biblioklept

Peace, Gene Wolfe, 1975. Berkley Books  (1982). No cover artist or designer credited. 246 pages. The uncredited cover artist is obviously and well-documentedly Gahan Wilson. Maybe a hundred pages into Gene Wolfe’s 1975 novel Peace it struck me that this book is, like, an American post-modernist classic that we would now talk about alongside novels of writers like Pynchon, Barth, Reed, Coover,…

A page from Congo Chromo by Olivier Schrauwen. Published in Mome v. 17, Winter 2010, Fantagraphics Books.

A panel from “Pray for Pianoland” by Brian Blomerth. Published in NOW #4, Sept. 2018, Fantagraphics Books.

The Godmother, 2023 by Walton Ford (b. 1960)

The Underground Chud, 1913 by Nicholas Roerich (1874-1947)

“The Secret of Evil” by Roberto Bolaño translated by Chris Andrews This story is very simple, although it could have been very complicated. Also, it’s incomplete, because stories like this don’t have an ending. It’s night in Paris, and a North American journalist is sleeping. Suddenly the telephone rings, and someone asks in English, with an unidentifiable accent, for Joe A. Kelso. Speaking,…

A panel from “Hide & Watch Me” by Joe Kimball. Published in Mome #8, Summer 2007, Fantagraphics Books.

It happened that the ship, gaining her port, was moored to the dock on a Fourth of July; and half an hour after landing, hustled by the riotous crowd near Faneuil Hall, the old man narrowly escaped being run over by a patriotic triumphal car in the procession, flying a broidered banner, inscribed with gilt letters: “BUNKER-HILL 1775. GLORY TO THE HEROES THAT FOUGHT!” It was on Copps’ Hill, within…

For years after, there were tales told in Colorado of the amazing, world-reversing night of Fourth of July Eve 1899. Next day’d be full of rodeos, marching bands, and dynamite explosions—but that night there was man-made lightning, horses gone crazy for miles out into the prairie, electricity flooding up through the iron of their shoes, shoes that when they finally came off and got saved to use…

Our Ambassador has spoken of our Fourth of July and the noise it makes. We have got a double Fourth of July—a daylight Fourth and a midnight Fourth. During the day in America, as our Ambassador has indicated, we keep the Fourth of July properly in a reverent spirit. We devote it to teaching our children patriotic things—reverence for the Declaration of Independence. We honor the day all through…

We spent the most of the last week of June in Boston, a city I’d never been to before. It was ostensibly a birthday present for my son, who wanted to see one of his favorite noisy rock bands play, but it was also an excuse to exit the dreadful cruel wet heat of Florida summer. We stayed in the Back Bay neighborhood and did many of the requisite touristy things one expects of touring visitors, but…

Detail from photograph of William T. Vollmann by Alexander Sorondo Just over a year ago, Alexander Sorondo published a long profile of William Vollmann in The Metropolitan Review. Today, at his website Big Reader Bad Grades, Sorondo has published an account of his recent visit to Vollmann out in Sacramento. Titled “We Always Leave Things Unfinished,” and ostensibly about Vollmann’s forthcoming…

“I Don’t Get It” by Robert Crumb, published in Mystic Funnies #1, Alex Wood, 1997.

“Rogue Tomato” by Michael Bishop THE METAMORPHOSIS OF PHILIP K. When Philip K. awoke, he found that overnight he had grown from a reasonably well shaped, bilaterally symmetrical human being into . . . a rotund and limbless planetary body circling a gigantic gauzy-red star. In fact, by the simple feel, by the total aura projected into the seeds of his consciousness, Philip K. concluded that he…

“Legman assman bustman, abominable Henry” (from Henry’s Fate and Other Poems) by John Berryman Legman assman bustman, abominable Henry wandered thro’ France & Italy agog: my God what visible places. Everywhere he studied with both his eyes the faces of those whose fates were his, like a Sligo bog to be cut & burnt, or be flourisht amongst great clouds for a long time ah next San Marco choiring,…

Pause, 2019 by Rosa Loy (b. 1958)