The fiftieth and final novel from the colossus of 20th century letters is a parodic and ill-tempered throwback to the social comedies of Kipps and TheThe fiftieth and final novel from the colossus of 20th century letters is a parodic and ill-tempered throwback to the social comedies of Kipps and The History of Mr. Polly. Unlike those two empathic and incisive character studies, You Can’t Be Too Careful is a scabrous affair, as Wells brands his John Bullish protagonist Edward Tewler Homo tewler, as though launching an anthropological investigation of this sub-species of insipid man in the wild. Reining in the impulse in his late fiction to make his characters a springboard for long discursive tracts, the novel balances the tale of Tewler, an orphaned lower-middle-class man who inherits property and stumbles through an awkward sexual encounter with a repressed woman and an awkward marriage with a stuck-up woman who rejects her child, alongside digressions on the failure of Edwardian sexual education, the vileness of the Catholic Church, and the scourge of the simple-minded man who spurns “ideers” in favour of shutting off their minds. This notion of the common-sense man, the man whose views on life are passed down in an unending chain of ignorance, is the brunt of Wells’s withering commentary in a novel that rambles, rants, and amuses. A formidable last hurrah from Wells.
P.S. This novel is notable for the George Orwell namedrop, the only reference to Orwell anywhere in his fiction....more
On paper, this scandalous buried novel screams cult classic. Atlas Press’s beautiful hardback reprint, with its enigmatic cover art and illustrations,On paper, this scandalous buried novel screams cult classic. Atlas Press’s beautiful hardback reprint, with its enigmatic cover art and illustrations, enhances the feel of this novel as a true oddball treasure. The text itself is an incoherent soup of surreal set-pieces, Rabelaisian tangents, parodies of publishing figures of the period, and hilariously grotesque body horror, all of which makes for an entertaining divertissement of sheer indecent befuddlement that works as a hip curio for one’s bookshelves, if not a transgressive reading experience. ...more
A beleaguered bar owner refuses to capitulate to a racket threatening him to change his garbage provider. Less stylistically relentless than Dixon’s oA beleaguered bar owner refuses to capitulate to a racket threatening him to change his garbage provider. Less stylistically relentless than Dixon’s other works, Garbage is a pulsating and satisfying tale of a man not cowering to a violent and corrupt system. ...more
A coming-of-rage tale set in 1940s/1950s Mississippi. Following the childhood exploits of Fishbelly (nickname, obvs), The Long Dream makes use of streA coming-of-rage tale set in 1940s/1950s Mississippi. Following the childhood exploits of Fishbelly (nickname, obvs), The Long Dream makes use of stream-of-consciousness dream sequences and long dialogue-driven scenes, mining a similar semi-experimental seam as Wright’s posthumous Lawd, Today! The latter half of the novel is vintage Wright horrealism (not a word)—a scathing and terrifying depiction of police corruption and the struggle to live among people who despise you, routinely deny you basic rights, and murder you without consequence (i.e. white people). The bleakest of Wright’s works (which is saying something), The Long Dream contrasts the freeness of childhood with the indentured slavery and unrelenting violence of adulthood in a tale where the author’s anger seethes from the page to, at certain points, unbearable levels. As a novel, more uneven than Wright’s more famous works and lacks the lucidity and call-to-arms quality of the likes of Native Son or The Outsiders....more
Murdo, a bashful accordeon (sic—a preferred Scots spelling) virtuoso, takes a trip to Arizona with his father for a languorous fortnight with his unclMurdo, a bashful accordeon (sic—a preferred Scots spelling) virtuoso, takes a trip to Arizona with his father for a languorous fortnight with his uncle and aunt, where an unlikely encounter with a zydeco legend induces moderate teenage rebellion. An immersive, generous-hearted novel, one of Kelman’s strongest recentish works, and his second set in America after the terrific You Have to Be Careful in the Land of the Free. ...more
Cult hardboiled overpopulation dystopian classic with the worst title of any cult hardboiled overpopulation dystopian classic in existence. An entertaCult hardboiled overpopulation dystopian classic with the worst title of any cult hardboiled overpopulation dystopian classic in existence. An entertaining romp which wobbles between boilerplate detective novel that happens to take place in a dystopia to a more robust exploration of the dystopia as the claustrophobic society begins a waterless, foodless meltdown. ...more
In Mano’s dystopian vision, ecologists hell-bent on exterminating man and returning the planet back to a less venal species struggle to capture futureIn Mano’s dystopian vision, ecologists hell-bent on exterminating man and returning the planet back to a less venal species struggle to capture future cult-leader Dom Priest as he escapes plans for his enforced suicide across the titular bridge. Overly descriptive passages of Priest’s physical heave across the bridge bog the novel down in the first half, the move into ruminative religious themes and passages of Mano’s lively dialogue enhance the book toward its morbid conclusion....more
Metafictional fragments, loose and lascivious. Surreal, absorbing, incorrigible prose flexes in keeping with the extempore nature of publisher FictionMetafictional fragments, loose and lascivious. Surreal, absorbing, incorrigible prose flexes in keeping with the extempore nature of publisher Fiction Collective from whence this first spawned. For devotees of avant-garde fiction only. ...more
This centenarian novelist (100 years old and alive at the time of writing) wrote, among eleven other seemingly saucy novels, this parody of the sort oThis centenarian novelist (100 years old and alive at the time of writing) wrote, among eleven other seemingly saucy novels, this parody of the sort of erotic research as conducted by Alfred Kinsey in the 1960s. Witty, campy, farcical. ...more
In his most ambitious novel since the stylistic bloat of Chronic City, Lethem explores past and present Brooklyn through a mosaic of crime-adjacent taIn his most ambitious novel since the stylistic bloat of Chronic City, Lethem explores past and present Brooklyn through a mosaic of crime-adjacent tales, vignettes, self-referential squibs, and sardonic broadsides. A cranky cousin to the childhood mythologising of The Fortress of Solitude, the lore of the street kids and happenings on the block are explored in surgical if unmemorable detail, with Lethem struggling to fascinate me in the minutiae of this neighborhood as an outsider, narrowing the appeal of the novel to—sing it—the Brooklynites. Compared to Gilbert Sorrentino’s streetwise novels Steelwork or Crystal Vision, where the agglomeration of specifics sit within richly comedic recastings of the people, places, and patois of the period, Lethem’s knowing narrator is more concerned with glib reportage and an anthropological overview of the gentrification and race relations of the borough, which is interesting at the time of reading, but no individual story or thread particularly lingered in the mind upon the book’s conclusion, the canvas being too broad to fully immerse this reader in anything less than the superficial....more
Another slice of BDSM erotica composed at warp-speed for Maurice Girodias’s Olympia Press, White Thighs is a depraved descent into the Sadean depths fAnother slice of BDSM erotica composed at warp-speed for Maurice Girodias’s Olympia Press, White Thighs is a depraved descent into the Sadean depths following the lust of a psychotic young heir for his keep Anna. Across the novel we have Trocchi’s familiar kink of rouging women’s nipples and labia, wince-inducing scenes of enforced cunnilingus below lavishly hirsute pubes, the wrath of a Swedish dominatrix, women in a harem strapping dildoes to skeletons, and occasional consensual sex, baked into a melodrama of murder and lunacy in an upper-class American milieu that sounds conspicuously Victorian. The skill with which the unapologetic libertine Trocchi churned out these trashy, parodically gratuitous books for money is a testament to the man’s appetite for exploding sexual taboos in the early 1950s. Recommended for sick puppies everywhere. ...more
The last novel from the finest late-20th century purveyor of scandalous historical romps in the Rabelaisian tradition follows in the footsteps of Nye’The last novel from the finest late-20th century purveyor of scandalous historical romps in the Rabelaisian tradition follows in the footsteps of Nye’s own masterpiece Falstaff. Recasting the lore of Shakespeare using biographical titbits from a host of authors, Nye creates a digressive lark where only the truly qualified scholars of Shakie’s works will be able to delineate between fabrication and facticity. The mischievous and filthy-minded narrator Pickleherring never quite scales the heights of comedy as in Nye’s earlier works, and the novel becomes bogged down in its own tangents and spurious scholarship, although the shortish chapters help to bounce proceedings along entertainingly, while Nye’s sharp prose and wit never dims for the duration. A fine swansong for an underrated writer. ...more
A strange black comedy from the sixties, penned by the estranged father of prominent UK lawyer Joylon Maugham of the Good Law Project, where two hepcaA strange black comedy from the sixties, penned by the estranged father of prominent UK lawyer Joylon Maugham of the Good Law Project, where two hepcat black militias inveigle two bourgeois darlings into a struggle against a resurgent British fascist movement. The novel has a floaty, improvisatory feel, humorously lolling between mordant portraits of the pretenses of the upper-middle classes, clumsy-if-well-meaning depictions of the black militants, and waspish set-pieces inside the fetid chambers of crusty old fascists. A sexy young woman found washed up on the beach is randomly thrown into the pot for no discernible reason (fodder for the film adaptation?—Benedictus’s previous novel was adapted by Francis Ford Coppola) and the flip tone of the narration means the book’s grim events and themes are never more than a cheeky cynical lark....more
A companion piece to Gould: A Novel in Two Novels, Dixon’s 672-page monolith furthers the ruminations, reimaginings, rememberings, and recastings of eA companion piece to Gould: A Novel in Two Novels, Dixon’s 672-page monolith furthers the ruminations, reimaginings, rememberings, and recastings of episodes from within and without the realm of Gould Bookbinder, one in a long line of Dixon’s alter egos. Those familiar with Dixon’s helter-skelter interior monologues that riff and riff even harder until Dixon exhausts his own interest in the scenario will know what to expect in this collection of prose, which serves some of the most compelling and mesmeric of Dixon’s neurotic fancies—among them a touching vision of an imagined relationship with his brother who died young, a horrific imagining of Gould’s life having walked out on his family, and the riotous blowback from the idle ogling of a stranger in the park. The latter half reads like a separate work welded onto the first—Dixon exploiting his last chance to be published by a major house, perhaps—and contains fifteen stories, each squeezed into paragraph-free blocks for extra readerly immersion. Dixon at this volume and density is a challenge, recommended only for those with a strong affinity for his style....more
An early literary experiment, Lawd Today or Lawd Today! is a novel with a clear Joycean influence, taking place over one day and playing with a range An early literary experiment, Lawd Today or Lawd Today! is a novel with a clear Joycean influence, taking place over one day and playing with a range of styles and forms throughout, notably newspaper cuttings and streams of fast-flowing untagged dialogue. Jake Jackson is the Leo Bloom of Chicago in the Great Depression, straining to remain unsacked from his postal clerk post, gambling and boozing with his colleagues, rolling and tumbling with femmes fatales in the whorehouse, starting and ending his day with bouts of brutal domestic violence. A lively, shocking portrait of an ordinary life, shown without judgement, bringing the rowdy, messy, boldly misogynistic world of Jake to this pasty Scottish white boy almost a hundred years after the Depression. Wright would hit his stride in the more po-faced tone of later works, but his skill for the comic and anarchic is on a par with Claude McKay et al....more