As book reviews vanish and culture coverage shrinks, readers of the daring, the obscure, and the experimental find it increasingly hard to find books that both seek to “make it new” and succeed in the task. One potential answer for readers in this bind might be to follow the Novel Prize, a recently launched initiative from three independent publishers.
Was this edition of our monthly book preview column delayed by the earthquake? It wasn’t not delayed by the earthquake, if you know what we mean. We’re pretty excited about what this month has in store when it comes to books, including several new works by writers we’ve published in these very (virtual) pages. Read on for some suggestions for your spring reading.
Chapter 14
One year later.
I’m still waiting to hear if our marriage is approved.
The way it works is the marriage certificate is ratified by the family “librarian” who is essentially the hand of Hans Arto. And through various conversations on the phone for the past 12 months, I’ve gathered she is sort of like a wicked stepmother figure.
Notes on Four Pandemic-Era Albums: Dezron Douglas & Brandee Younger; Mekons; Michot’s Melody Makers & Leyla McCalla; Patrick Shiroishi
“Be gone damn bug”
-Joe McPhee
Pantea Amin Tofangchi is an award-winning Iranian-American poet. She is also a pacifist–a hopeful one. Her hope and pacifism, even now–especially now–is born of a childhood to which most U.S.-born Americans can’t relate: amid war.
Tofangchi, who grew up during the Iran-Iraq War (from September 1980 to August 1988), certainly isn’t mad that Americans have no concept of what her childhood was like–fighting out the front door of her home, looking on nervously as her mother, mid-bomb raid, wraps a blanket around a flashlight to suppress its beam before guiding her children to safety–but she won’t suffer our sustained obliviousness either.
Chapter 13
I can see my algorithm changing in ways I’m not totally comfortable with. And we can’t go back to where we control all the content. Which I know was Everhet’s plan all along, but it feels like all these contributions are poisoning the well.
Since last Thursday, users can upload their own content to the DPZ site; build playlists, add captions, and source their own advertisers. We even have a library with open-source music. It feels like a perk, but in reality, they’re paying for it; a percentage of user fees are used to pay record companies for the rights.
This recent novel by Northern Irish poet Eoghan Walls has an intriguing, Magrittian cover: it wraps around from front to back with a lively green backdrop, punctuated with sparse tufts of grass. Between the title and the author’s name on the front page is the 3D cutout of a cross. Unexpectedly, the cross is not centered and frontal, but slanted and on the ground, in the grass. Looking closely, it is possible to see a sliver of pale blue through it (another sky? another world?) and the silhouette of a bicycle entering it. I can’t think of a better way to visualize this enigmatic story. So much of Walls’ novel takes place outdoors, in the no man’s land that is the contaminated nature at the edge of urban areas; bikes are a big part of the action; there is a girl who metaphorically must carry a big cross of mourning and suffering on her shoulders and there’s a strange man who calls himself Jesus.
Samantha Mabry’s Clever Creatures of the Night is a master class in atmosphere with a literary bent and a few surprising turns up its creepy sleeve. At once a murder mystery, a post-apocalyptic narrative, and a story about friendship, this novel about a missing friend and some strange young people living in a house by themselves is as tense and enigmatic as it is entertaining.