September 2nd, 2009 / 1:46 pm
Presses

2 New Titles from Ellipsis Press: Lock and Ruocco

Two new titles from the incredible Ellipsis Press are now on presale. After their first two titles by Eugene Marten and Eugene Lim being two of my favorite new releases last year, Ellipsis is already a monolith, and I’ve been drooling for these both since they were announced. For those that for some reason did not pick up the first two, you can get the entire set of 4 Ellipsis titles together in a bundle for $40, a ridiculously nice and limited-time deal. Shit, I’m doing the package just to be able to give the first two as gifts. I guarantee it is worth twice as much in mind. They are also all available individually, and shipping soon.

Here are their two latest titles:

Shadowplay by Norman Lock

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In Java, a master of the shadow-puppet theater seeks to possess—by his art—a woman, who perishes as though by the contagion of his unnatural desire. Shadowplay is a meditation on story-telling as an act of seizure, a parable of obsession and of the danger of confounding the real with its representations.

“Stories compensate for lives unlived. They are what Norman Lock, or his avatar Guntur, calls shadows, negative reflections on a backlit screen, comprising, through artistry and brief illumination, ghosts. Lock’s teller is imprisoned by darkness, captivated by warriors and princesses no longer, if ever, living. Death becomes a distance from which the voices of these unliving return. It is a journey as delicious as it is threatening.” —R.M. Berry

The Mothering Coven by Joanna Ruocco

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Mapping a utopia on the brink, The Mothering Coven’s rare mix of pyrotechnic wordplay and open-armed charisma is a defiantly original act of storytelling. Bertrand has disappeared from the house she shared with seven women—artists, scientists, and of course, witches. Even as the text occults itself in rarefied symbols, Joanna Ruocco’s virtuosic style pulls the reader inside an ever-widening, glowing expanse.

“Deliriously imagined, The Mothering Coven is a work of wonder. Joanna Ruocco arrives: marvelous, and fully sprung!” —Carole Maso

“Ruocco’s Coven is an engagingly whimsical tale, graceful and inventive, with its own distinctive lexicon, reminiscent of the works of such writers as Ronald Firbank or Coleman Dowell. It toys with language and knowledge somewhat like an emerald-eyed black cat in the book toys with a large bird. Batting it about playfully. Coaxing something new out of it.” —Robert Coover

Visit Ellipsis and do a buy.

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9 Comments

  1. John Madera

      Amen to that!

  2. John Madera

      Amen to that!

  3. Shya

      Having read Joanna’s coven piece a few times in workshop, I can attest that it’s brilliant. She’s the kind of writer you can’t help envy, even as you’re caught up and blown away.

  4. Shya

      Having read Joanna’s coven piece a few times in workshop, I can attest that it’s brilliant. She’s the kind of writer you can’t help envy, even as you’re caught up and blown away.

  5. sasha fletcher

      so excited fr joanna ruocco

  6. sasha fletcher

      so excited fr joanna ruocco

  7. Peter Markus

      Norman Lock is a giant.

  8. Peter Markus

      Norman Lock is a giant.

  9. HTMLGIANT / Brief q+a with Laird Hunt

      […] the NYRB come to mind, but I’m not discounting Eugene Lim and Ellipsis’s [Ellipses?] forthcoming books from that list. Can’t wait to check those out). But I don’t think anyone has hit it out […]