biblioklept

Diane Williams’ newest collection I Liked Rex is forthcoming this September from NYRB. I think folks either like what Williams is doing or don’t (or don’t know about her and what she’s doing). I like what she’s doing very much. Here’s NYRB’s jacket copy; after that, a selection from the collection, “I Did Trip Over a Very Small Boy” — Diane Williams is one of the great masters of the American…

Pierre; Or, The Ambiguities, Herman Melville, 1852. Signet Classics (1964). No cover artist or designer credited. 408 pages. The cover artist is Milton Glaser. The world is forever babbling of originality; but there never yet was an original man,

A panel from “Pixie Meat” by Tom De Haven, Gary Panter, and Charles Burns. Published in Snake Eyes #1, 1991, Fantagraphics Books.

“Texas” by David Berman first published in Caliban #8, 1990 Along the inner stream I found a hive split open. I was deep in the country, where they said I would find swollen dogs and trees covered in dust. I found a house with windows and a door. Once a man stumbled into the barn with a fresh axe wound. I let him clean it out with vodka, then he pulled out a red gun and told me he was gonna put…

“A Parkersburg Vocabulary” by David Berman Sad Fingers (sad-fin-gurs) n. Nostalgia for an old area code. Ex: “He has sad fingers.” Hoxter (hock-stur) n. A fellow who lacks the energy to live up to his own sociopathic heritage. Roycambellside (roy-cam-bul-zid) adv. or adj. To be in the vicinity of Roy Campbell. Blue Emberton (blu-embr-tun) n. A wealthy man who subsidizes his own murder, often…

I read Gene Wolfe’s 1975 novel Peace a few weeks ago and then obsessively reread it. The adverb obsessively in the previous clause refers to a rereading that engendered more rereading, taking more notes, going on extratextual jaunts. In my brief write-up of the novel a few weeks ago, I suggested that Peace is an American post-modernist classic that we would now talk about alongside novels of…

There used to be an odd, popular, and erroneous idea that the sun revolved around the earth. This has been replaced by an even odder, equally popular, and equally erroneous idea that the earth goes around the sun. In fact, the moon and the earth revolve around a common center, and this commonly-centered pair revolves with the sun around another common center, except that you must figure in all…

“The Disappointment” by Aphra Behn 1 One Day the Amarous Lisander, By an impatient Passion sway’d, Surpris’d fair Cloris, that lov’d Maid, Who cou’d defend her self no longer ; All things did with his Love conspire, The gilded Planet of the Day, In his gay Chariot, drawn by Fire, Was now descending to the Sea, And left no Light to guide the World, But what from Cloris brighter Eyes was…

Catherine Foulkrod’s Don’t Cure Me is out early next year from McSweeney’s. Their copy: A new king is being crowned, doctors are on the verge of a massive medical discovery, society is financially and socially segregated by the platelet-count numbers of constant blood tests, and the world is divided into three geographical regions: school, clinic, home. In this lyric sci-fi thriller, a sick young…

Rex Stuart (T.2s) had made a pile as the star of the soap opera Sorrows and Trials. He’d set up his film company to cater to the streaming market. Right now, Afro-Futurism is hot. He asked his agents to name a Black writer who could write a series for his company. Secretariat’s name came up. Someone said he’d read his novel Yellow Back Radio Broke Down (1969), and it ended with AI running things.…

A panel from Crumple by Dave Cooper. Published in Zero Zero #20, Sept.-Oct. 1997, Fantagraphics Books.

One might argue—and justly—that many male writers are also represented by only one book or one group of poems. I would answer first that the damage done the women is greater because women constitute so few of the total in anthologies, classes, curricula, and reading lists at any level of education. Moreover, the real mischief of the myth of the isolated achievement, as it is applied to the…

“Eleanor” by Eric Drooker. Published in Drawn & Quarterly #2 (vol. 2), Dec. 1994, Drawn & Quarterly Publications.

“Fictional Exits” by Alasdair Gray Because of a mistake (though I do not know whose) someone was shut in a windowless room with nothing to look at but a door which could only be opened from outside, a lavatory pan and a wall poster showing the face of the nation’s ruler. After imagining a great many dealings with this official the prisoner tried to find pleasure in a landscape behind the face.…

Eleven Blue Men, Berton Roueché, 1953. Berkley Medallion Books (1968). No cover artist or designer credited. 191 pages.

A panel from “Credo” by Richard Sala. Published in Drawn & Quarterly #2 (vol. 1), Oct. 1990, Drawn & Quarterly Publications.