February 25th, 2009 / 6:01 pm
Uncategorized

Our Beloved 26th

weirdwebofficefreakout

The last few years have seen two very good novels about office life, Joshua Ferris’s Then We Came to the End and Ed Park’s Personal Days. (Also, one very good British television program and one occasionally very good, David Foster Wallace-admiring American knock-off television program have appeared, too.)

If you have felt that all of those things have been lacking in a thick coat of misanthropy and violence—besides the thick coat of misanthropy and violence that some see as inherent to capitalism in the first place—Future Tense Publishing has just released a little chapbook called Our Beloved 26th that should satisfy your desires quite nicely.

I saw Kevin Sampsell yesterday*, and he handed me a copy of the book, and told me the author, Riley Michael Parker, is quiet and shy and young. Apparently—happily, really—the young man has some issues.

Our Beloved 26th follows a group of rapacious, racially intolerant, amoral mid-level executives at a nameless company. Employees carry weapons and occasional, there are shootings. And stabbings. And poisonings. And rapes. All told in small sections

The mid-level execs refer to the cubicle drones as “cubans” and they treat them as a slave master treats slaves. Respect is reserved for anyone who works on a floor above the 26th, the home of the narrator and his cohorts.

It’s broad, very dark satire. De Sade’s bedroom philosophers are forced to get office jobs, and they are not happy about it. It’s a messy little book, but a couple of misspellings and punctuation mistakes kind of work to emphasize that the book is really more about the heat and humor on the page. (Still, maybe go ahead and fix them, Riley.)

* I guess there should be a “full disclosure” sort of thing here, right? I don’t know. I know Kevin, and have for a number of years. We’ve read together. He’s published people I know, like, or admire. Some socially and others just as writers. I like Future Tense and will continue to talk about them.

I guess I often just take for granted that the people reading my posts know enough about me to know who I know, but I suppose that’s a faulty assumption based on the fact that my friends Kevin, Shya, Blake, and a few other HTML contributors and regulars comment on my posts. And I think our dear pr is one of the few people who might not know that I have an existing relationship with Kevin. So, for the record:

pr, I know Kevin. Not in a Biblical sense, though.

Later in the week, maybe I will make a list of people I know who I might write about, and from here on in, I can link to that post. Disclosure post. “Follow this link to find out why you don’t really have to trust what I’m saying.”

So, also, I met Joshua Ferris at Bumbershoot, and thought it was really nice that he went to all the book readings even though there were lots of bands to see. It occurred to me that I’m kind of a book geek, too, and I might do the same thing.

And after Ed Park read in Seattle, I tagged along with some friends who went to dinner with him.

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15 Comments

  1. pr

      Matthew is funny.

  2. Matthew Simmons

      Thanks.

  3. Matthew Simmons

      Thanks.

  4. Dan Brady

      This sounds great. I haven’t read Ed Park’s book, but I was impressed with Ferris’s effort when I read it last summer. Coincidently, Barrelhouse will feature a special section on Office Life in our summer issue. Subs close March 1st.

      http://www.barrelhousemag.com/word/?page_id=285

  5. Dan Brady

      This sounds great. I haven’t read Ed Park’s book, but I was impressed with Ferris’s effort when I read it last summer. Coincidently, Barrelhouse will feature a special section on Office Life in our summer issue. Subs close March 1st.

      http://www.barrelhousemag.com/word/?page_id=285

  6. KevinS

      When I saw Matthew at the store on Monday (he read this little book fast!) I told him that it had a couple of typos (a missing period, stuff like that, damnit). He said he would not mention this detail and make me look unprofessional. But now I look all unprofessional and shit. Geez, Simmons. Just wait til you read my goodreads review of Caves!
      But seriously, thanks for enjoying this devilish little treat.

  7. KevinS

      When I saw Matthew at the store on Monday (he read this little book fast!) I told him that it had a couple of typos (a missing period, stuff like that, damnit). He said he would not mention this detail and make me look unprofessional. But now I look all unprofessional and shit. Geez, Simmons. Just wait til you read my goodreads review of Caves!
      But seriously, thanks for enjoying this devilish little treat.

  8. james yeh

      i liked personal days — it made me, tangentially, lose my ipod. haven’t read the ferris one though.

  9. james yeh

      i liked personal days — it made me, tangentially, lose my ipod. haven’t read the ferris one though.

  10. Matthew Simmons

      Reasons I lied to Kevin:

      1) To assert my editorial independence and say to the readers: Kevin Sampsell doesn’t own me! He doesn’t…?

      2) Because, reading the story, it occurred to me that the little errors (and they are little) were sort of charming, in that they put the piece in a homegrown, “zine,” DIY, “it’s about the heat of the story, not the polish” sort of context?

      3) I’m a lousy, shitty, piece of shit, lying liar who should die like a lonely, cancer-ridden rat in the hold of a Somali pirate ship?

  11. Matthew Simmons

      Reasons I lied to Kevin:

      1) To assert my editorial independence and say to the readers: Kevin Sampsell doesn’t own me! He doesn’t…?

      2) Because, reading the story, it occurred to me that the little errors (and they are little) were sort of charming, in that they put the piece in a homegrown, “zine,” DIY, “it’s about the heat of the story, not the polish” sort of context?

      3) I’m a lousy, shitty, piece of shit, lying liar who should die like a lonely, cancer-ridden rat in the hold of a Somali pirate ship?

  12. Ryan

      Hey cowboy,

      There are some typos in your review. Still, the “heat and humor” of your review come through. Maybe you wanna go ahead and fix ’em, though, and probably you should get your own house in order before rearranging the furniture in anyone else’s.

  13. Ryan

      Hey cowboy,

      There are some typos in your review. Still, the “heat and humor” of your review come through. Maybe you wanna go ahead and fix ’em, though, and probably you should get your own house in order before rearranging the furniture in anyone else’s.

  14. Matthew Simmons

      Ryan,

      No.

  15. Matthew Simmons

      Ryan,

      No.