R.I.P. Christine Brooke-Rose
I just heard that Christine Brooke-Rose passed away.
I first came across her work thanks to Brian McHale’s Postmodernist Fiction (1987), where he wrote about her 1975 novel Thru.
At the time, I was deeply into concrete poetry, in particular novelists who used concrete poetry techniques (Kenneth Patchen, B.S. Johnson, Ann Quin). So I was hooked. I picked up the 1986 Christine Brooke-Rose Omnibus, which contains Thru as well as its three “companion” novels: Out (1964), Such (1966), and Between (1968). All of them are decidedly unusual; like Johnson and Quin, Brooke-Rose was heavily inspired by the French New Novel of Alain Robbe-Grillet, Marguerite Duras, and Nathalie Sarraute. (She translated Robbe-Grillet’s In the Labyrinth.) Like all of those authors, Brooke-Rose was a brilliant maker of contemporary fiction who deserves to be more widely read.
linkdump.com
Today seems quiet. Everyone is probably packing?
Threats by Amelia Gray is out, and I can tell you it’ll do to your head/brain/skull all things promised, and more. (I had the pleasure of reading an advance copy, borrowed from someone who had borrowed it [now I have my own], but it is available HERE)
Picador has been reprinting the novels of Donald Antrim with new intros: George Saunders (The Verificationist), Jonathan Franzen (The Hundred Brothers), and Jeffrey Eugenides (Elect Mr. Robinson for a Better World). Elect Mr. Robinson… will be out this June.
Kaleidoscope is a randomized novella by Jianyu Pên.
Madras Press recently released a special edition of “Stone Animals” by Kelly Link, with illustrations and a letterpressed cover.
The second issue of The Coffin Factory just came out, with work by Aimee Bender, Lydia Davis, Edwidge Danticat, Justin Taylor, Adam Wilson, etc. (more later)
The Guggenheim has digitized many of its (out-of-print) publications.
Redivider FINALLY (yes I’m calling you out) has an updated website with the new issue, featuring the talented Mike Young, Mary Miller, J.A. Tyler, Melissa Broder, etc. The cover is nice:
Some of these things will be available at AWP. Do you think someone will write a blog post soon called “AWP recap?” What if that didn’t happen?
Writing on Fashion on Writing: A Plug
Zachary German and Adam Humphreys (who is making a film about Zachary German) have created a “gentleman’s casual clothing line” called Goldfarb and Goldfarb. The brand seems to specialize in humorous, self-nullifying statements printed in simple black Helvetica against white t-shirts—statements which are attributed on the t-shirt to “a t-shirt.”
According to the site’s “regarding” page, Goldfarb and Goldfarb “is an extension of Zachary German and Adam Humphreys’ decades long friendship and aims toward furthering their understanding of their own motives as well as those of the people they love.”
Here are some j-pegs:
Aase Berg’s Transfer Fat
Now available from Ugly Duckling, translated by Johannes Goransson. !!! Hyper-compressed gasoline language. !!! Hungryx99999.
YOU DON’T NEED PERMISSION
Speaking of Egon Schiele and “Adrien Brody,” Jezebel ran an exclusive exposé in November about the novel You Deserve Nothing, by Alexander Maksik. You Deserve Nothing is about a thirty-something teacher at an American international school in Paris who has an affair with, and impregnates, one of his seventeen-year-old students. Turns out (according to Jezebel) Maksik was a teacher at an American international school in Paris who had an affair with, and impregnated, one of his seventeen-year-old students.
Requited Journal #6
"Call and Response" by Adam Grossi
As the nonfiction & reviews editor of the online journal Requited, it’s my pleasure to announce that Issue 6 just went live. In the Essays section you’ll now find:
- an autobiographical comic by Keiler Roberts (Powdered Milk Volume 5);
- a video essay by Julianne Hill (“So, Mary?”);
- and interviews with Robert Ashley, Vanessa Place, Rosmarie Waldrop, and Curtis White regarding the materials and habits of their respective writing practices (see the introductory note here).
There’s also a new review: Jeff Bursey‘s take on J. Robert Lennon’s story collection Pieces for the Left Hand.
And much more!