“Orange Juice,” Personality, and Literature
In the third-to-last paragraph of Timothy Willis Sanders’ new book, Orange Juice and Other Stories, from Awesome Machine Press, the protagonist sees six babies lying in a fountain. Four are lying in the fountain, and two are pissing into it. “This means something,” he says. “I just don’t care what.”
I could try to interpret what the author may have meant by placing that scene, that paragraph, those words in his book, particularly at the end of his book, but I want to point at it, nothing more.
Orange Juice is 52 pages long and includes nine stories. The stories are very short, the style is minimalist, the language straightforward. Sanders may have been influenced by Zachary German’s Eat When You Feel Sad, as evidenced by the use of minimalist declarative sentences mostly involving actions, the consistent specifying of brand names, and the presence of characters who have names but whose external appearance and internal thoughts are mostly withheld. The characters appear through actions and words.
But this book seems to have a very different personality than German’s book. More on personality later.
It is a very subtle book. “Orange Juice,” the first and titular story, manages to suggest, in two short pages, a tense, complicated, but largely unspoken conflict between a man, Bill, his girlfriend(?), Jeanie, and Jeanie’s son, Chris. And the sentences are like this: “Bill makes a list. He highlights and underlines ‘pulp-free Minute Maid.’ Chris walks through the kitchen and Jeanie catches him by the elbow. Chris jerks free.”
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November 19th, 2010 / 1:13 pm
November 19th, 2010 / 1:13 pm
AWESOME MACHINE PRESS
Adam Robinson is continuing to do good things. He recently started Awesome Machine Press, an imprint of Publishing Genius, which published Say Poem. Adam has really interesting plans.
Books are printed in one run of 125. 25 copies are for discussion (want one? Keep reading). 50 go to the author to sell and 50 are for sale from the press.
After the book sells out it will be available online and for the Kindle and probably the Nook later.
The entire point is fun. Fun writing, fun book making, fun reading, fun talking.
All the other stuff, like work, or caring about stuff, that is not a part of it.
Awesome Machine has fun fast and doesn’t accept submissions, though sometimes submissions through Publishing Genius will make it over to Awesome Machine, probably.
If you have any questions, or would like a discussion copy, contact adam at publishinggenius dot com. The first 25 people in the USA to request these copies will receive them as long as they have at least a blog or whatever to say something about the book or whatever at. (Sorry to people not in the USA. If you want one and want to Paypal about $6 USD for shipping, then all systems go.)
People who pre-order AMP books get free shipping. Then it will cost $1 extra to help defray shipping costs. . . .
You can read more details here. As if that wasn’t great enough, AMP’s next book is Orange Juice by Timothy Willis Sanders who is a great writer and an excellent person. Go, buy the book, tell your friends about it. Make them buy the book too.