Theatre of Incest

Once again, my good friend Tom Powers, co-author of The Greatest Show in the Galaxy, is helping me out with a review. This time around, the book is titled Theatre of Incest. Hmm...

Alain Arias-Mission’s short novel Theatre of Incest (Dalkey Archive Press, 2007) presents a man who indulges in a lifetime of incest with his closet female relatives. As an apprentice being introduced to the dark art of incest, the narrator learns the ropes of control and submission from his mother – a delineation chronicled in the first part of the novel. In the subsequent part, we witness how the narrator takes on his own incestuous apprentice – his daughter – and initiates her into a world of unbridled, graphic sexual acts. The final part then shows our sexually intrepid narrator find a strong counterbalance, both mentally and physically, in the form of his sister, whom he deems his “sweet witch.”

The term “witch” appropriately channels the tone of the novel, whose back cover copy calls a “primeval fairy tale” that “burns with icy passion.” To be honest, Theatre of Incest is a read best suited for lovers of poetic language, and, more importantly, for readers who honesty possess open minds. Arias-Mission’s words dance on the page as his narrator shares his life with us – sans dialogue or multiple perspectives. This approach could lead some readers to wonder if the narrator is indeed an unreliable one – but the author’s words are so seductive and the twisted, erotic world he crafts so beautiful and shocking, that the reader will often be caught up in the flow of events instead of wasting too much time judging the man.

Since Arias-Mission’s approach to his subject matter does not pretend to pass a moral verdict upon his narrator, or hint that the man’s actions are in any way mitigated by mental illness, one may seek to understand why he wrote this book. Perhaps the author is inverting Freud’s tired-and-true “Oedipus Complex” in a working metaphor applicable to our contemporary, complex family relations. Instead of repressing sexuality, a la Freud, in an emotional mishmash with his mother, daughter, and sister, the narrator, then, freely transgresses these boundaries in his attempt to understand these women better. However, in the absence of sexual repression, jealousies still arise, and the eternal power struggle between men and women is continued on a sexual stage Arias-Mission at one point literally presents as exhibitionist theatre. Likewise, he may be telling us that the various roles we may hold in our life as children, siblings, and parents will always confuse and delight us in manner that is more intimate than our most intense sexual relations.

Just as Arias-Mission does not offer easy answers concerning his character’s actions, it is probably fitting that this reviewer refrain from further trying to theoretically troubleshoot this sexually and emotionally daring novel.

Review by Tom Powers

The Contractor

Charles Holdefer’s latest novel, The Contractor (Permanent Press 2007), opens with a single question that drives the entire narrative forward: Who are you? Posed by a prisoner in a Guantanamo Bay-style secret prison, this seemingly simple question haunts George Young, the novel’s narrator, and forces him to take a long, hard look at how his life has led him to a career as a civilian interrogator for the U.S. government. More importantly, perhaps, this question allows the reader to move far beyond headlines, political rhetoric, and theoretical generalizations about the use of torture to extract information from suspected terrorists and, instead, paints an intimate portrait of one man’s participation in the vast machinery that utilizes such techniques to gather information. In so doing, Holdefer forces us to recognize that wars aren’t fought by nations, but by individuals.

Significantly, very little of The Contractor takes place in the remote prison where George Young works. Yes, Holdefer does a superb job of bringing the details of George’s work situation to life, but the real power of this novel derives from the author’s exploration of the title character’s familial obligations. Forbidden from discussing his work with anyone outside of the prison, George has grown distant from his wife and children by the start of the novel. Indeed, as his wife slips into a haze of alcoholism and his children become increasingly mysterious to him, George’s most intimate acquaintance is with the family cat. Add a struggling brother, a crotchety father-in-law, and a claustrophobic holiday visit back home to the mix, and George’s life becomes a dramatic tangle of self-doubt and confusion. And, needless to say, his dogged efforts at untangling the deeply intertwined knots of work and family drives the novel forward to a searing, shuddering conclusion.

To put it bluntly, The Contractor demonstrates why the novel will always be a viable art form and why the small press is so important to keeping that art form alive. The novel, at its best, places the reader in the skin of the protagonist and allows the reader to understand the world from someone else’s point of view. As such, it removes us from our comfort zones and causes each of our worldviews to shift as if on an axis, if only for a brief period of time. Yet in that time when we inhabit the bodies of strangers, their struggles become our struggles, and the world becomes new for us. We emerge from the experience changed and look at the world through new eyes. This process, of course, is not always comfortable—hence the need for the small press, the press whose concern is not with providing mass-market thrills so much as thoughtful transformation. It is, however, always enlightening.

Like all great literature, The Contractor provides such enlightenment and then some. It does for the war on terror what Don DeLillo’s Falling Man did for the terror attacks of September 11, and what Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried did for the Vietnam War. It avoids saying "here's the story" and instead says "here's a story." And in giving us a story, the novel brings its subject to life in a way that is both disturbing and beautiful. As fascinating as it is moving, Holdefer’s novel is not to be ignored.

Cider Press Review

I’ll start with a confession. Many years ago, I dabbled in poetry. Haiku. Sonnet. Free-verse. Villanelle. Sestina. Name the form, I tried it.

But today’s world is no place for a poet, at least not for one with skin as thin mine, so I laid my quill aside and, with a sigh, set my sights on more prosaic pastures. My own failure as a poet, however, gives me great admiration for anyone who stays at it, and even greater admiration for anyone willing to provide poets with a venue, an area in which to be appreciated. Caron Andregg and Robert Wynne, the co-editors and publishers of Cider Press Review, have done just that, and their journal is not only a labor of love, but a bastion of hope for struggling poets and poetry lovers everywhere.

The latest issue of the journal opens with a poem titled “About the Type” by Marilyn McCabe. As its title suggests, the poem consists of an imaginary note on the type in a book set in a font called Requiem. Yet Requiem, the poet notes, has fallen out of use. The irony, of course, is that while the typeface is no longer used, it is, nonetheless, the typeface used in the book that the poet imagines. In many ways, it can be argued that this is the state of poetry in the modern world: while the pundits of cultural production and mass media may insist that the poem is a form of communication that is itself “now out of use,” poetry continues to resurface and prove that reports of its death are grossly exaggerated—as demonstrated, of course, by Cider Press Review and other journals like it.

Another poem in this edition of CPR that caught my eye was “Night of Broken Stars” by Brian Lutz. Ostensibly a love poem, this piece takes the conceit of William Shakespeare’s Sonnet 130 into the free-verse realm of a gothic American October. Where Shakespeare finds beauty in the black wires of his subject’s hair and the reek of his subject’s breath, Lutz finds beauty in “the undusted room” and likens it to the “second hand/of working things ticking.”

Overall, Cider Press Review does a wonderful job of collecting the poetry of new and exciting voices as well as that of award-winning poets from around the world. The latest issue is nearly 150 pages long, perfect bound, with a bright, beautiful cover. If you’re a poet, you certainly can’t go wrong in subscribing to this gem of a journal.

The First Sandcastle

Early in M.E. Delgado's debut novel, The First Sandcastle, narrator Marlo Clemente and his gruff father build a sandcastle, which, the father promises, will never fall. Never, that is, as long as the tide stays out. And here lies the crux of the difficulties Marlo faces throughout his life. The universe his father envisions for Marlo is perfectly idealized and completely inviolable--as long as real life doesn't seep in. The problem, of course, is that real life does inevitably seep in, and Marlo so believes in the admittedly misogynistic world his father has created that he's not sure how to reconcile it with the world that his senses and better judgment tell him is real.

At issue through much of the novel is Marlo's attitude toward women. According to his father, women are treacherous and deceitful, and nothing else. Even Marlo's mother, says the father, is completely untrustworthy. Initially, Marlo's experiences bear the father's theories out as a beautiful girl gets the better of his best friend. When Marlo himself falls in love, however, he begins to question his father's wisdom, especially upon realizing that the girl's mother has a similar theory with regard to men. For Marlo, then, growing up is a matter of recognizing that the monolithic theories we tend to build to explain the world have a tendency to fall apart under scrutiny--just like the sandcastles he loves to build must always fall to the tide.

Overall, The First Sandcastle works wonderfully as a coming of age novel. I wouldn't quite call it young-adult literature, but elements of the story will certainly resonate with youthful readers who are themselves attempting to navigate the choppy waters of romance for the first time. Indeed, Delgado's prose mimics the earnest tone of adolescence so faithfully that it's easy to forget that the author is an adult. This isn't, of course, to say that Delgado writes in a childish fashion, but that he beautifully captures that moment just before adulthood when we all believe that we have the world figured out, that all matters of ethics and morality fall neatly into simple categories. Just as abandoning this black and white world view to explore the moral ambiguities of adulthood is ultimately what growing up is all about, so too is The First Sandcastle.

Maps and Legends

Michael Chabon's first collection of essays, appropriately titled Maps and Legends: Reading and Writing along the Borderlands (McSweeney's 2008), charts the largely misunderstood, maligned, and unexplored territories of genre fiction and comic books, so it only stands to reason that this volume has itself been largely misunderstood, maligned, and (perhaps) not (completely) explored by those who have reviewed it in the mainstream media. As a longtime spectator of genre fictions, I was personally intrigued by Chabon's premise throughout the book: that while "mainstream literary" culture (whatever that means) has a tendency to frown upon such categories as the mystery, science fiction, and romance, works written within these genres tend to be the most adventurous and experimental. In other words, despite its bad reputation, genre fiction is what keeps literature alive. (Not to toot my own horn, of course, but I've been making the same observation about independent presses since day one of this blog...)

As the subtitle for this book suggests, invention happens in the "borderlands" between established genres. Thus, like e.e. cummings' Cambridge ladies with their comfortable minds who live in furnished souls, mainstream literary writers have a tendency to write safe literature that reproduces the status quo. By way of contrast, however, genre writers ranging from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to Cormac McCarthy manage to challenge the status quo in various ways. Conan Doyle, for example, blurred the line between reality and fiction by having characters like Sherlock Holmes and his assistant, Dr.Watson, insist at almost every turn that they were not amused at the attention lavished upon them by the public as a result of the publication of the tales of their exploits. Along slightly different lines, McCarthy uses the form of the epic adventure (and, perhaps surprisingly, not the sci-fi epic, as many critics have asserted) to plumb the depths of humanity's will to survive in The Road.

Other "explorers" Chabon profiles throughout his book are comic book visionaries Will Eisner and Howard Chaykin, English writer Philip Pullman (of The Golden Compass fame, and himself. Indeed, Chabon's exploration of his own creative processes make for some of the most interesting passages in the book. From his childhood in Columbia, Maryland, where the maps of city planners always preceded reality, through to his ongoing efforts at creating his own worlds in novels like The Mysteries of Pittsiburgh, Wonder Boys, and The Yiddish Policemen's Union, Chabon's love for the realms of imagination he has both created and inhabited shines like a beacon. Additionally, Chabon's exploration of the biographical details surrounding many of his works sheds light not only on the relationship between his own works and real life, but on the relationship between fact and fiction in general. The realm of fiction, it turns out, is a realm that complements our own, a world that adds depth and dimension to the already complex day-to-day universe we inhabit. More importantly, perhaps, it is a realm that has the potential to reshape what we consider reality.

Philadelphia Book Festival/Philadelphia Stories/Cider Press Review/The Ecstatic Exchange/McSweeney's

On Saturday, I had a chance to stop at the Philadelphia Book Festival, and I'm really glad that I did. Not only did I get a chance to meet (and embarrassingly fawn over) Charles Burns, the writer/illustrator of Black Hole, but I also got a chance to meet up with a lot of people involved with small presses from across the country.

Considering that the festival was a Philadelphia-based event, it was no surprise at all that the publishers of Philadelphia Stories were in attendance, and the good news from them is that they're branching out into book publishing. Long known throughout Philadelphia for purveying fine short-stories, essays, poetry and art on a quarterly basis, the folks at PS will be launching their new books division this fall with Christine Weiser's Broad Street, a novel that's already getting a lot of buzz for its realistic, fun and engaging portrayal of the Philadelphia rock scene circa 1994.

Another bit of exciting news that the folks at PS had to share was that they're sponsoring a writer's retreat at Rosemont College this June. Among the instructors who will be on hand to share their expertise are Tom Coyne, Charles Holdefer, and Elyse Juska. (When, I wonder, do these people find time to sleep?)

In the stall next door to the Philly Stories tent, I had the opportunity to meet Caron Andregg, one of the editor/publishers at Cider Press, a small press specializing in poetry. Friendly, generous, and gregarious (as any small press publisher must be!), Caron gave me a copy of the latest edition of Cider Press Review. I'm planning to do a full review of the issue in the near future, but for the time being, suffice to say that if this collection of poetry is any indication of what the press has to offer, then it's definitely a winner.

Also on hand at the festival was my old friend Daniel Abdal-Hayy Moore, whose poetry I've enjoyed since we worked together ages ago at a small publishing company that put out accounting textbooks. Now enjoying a slightly early retirement, Moore has been busy with his own press, The Ecstatic Exchange. In addition to publishing Moore's own work (which itself has been published and/or distributed by none other than City Lights Books and Syracuse University Press), The Ecstatic Exchange also publishes the work of other poets, most notably, Tiel Aisha Ansari, whose Knocking from Inside lovingly examines the relationship between the human soul and the Divine by way of sorrow, the natural world and the listening heart.

Last but certainly not least, the folks from McSweeney's were also on hand promoting their latest titles. What really impresses me about McSweeney's (aside from how friendly their sales reps are -- talking about everything from the joys of being a dog owner to the difference between Brooklyn and San Francisco) is how much care the publisher puts into designing their books. Take the Baby Be of Use series, for example; designed in such a way as to fit into the hands of any small child and, perhaps more importantly, illustrated so as to convey meaning even to the most pre-literate of toddlers, these books will have otherwise shiftless babies up and mixing drinks, fixing cars, and making breakfast in no time. And, on a slightly less whimsical note, the multiple dust-jackets of Michael Chabon's first collection of essays, Maps and Legends, hints at the many layers of meaning the author explores in the world at large. But more on this title in a future post...

In a word, my trip to the Philadelphia Book Festival was energizing. Seeing so many people who were so passionate about the art of publishing and the business of bringing interesting and otherwise marginalized voices into the public eye made me remember why I keep at it with this blog. Unlike the massive corporate publishing houses that evaluate potential writers the same way they evaluate stock portfolios, the small press publishers I met definitely weren't in the game for the money. They're in it for the sheer love of the written word. It's this love of the written word that keeps their presses going, and it's this same love of the written word that keeps literature alive.

End Credits

Back when I was an undergrad at Saint Joseph's University, I had an English professor named Owen Gilman who defined an A paper as any paper that he wished he'd written himself. Reading A.F. Rutzy's latest novel, End Credits (Casperian, 2008), I couldn't help thinking of my former professor and how dead-on his definition was. Part mind-bending crash-course on the mysteries of the afterlife and part zany critique of the excesses of consumer culture, Rutzy's novel is, hands-down, the novel I wish I could have written. Combining Neil Gaiman's sense of magic, Kurt Vonnegut's wry wit and uncompromising moral compass, Thomas Pynchon's penchant for spiraling yet captivating narrative digressions and Don DeLillo's fascination with all things contemporary, Rutzy laughs wildly at the world at large while the rest of us avert our eyes in horror.

The fun begins when the novel's narrator, Raymond Kessel, dies while crashing the wrong funeral. The only problem is that the afterlife isn't remotely like anything his Sunday school teacher, Mrs. Simmons, promised. Instead of plucking a harp behind the pearly gates, he finds himself desperately trying to get a straight answer from a Grim Reaper named Cleo while inhabiting the body of a wealthy advertising executive. From here, the novel only grows curiouser and curiouser (to borrow a phrase) as Rutzy introduces us to a wide cast of memorable characters including (but not limited to) the previously mentioned angel of death, a desperate would-be rock star, a bumbling accountant, and a pair of wild hogs with an apparent fondness for sunglasses and shopping malls. Conjuring his vision of American excess with a careful balance of exuberance and aplomb, the Finnish author weaves an intricate web of characters and amusingly outlandish scenarios that had me hooked from the word "go."

Of course, that End Credits is such a good book comes as no surprise. It's the latest from Casperian Books, a press whose track record with such titles as Mouth of the Lion and The Tea House has made it one of my favorites. (And just to give a shout out to a favorite author of mine, Curtis Smith, I should also mention that his first novel, Sound and Noise, will be coming out as a Casperian title later this summer... I'm definitely looking forward to that one!)

Needless to say, End Credits earns an A in my book. And given the number of emails I've received from disgruntled students since the semester ended earlier this week, that's really saying something.

For a free sample of Rutzy's work, check out his short-short, Nolens, at Hecale: A Portal for Writers.