve had the sense of being caught between two generations, like the gears of a clock. The youngest in an older crowd, I grew up in a small Georgia town that was suspended in a kind of time warp, and as I got older, my appreciation for the antique, retro and vintage increased. I remember summers spent at my great-aunt’s house in Macon, drawing, reading YA novels and flipping through volumes of This Fabulous Century, the Time-Life set of books that provided a photographic chronicle of each decade of the Twentieth Century. While I liked the 1920’s with its pictures of flappers, dead gangsters and deco magazine covers, the volumes I returned to most frequently were the 1940’s through 1960’s. Why?
Of course there were major historical events unfolding, and those iconic Life Magazine photos of key moments, but maybe it was the look of everyday life as well. Something about the interior décor of those years as it evolved from solid earthbound into space-age futuristic. The cars, streamlined and elegant, even with the flambouyant fins of the 1950’s. Black & white TV shows, movies and advertising showed a world as yet uncluttered by plastic bottles, styrofoam and the other detritus of disposable everything. Everyday objects like telephones, ashtrays, coffee pots, cups & saucers, took up more space, had weight & depth. People dressed up to travel, go to town, and clean the house. I was fascinated by the youth culture & style of the years that gave birth to the Beats, Charlie Parker, rock & roll, Elvis, and Janis Joplin. Guys in t-shirts and jeans, smoking cigarettes, riding in cars, girls in Bobby socks, the diners, the popular cartoons (Bill Mauldin’s Army, They’ll Do It Every Time), and the comedians: Jack Benny, Shelley Be9rman, Lenny Bruce. Mid-twentieth century was also the time of an unprecedented and profound worldwide shift.
In the 1950’s, shows like The Twilight Zone revealed the fears and anxieties of the first generation living in the shadow of the atomic bomb through brilliant short narratives, and even through set design. Among the sleek, modern lines of furniture, appliances and cars, are visual cues that reflect an awareness of humanity’s ability to toy with its collective mortality. In the “Third From the Sun” episode, where a middle class family grapples with the imminent threat of annihilation (and yes, there’s a twist), odd, misshapen objects d’art are seen in the background and foreground: figurines of animals and people, part representative, part abstract: art intended to unsettle.
Today, the hot nuclear threat that had waned into Cold War rhetoric waxes again, and like mid-twentieth century’s increasing fascination with plastic and “better living through chemistry,” more widespread technology and faster production (with fewer workers) isn’t advancing the cause of humanity. A world at tipping point on several fronts such as higher temperatures (ie "scorchers"), melting icecaps and mass extinctions, doesn’t require a nuclear war to destroy it; we’re doing a fine job of that on our own, thank you very much. It’s the logical outcome of a “disposable” society where, in the eyes of the powers that be, goods, people and animals are, as ex- newsman-turned-“mad prophet” of the airwaves, Howard Beale, claims in Network (1976), “alike as bottles of beer, and as replaceable as piston rods.”
While some world leaders wreak bloody havoc, and others wring their hands in a state of dithering incompetence, “preppers,” have written off earth's future altogether, building rockets to launch themselves into space. The Brave New World only belongs to those who can afford it, whether it’s a space ship to Mars, or plane to a posh resort that still has clean air & water, and maybe a drive-through zoo called “Last Chance to See!” housing the last of members of over a thousand animal species.
And what about the rest of us? Instead of popping milltowns, we doom scroll on social media, slipping into a solipsistic stupor, numb out on the ‘Net (the lack of which will drive many of us mad when the grid goes dark), and binge-watch TV. Not you, you say? Excellent! Then what are you doing? If you're somehow trying to make the world better, ignoring the wags who mutter about rearranging deck furniture on the Titanic, more power to you. We must arrange these deck chairs (words, notes or brush strokes, etc.) just so, if for no other reason than that somewhere in the universe there's a snapshot for the ages, and somehow, someone or something will know we were doing our best when the doomsday clock hit midnight, or high noon, whichever the case may be. That energy out there in the collective unconsciousness is seeking expression through your work. You have a duty to fulfill.
Creating art is an act of faith in the face of disaster. Again, as seen in The Twilight Zone episode, "The Midnight Sun," Norma (Lois Nettleton) continually paints the sun over the city as an earth thrown off its normal orbit hurtles toward the ever-expanding orb, slowly increasing the temperature to the point of driving the only neighbor she has left (and the radio announcer who broadcasts grim daily reports) to a nervous breakdown and eventual heat stroke and Norna herself to the edge of sanity. The only thing holding her back from the brink is her art.
In a recent re-watching of Stanley Kubrick’s 1964 film, Dr. Strangelove: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, it occurred to me that today a more apt subtitle might be “How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Watch It Burn.” While the world’s richest escape the pull of earth's gravity, the rest of us sit astride a falling bomb with Major T.J. Kong, played by Slim Pickens, whose no-holds barred cowboy swagger, all-American can-do attitude and yes, earnestness, are weirdly refreshing after the semen-obsessed macho posturing and whacko military theories being bandied about in the War Room.
In my bomb-riding fantasy, Kong smells of sweat and delirious enthusiasm as I grip tighter around his chest, holding on for dear life as he fearlessly whoops and hollers (like the former rodeo star Pickens himself was), waving his hat in a state of sheer exhilaration as ground zero rushes to meet us. True, riding a bomb while holding on for dear life is a paradox, but so is the fact that in a post-post-modern world where possibilities are endless, we drag our feet when it comes to our own self-preservation and the very survival of earth itself. Can’t something be done to save us? Yes, but focus and a sense of urgency are required, and again (here in America), hand wringing & dithering incompetence too often come into play, along with denial and endless debate over facts already in evidence.
In Dr. Strangelove, mass murder on a global scale is discussed by the numbers in the exquisitely designed War Room, and so today are various forms of negligent homicide, whether in the board room, private dining room, or anywhere else the world’s richest and most powerful gather to decide the fate of the future. For all our mid-century space-age futuristic ambitions, we're instead experiencing the reactionary vibe of Baron von Metternich, which for most of us is not a good thing. Fear and greed are the two most destructive forces in the world, but even as they run rampant, it helps to remember that from a Marx-ist perspective (Brothers, that is), there’s subversive power in comedy, and in laughter, a certain kind of hope.
Before I slip into the silvery shadows of my beloved black & white TV shows (Perry Mason, et al), and the dark corners of noir films where fate crouches, waiting to grab the next unsuspecting sucker by the ankle, I would ask you to consider Kierkegaard’s advice: "The only intelligent tactical response to life's horror is to laugh defiantly at it."
For those with their hands on the levers of power, the world by the purse strings, and egos bigger than Jupiter, the only fate worse than death is to be mocked. Laughter, like the sublime yawp of the rodeo star, like Molly Bloom's final "yes," is a ray of sun slicing through hopeless gloom.
The court jesters were unafraid to speak truth to power, to tell the King what he didn't want to hear and laugh while doing it. Truth-telling is a risky business that can get one fired, divorced, executed, assassinated, etc., but one we need desperately if this century we're in now has any shot at being "fabulous." Will it get its own set of Time-Life books?
Possibly. If we can hold it together long enough.
Book Review: Anxious Nothings, Vol. 1
Anxious Nothings, Volume 1 (Anxiety Press) is a collection of short fiction, non-fiction, poems about sex, and, as the title suggests, the attendant anxiety often surrounding it in all its forms. The introduction by editor and publisher Cody Sexton, places the collection into context with an explanation of what inspired this volume, involving a teen’s discovery of Hustler Magazine, among other things. It’s dedicated to Larry Flynt and porn impresario Al Goldstein, and while the works collected here are wide ranging in tone and topic, the intro makes for a center the way a metal framework within a clay sculpture holds it all together.
Before I read this book, I’d stumbled onto The People Vs. Larry Flynt on cable, the scene where Larry (played by Woody Harrelson) returns to the offices of Flynt Publications for the first time following his shooting. He wheels into his office, much to the chagrin of the suits looking to tone things down, and instructs the receptionist to announce on the loudspeaker, “The pervert is in the building.” This book seems to suggest the pervert is indeed in the building, and to paraphrase Walt Kelly’s comic possum, Pogo, “We have met the pervert, and he is us.”
If sexuality is an integral part of being human, and if it really does take all kinds to make the world go around, every one of us could be considered perverts to some degree, seen through the lenses (or technological keyholes) of the censorious forces present in society, especially in the U.S., which has a much more puritanical culture than the land of “freedom and liberty” is usually willing to admit.
Depending on one’s personality and mindset, these works may prompt laughter, (Grayson Lagrange’s “Feeding the Ducks” and Jason Gerrish’s “Slaw”), a sense of horror or dread (Paula Deckard’s “Girl’s End”), disgust (Sebastian Vice’s “Ass Eating”), and even pity tempered with cool satisfaction that the bad guys/chicks in the story got what was coming to them (Paige Johnson’s “Ruffled Feathers” and Kristin Garth’s “Jungle Rules”). Snacking on this collection of literate pornographic bon-bons is a liberating experience in many ways, acknowledging the pervert within one’s own psyche, and meeting it with a high five of recognition thus subverting any authority threatened by the anarchic freedom of thinking for oneself, reading what one pleases, and engaging in life, liberty and the pursuit of pleasure between two—or more—consenting adults.
The transgressive behavior found in Anxious Nothings is unfiltered and unadulterated save what judgements the reader brings to it, which gives each piece in the collection certain qualities of a Rorschach test administered in a quiet corner at a wild party. No therapist here, though, only the intermittent palate-clearing snippets of sage words by the likes of the Marquis de Sade, Karl Marx, Mark Twain, and Gertrude Stein, with text graphics for these made to look like cut-out ransom notes, heightening the illicit nature of the content and grounding it within the wisdom that there is nothing that threatens you from between these covers, only modern stories, poems and essays about age-old cornerstones of human nature. The characters herein may be anxious, but you, dear reader, need not be. You are in good hands. You are human. Fear not.
However.
Right before I wrapped up this review, I was flipping through channels and again stumbled upon The People Vs. Larry Flynt. This time, it was near the ending, where Larry wants to take his case against Jerry Falwell to the U.S. Supreme Court. Larry’s lawyer, Alan Isaacson (played by Edward Norton), resists, afraid that Larry will make a mockery out of an appearance in front of such of an august institution, but Isaacson finally acquiesces, and prevails. In light of recent rulings, I have to wonder what the future now holds for free speech in America, and for other freedoms most have long taken for granted.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt famously said that we have “nothing to fear, but fear itself,” yet now more than ever we seem to be a nation in the grip of fear and loathing. Writing hobbled by fear, tempered by prevailing opinion about what is “acceptable” makes for a lukewarm experience through which nothing is learned, gained, no fun is had, and time is wasted. This one is worth the time, whether as a left-handed bon-bon of ballsy entertainment or thought-provoking starting point for a conversation with yourself about why something makes you feel the way it does. This is a strange, bold book for even stranger times, a post-modern Whitman’s Sampler of fearless writing. It is a literary anthology that contains unapologetic, unvarnished, explicit sexual content. You may love it, or you may be offended, but if books like this get banned, you’ll never know.
Be bold. Be fearless and support others who are.
Freedom depends on it.
Book Review- L.A. Stories: Three Grindhouse Novellas
L.A. Stories (Uncle B. Publications) is a collection of three interconnected novellas written by Alec Cizak, Scott Rutherford and Andrew Miller, respectively, with an introduction by Rex Weiner that firmly sets the tone for the mayhem to follow. This book is everything it purports to be, with the cover design of a VHS porn tape, populated by prostitutes in various sleazy stances whose looks are less “come-hither” than “come on down.” Indeed, L.A. Stories pulls readers down into the gutter, through back streets and cheap motels where dirty deals are orchestrated and executed. Equally dirty are the secret and no-so-secret lives of the corrupt who pose as “moral betters” of society, both the purveyors of entertainment and salvation, whose proclivities, from the gastronomical to the sexual, make the streetwalkers plying their trade look positively wholesome.
Set in late ‘70’s/ early 80’s Hollywood, at the dawn of the Reagan era, with twin threats to free speech as the right’s “silent majority” finds its strident voice and the left’s “political correctness police” seek to rein in the excesses (or is it the freedoms?) of the waning “Me Decade,” Alec Cizak’s “The Temple of the Rat” drops us in a part of L.A. that’s far more grit than glitter, but nevertheless, the Hollywood aura beckons the bright and ambitious, damaged and distorted alike, including a mentally ill homeless combat veteran and zealous evangelical Christians imposing their twisted world views on others. It holds in its orbit washed-up Hollywood execs trying to claw their way back into the good graces of the powers-that-be, and shines a light on shadowy vermin-infested structures where the up-and-coming elite indulge in bizarre rites symbolic of the imminent devolution of American democracy. If some aspects border on the polemic, one need only look around to see this at turns as both a realistic and an allegorical tale of What’s to Come.
Scotch Rutherford’s “The Roach King of Paradise” is a return to straight-up crime-fiction territory, with a colorful cast of criminals, misfits and hippy-esque do-gooders drifting in and out of the Paradise Motel, a hell-hole of an address and for the unfortunate girls being trafficked there, a dungeon. Gangsters in their glittering rides float in and out of the parking lot, crooked ex-cops show up to get their fixes, and the management seeks to maximize profits with minimum interference, enlisting the help of the “Roach King,” a shadowy figure part exterminator, part hit-man, to maintain order. Rutherford manages the various activities at the Paradise with cinematic ease, drifting in and out of its rooms amid scenes of varying degrees of depravity, from which one rare instance of compassion stands out in this harsh world as especially memorable.
Andrew Miller’s “Lady Tomahawk” caps off the narrative grindhouse with a buffed-out heroine who lives up to her name and turns on its ear the notion of the innocent girl who comes to Hollywood with stars in her eyes. Film and fashion references streaming throughout this section herald the coming decade of, up until then, unparalleled greed. The behind-the-scenes view glimpsed here of rampant hypocrisy might seem over-the-top in tamer times, but these are not tame times. Like in Gore Vidal’s novel, Hollywood, about how American power and influence migrated west with the rise of cinema to make La-la Land a twin capitol, here that concept is sexed-up, debauched and left ship-wrecked in bloody sheets while the perps shower and go to church.
A far cry from most cultural time capsules of this transformational era such as the free-wheeling college kids turned earnest yuppies of The Big Chill and even the human fall-out of the transition from old-school porno to videotape in Boogie Nights (yes, I’m aware these are movie references, but hey, this is Hollywood), this decadent romp through L.A.’s underworld, at turns violent and profane, humorous and profound, put me in mind of a late-night underground movie that I know might give me bad dreams but I can’t stop watching until I see how it ends.
And the end isn’t reassuring in the least.
Book Review: The Recalcitrant Stuff of Life, by Sean McCallum
If books are supposed to transport one to another place and time, The Recalcitrant Stuff of Life by Sean McCallum (Outcast Press) is a vehicle for a journey to a mystical place where few have been. The physical destination is Iquitos, Peru, and the emotional destination is to the heart of what makes one human. Roosevelt’s (Rosie’s) journey there is originally to escape the pain of a (very) bad relationship, and his best friends, freewheeling Deuce and strait-laced Izzy, are on a mission is to find and return Rosie to Canada. Of course, best laid plans do often go awry, but in this case, detours and derailments lead to better things for all involved, albeit each of these three has to walk through his own kind of fire to attain them.
The structure of this book is complex but like the fractal geometric patterns that so captivate Vanessa, another seeker arriving in Iquitos whose story weaves in with that of the three main characters, it has a clarity and symmetry that makes for a satisfying conclusion. Flashbacks of what brought Rosie to Iquitos are like pieces in a mosaic that, by the final page, create a clear snapshot of Rosie’s emotional journey that started well before the beginning of the book. As the story progresses, the teeming chaos of Iquitos and of these characters’ lives doesn’t really sort itself out so much as provide the travelers with tools to navigate this world a little better the next day than the day before.
In Iquitos, resistance to the flow of life is futile, and if there’s one thing Rosie has learned and the others will eventually, the best one can do is go with it and stop trying to make sense of everything.
It’s only through Rosie’s resignation to making all the pieces fit: his past, present and what the future holds, that he finds the way back to himself. The disparate shards of his recent past start to fall away when he meets Vanessa, and the slights, questions and betrayals that hang between Izzy and the Deuce come to a head even as they briefly celebrate a mission accomplished by finding Rosie before turning back for the more than 5000-mile return trip home.
The portal ringed by fire, guarded by dragons of memory through which each must pass (FYI, this isn’t a fantasy; just figurative language here, nonetheless apt) is the experience that awaits them all deep in the Amazon jungle when they take part in an ayahuasca ceremony. To say that one “trips” on this drug, or very intense plant-based substance, doesn’t do it justice. Its effects on the mind and body are as spectacular as they are terrifying, and it is not an experience to be taken lightly. Having already transported us to an unfamiliar place, McCallum does us one better by transporting us though the violent pyrotechnics produced by the individual experiences of Rosie, Deuce, Izzy and Vanessa in the throes of ayahuasca so that, like them, we emerge whole but not unsinged. This book contains indelible images, but one phrase that still echoes in my mind is that of being “pulled under,” as when members of the group are most firmly in the clutches, or embrace, of ayahuasca tea, and which that is can change moment to moment.
McCallum’s insider knowledge of this remote location imbues the fictional narrative with documentary realism, making it a different kind of novel, one that deserves a special place on the shelf with others containing mystical wisdom, along with the geography of the continent to our south, and that of the heart.
Review: In Filth It Shall Be Found
It’s been a while since I’ve written a review and this is the first of many I'm about to share. I’ve been undergoing my own personal transformation for the past couple of years and this is the perfect book with which to resume my literary musings. In Filth It Shall Be Found, the first volume of transgressive fiction from Outcast Press (ed. Paige Johnson) is a carnivalesque tour of the of the human spirit's darker side, and in keeping with its Jungian title, invites readers along on a Bahktinian journey through the netherworld of consciousness where the “It” of the title is discovered.
Russian philosopher and theorist Mikhail Bahktin identified and described 4 hallmarks of the carnivalesque world view that can be found in literature, and these pinged around in my mind immediately after I’d finished the book . While this isn’t meant to be an academic analysis or anything other than my own experience reading Filth, the fact that the ping was loud and persistent shows there is order in chaos, sanity in madness, and that this collection exemplifies the transformative power of transgressive fiction.
Using Bahktin's hallmarks of the carnivalesque as guideposts on this tour, the first, “familiar and free interaction between people where barriers are broken,” is the crux of Don Logan’s “Isaac and Me,” where the worlds of a homeless man and a mysterious “kid” collide then separate leaving one of them indelibly marked by betrayal. CT Marie's “Sugarbaby” is a train wreck that begins on a subway and ends in an unexpected place (for this reader anyway). In both of these stories, the urban setting heightens the “random” precision of chance encounters, Hitchcockian intersections where fate lurks behind the scenes, then steps out and knees you in the groin when you least expect it.
The next hallmark is “eccentric behavior,” where society’s norms are broken and/or blithely ignored without consequences. Simon Broder's“Dollhouse" flows in this vein, exposing the lie that grown-ups are wiser than kids, featuring an immature narrator with a most distinctive voice. Another example of eccentric behavior stretched to extremes is Emily Woe's “The Secret Smile,” where the narrator's utter blindness to the consequences of his own actions is nothing short of remarkable.
The hallmark of “carnivalistic” mesalliances” where those normally separated unite, is personified in Paige Johnson's “The Blue Hour.” Set in a strip club where lines are both crossed and laid out on a table, the roles of performer and spectator are blurred as forbidden familiarity portends a special kind of friendship, doom, or both. Another case of forbidden familiarity is examined in G.C. McKay ‘s “Je Ne Sais Quoi,” in a father's tortured observations of his daughter's odd behavior.
The final hallmark of the carnivalesque world view, “profanation,” is on full-frontal display with “The Fire Inside,” by Sebastian Vice, where anarchic take-down of all that is “holy” debases and grinds guardians of corrupt power into the ground. Profanation of the human body, specifically the female body, occurs in Amanda Cecelia Lang's “Daisy in the Dirt,” its dark magical realism sparkling with a crystal-clear awareness gained in the presence of death.
The book’s cover art features a woman removing a mask, an appropriate image to represent this volume. Perhaps I have a particular affinity for the notion of the carnivalesque and what it represents, having lived in New Orleans for nearly twenty years. There, Carnival season is a time when normal rules don’t apply: everyday routes are altered, appetites indulged, and appearances don’t represent reality. Bourbon Street swells into a bacchanalian mass of humanity in all its wonder and debauchery. The success of each Mardi Gras is measured by the amount of trash collected on Ash Wednesday, but for weeks and even months afterward, one finds glitter in the gutters, and beads hanging from the trees. Such is the effect of feasting on the stories herein and coming to the last page: the show is over, parade passed, but the details linger and haunt.
Each of the twenty stories in this anthology makes its unique contribution to the transgressive gestalt of In Filth It Shall Be Found. I look forward to seeing more from all these writers in the future, and more anthologies from Outcast Press.
Laissez le bon temps rouler!
It's an Ending--and a Beginning
Finished POSER New Year’s Eve and now doing a final edit—well, not final—but enough to keep going forward, getting it into the best shape it can be (#journey, # process!). I spent most of 2020 on this project and little else, but now I’ll be back at the blog more frequently—at least once a week— and I have a new “Fretville” ready to post soon! Happy belated New Year and all best to you on YOUR writing/ reading/ whatever-project-makes-you-most-happy goals!
Gates of Hell sculpture at Stanford. A pivotal scene from Poser takes place near here.
Back for 2020!
Yes, it's been a minute since I've posted here. I last posted during NaNoWriMo. I made my 50,000 word count by the deadline but now I'm working to finish the entire novel by the end of this month. More here soon about progress on Poser, and bits and pieces of inspiration that help me long the way.