Monday, July 28, 2008

'Live in a Hive of Sex Rooms and Flickering Blue Movie Cubicles'

JOHANNES GORANSSON has a new hybrid-form novel (almost) out called DEAR RA from Starcherone Books, who also recently released Zachary Mason's THE LOST BOOKS OF THE ODYSSEY (which I am reading now and loving quite a bit).

I read Johannes's last book, A NEW QUARANTINE WILL TAKE MY PLACE and was absolutely ripped by it, what Johannes is doing, a kind of multihanded-in-one-mind movement towards a new brutal surrealism in quick pleasure bursts. QUARANTINE was one of my favorite new books so far this year, and I am excited to read DEAR RA. A review will be forthcoming, but in the meantime, if you are interested in new surrealism, Johannes is vital, order yourself a copy of both, you will not regret it.



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Thank you to everyone who has preordered and/or blogged re: NO COLONY issue 1. I am excited.

Jereme Dean bought 4 copies and is giving away 3 of them in THIS POST ON HIS BLOG. He is having a comment contest and will select 3 winners to get free issues. Jereme Dean is a king, I love this idea for promo, more people should do this, more people should try to be as killer and real as Jereme Dean. Go enter his contest and get a free issue and if you don't, maybe buy'n?

Seriously, thanks Jereme.

UPDATE: Matthew Simmons has pledged to reward 3 more entries to Jereme's post with free copies.

That's wha I'm talkin boutz.

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Today I am focusing on sending out my newer novel to as many open appropriate places as I can find. There seems a bit of a dearth of open free submissions of book-length manuscripts, especially the kind I am sending right now: often bleak, brutal and surreal.

I finally got to unbox my books and it was weird to see them breathing on the shelves again. I spent a while last night looking at my books trying to find ones that seemed of a mind with what I'm doing that I could send to. Particularly the very surrealist and multiformed one I just finished, which I still can't decide between the two titles of, though I think for sending out I will use HOW MANY FLOORS DOES THE NIGHTMARE HAVE?

I realized also that the novel takes a lot from all the imbibing of William Burroughs's novels that I read so often 5-6 years ago. Reading over the passage I had underlined in THE SOFT MACHINE, I realized how much that language and imagery bank had cut into my brain. If there's any major precedent for NIGHTMARE? it is him: his jump cuts, his blabber layering, his brutalism and his sense of recording of moment.

Where would Burroughs publish those books now? If he were new? (He still could be.)

What press would have put out THE WILD BOYS? I don't know more than a couple possibilities, I really don't. That's scary.

Here is an embedded manifesto from THE SOFT MACHINE:

There is the work of getting it off the shelves and that is what I do. We are not interested in the individual models, but in the mold, the human die. This must be broken.

I also found another title I want to use from this line:

Grope movie and walked in on the wrong room warmly. Exempt light and lungs.

GROPE MOVIE: that may have to be the title now.

It's a weird state, this state.

TUPELO PRESS is now open to fiction and nonfiction, but they charge a $45 reading fee, and you're only allowed to send up to the first 100 pgs, and if they like they'll ask for more. $45? Really? What, are you using diamond encrusted page turners? I understand certain reading fees, but that just seems ridiculous?

Maybe I'll get desperate.

I don't feel desperate.

OH!: Lily Hoang's Lamination Colony ebook THE WOMAN DOWN THE HALL, will be out probably by the end of this week. Look out, it's a doozy.

Here's a preview image of the front page:

12 comments:

jereme said...

blake,

who does all the art for lamination colony?

i like it.

it is good.

BLAKE BUTLER said...

the artist would be: google.

midnight image robber baron.

i just edited the post to reflect your awesome giveaway offer Jereme, dude you are the king. thank you. thank you. you are a model citizen and kind sir.

Josh Maday said...

i admire jereme dean's action. that, my friend, is cutting dicks off.

Dear Ra is coming to my house. I am preparing a gourmet meal of chlorine tablets and jalapeno toothpaste.

The Lost Books of the Odyssey. yes.

blake butler is the bill burroughs cut-up machine.

The Man Who Couldn't Blog said...

Jereme,

You should offer copies to the five best comments. I will purchase two more for your giveaway. I have linked to your blog.

Oh, heck. I will purchase three more. Top six.

BLAKE BUTLER said...

you guys are making my erection erect

jereme said...

and the days grow dead as the erection crushes the moon

6 it is. good shit. thank you matthew simmons. i will update my blog shortly to reflect your erection erecting generosity.

Brandon Hobson said...

Looking forward to reading Lily Hoang's work. I read her at Fairy Tale Review.

Keith Montesano said...

don't go tupelo. the sad thing is they'll get a shit ton of cash. it really is heinous to charge that much. there's one amazing book that i know of from brian barker, who i'm interviewing soon, and that's poetry.

don't get desperate. give it some time.

BLAKE BUTLER said...

yeah i wouldnt pay my fuckin dad $45 to read my words. much less a big indie house who clearly charges twice as much as anyone else.

no desperates. i actually feel calm/elsewhere.

DOGZPLOT said...

have you tried BLEAK HOUSE BOOKS dot COM.

i read your hobart interview like 5 minutes ago. my word is snossels. since 5th grade.

BLAKE BUTLER said...

bleak house looks nice, i think i saw them once a long time ago, good call, thank you

snossels, oh man, mine is in that zone, but more syllables.

ryan said...

the asian lily hoang