Monday, October 27, 2008

SCORCH ATLAS 09/09/09 from Featherproof Books

So, it's been a bit in the making, but finally the good news unfolds: SCORCH ATLAS, my novel in stories written mostly in the fall of last year, has been accepted for publication in Fall 09 (projected date 09/09/09) from Featherproof Books. My excitement is past languaging at this point, and only semi-palpable in my forehead. We've already been talking a lot about the design and layout of what the book will be, and already I know this thing is going to be fucking insane as an object, if not also as words.



Here's a copy-style press release from the Featherproof site:

Coming Fall 2009! SCORCH ATLAS is a novel of 14 interlocking stories set in ruined American locales where birds speak gibberish, the sky rains gravel, and millions starve, disappear or grow coats of mold. In 'The Disappeared,' a father is arrested for missing free throws, leaving his son to search alone for his lost mother. In 'The Ruined Child,' a boy swells to fill his parents' ransacked attic. Rendered in a variety of narrative forms, from a psychedelic fable to a skewed insurance claim questionnaire, Blake Butler's full-length fiction debut paints a gorgeously grotesque version of America, bringing to mind both Kelly Link and William Gass, yet turned with Butler's own eye for the apocalyptic and bizarre.



The contents of the book as it stands now contains many stories that have been around in magazines or are about to come out, including the ones from /nor, Ninth Letter, Willow Springs, New York Tyrant, Diagram, Phoebe, Harpur Palate, Barrelhouse, LIT, and several others, though several in altered forms, as well as unpublished stories and other appending craziness forthcoming.




Massive thanks to Zach and Jonathan @ F-Proof for their faith in taking on a wild book of weird stories, and to everyone else who helped this book continue to be something that is now, in another sense, becoming 'real.'

I went the other day to Borders and looked at where the book will sit, that moment felt like warm mold and pudding, in a good way.



Maybe in the mind of Shane Jones's post about the becoming of LIGHT BOXES I will later post my experience of sending this book around, and the process of submitting to small presses, but for now I am going to go for a run in the cold.

46 comments:

Darby said...

congrats man. I will buy it.

BLAKE BUTLER said...

thanks darby

Anonymous said...

congrats

- barry

Shane Jones said...

party at my place in two hours.

BLAKE BUTLER said...

thanks dudez

plane to party ordered

Jimmy Chen said...

awesome awesome awesome. congrats blake.

Brian Foley said...

Absolute congratulations Blake. It is a long time coming.

Mike Young said...

Mega awesome, sir! Congrats!

Pet & Gone said...

yay!

BLAKE BUTLER said...

:) thank you friends

Jamie Iredell said...

It's been hard not to say anything about this, so finally, publicly, congrats! Can't wait to see it. I am going to chop up my own book and snort it in honor of yours.

BLAKE BUTLER said...

book snorting is probably an unexplored art. reading that'n this week!

Tao Lin said...

good job, it will probably be in st. mark's bookshop, i see their other books there

Josh Maday said...

Massive congratulations, Blake! I knew it was only a matter of time. This is great. I'm excited for you (and, obviously, excited in general). Nice work, bro.

Anonymous said...

fuck yeah

Featherproof does some nice work, this will probably look amazing

BLAKE BUTLER said...

ty tao josh mark

ryan call said...

nice

Ken Baumann said...

as always great job, the blurb from FP sounds really good in my ears.

A+

Ryan Downey said...

congrats.that is fucking rad.

death-hustler said...

beautiful! your star is rising and confounding lesser stars!

Prathna Lor said...

i just had a tiny orgasm

BLAKE BUTLER said...

you guys are nice to me, thank you all again

J. A. Tyler said...

shit bb. you are the fucking man.

congrats.

Jason Jordan said...

Great news, man. Congratulations. Featherproof's releasing cool stuff.

BLAKE BUTLER said...

thank you ja and jason

sam pink said...

blake you are cool. i will pop your cherry.

Anonymous said...

+1 congrats. Excellent news.

Matt DeBenedictis said...

Congrats. Knowing the greatness of Featherproof the artwork of this will make the sun turn away and touch itself.

Keith Montesano said...

Finally! Now I can post it on my blog. And have a real book. I'm sick of everyone's goddamn manuscript .doc files. The everyone's few. The few everyones. GIVE ME BOOKS. YES.

Keith Montesano said...

P.S. You are bad at hanging up on people and not calling them back after they call you one hundred times.

BLAKE BUTLER said...

thanks keith

haha. other nights you calling wasted at 3 am to talk about writing wouldnt bother me, even though i'm not much of a phone person, but that particular night i was sick and had to get up at 8 am.

it's only because i like ya that i didn't throw up into the receiver so you could smell me.

you crazy fuck

haha

anyway, yeah, you must have been hammered, you texted me 'wtf city' right after i hung up on you

as shitty as i felt the next day having slept none and sick, i couldnt be mad, remembering that you texted me 'wtf city'

Keith Montesano said...

shit man, sorry i caught you on that bad night. wow, i just checked my phone, and it looks like i sent that message at 3:44. i clearly don't remember that. and just saw it now.

well i hope you're feeling better. i think i was mainly calling to say congrats 'n shit officially, but i'm not sure how coherent i would've been.

so yeah, sorry for that, though i'm glad my text message made up for it.

i may call my manuscript WTF CITY instead of GHOST LIGHTS.

Keith Montesano said...

and i just did a quick from-the-gut mini-and-non-specific review on the blog.

good shit. are all the stories published now? i forgot to mention you've been on a tear with those the last 6 or so months, and it's pretty much all spread out among journals now.

BLAKE BUTLER said...

haha dont worry about it man. you kept timing your calls so that just as i was nodding off (& my girlfriend) you would wake us up.

in retrospect its really funny

thanks again, we should talk semisoberly soon

WTF CITY 2009

BLAKE BUTLER said...

fuck. really nice post. thanks man. i will link it soon.


i think all the stories will be published by the time the book comes out except for 1. which i think is the one you said was your favorite (i changed the title since then)

Keith Montesano said...

it's well-deserved, and i'll be spreading the word like me calling you wasted at 3 am.

why the hell is that always the case, as far the favorite being the last to go? it's like that when i send poems out too. the 5th poem in the batch is always the one that gets taken first. weird.

i looked at the table of contents, from the most recent version i have from a few months ago, and it SEEMS like everything's been published. hmmm.

though you may have switched some shit around.

more reason for a certainly sober upcoming chat at some point.

and you should echo shane's post also at some point with your SCORCH experiences. i think you said you were going to.

christopher higgs said...

Félicitations.

jereme said...

i am genuinely happy for you.

please post the experience/process of shopping.

i think it would be insightful/helpful for the young turks.

i fucking hate the term 'young turks'

it is early and i am not caring what cliche terms i use.

9:49 am is early for me.

i am a loser.

Kathryn said...

you are famous and everyone loves you! congratulations.

Jason Jordan said...

"you are famous and everyone loves you!"

I don't know about the latter part, Kathryn. Did you poll the ULA? Heh heh.

BLAKE BUTLER said...

to be true, i'm kind of a pee piece

Anonymous said...

jason... all this talk of polls....

http://dogzplotnews.blogspot.com/2008/10/whos-nailin-palin-new-issues-hustler.html

Anonymous said...

great, congrats Blake!

DB said...

fuck yes.

BLAKE BUTLER said...

ty luca and daniel

Kathryn said...

what the eff is the ULA. i polled myself!