fp20 THE INBORN ABSOLUTE by Robert Ryan $60
This book collects the artist’s past five years of Eastern deity paintings, mandala studies, and even an unfettered glimpse into his sketchbook. It also includes interviews with iconic performer and artist Genesis P. Orridge and legendary tattoo artist Freddy Corbin, which serve to contextualize Ryan’s work and his progression as an artist.
fp18 THE TENNESSEE HIGHWAY DEATH CHANT by Keegan Jennings Goodman $13.95
Two teenagers are stranded in purgatory: Jenny wakes each morning, the same morning, and chronicles the events of her final day, her mind reaching back into the recesses of time, collecting a mythical past that bleeds into the details of her violent end. John drinks beer, philosophizes about the nature of reality and consciousness, and hurtles his Firebird Trans Am into the darkness beyond the headlights.
JNR170.3 ALL OVER AND OVER by Tim Kinsella $14.95
In 2003, living on constant tour through the dark days of the dawn of The War on Terror, Joan of Arc decided to regroup as a political hardcore band: Make Believe. For the next few years they maintained a grueling schedule. These are Kinsella’s journals of their final, full U.S. tour—when he had to admit that the cost-benefit ratio of this lifestyle had toppled and he needed to stop.
fp16 ERRATIC FIRE, ERRATIC PASSION by Jeff Parker & Pasha Malla $14.95
The content of postgame interviews and sports chatter is often meaningless, if not insufferable. But some athletes transcend lame clichés and rote patter, using language in surprising, funny, and insightful ways. This book of “found” poems uses athletes’ own words to celebrate those rare moments, with an introduction by award-winning sports writer Bethlehem Shoals.
fp15 SEE YOU IN THE MORNING by Mairead Case $13.95
Set one summer in a small Midwestern town, this book is about three 17-year-olds who take care of each other: Rosie, John, and the book’s unnamed narrator, who works at a bookstore and sometimes focuses so hard on reading they see polka dots take over the room. This debut novel entangles the fraught intimacy, painful growth, and utter strangeness of youth in beautiful and lightning-bright prose.
fp14 THE FIRST COLLECTION OF CRITICISM BY A LIVING FEMALE ROCK CRITIC by Jessica Hopper $17.95
Jessica Hopper’s music criticism has earned her a reputation as one of the firebrands of the form—a keen observer and fearless critic not just of music, but the culture around it, revealing new truths that often challenge us to consider what it is to be a fan. This book is a thoughtful document of the last 20 years of American music making and the shifting landscape of music consumption.
fp13 THE MINUS TIMES COLLECTED: TWENTY YEARS / THIRTY ISSUES (1992–2012) edited by Hunter Kennedy $16.95
Banged out on a 1922 Underwood typewriter, this ’zine began as an open letter to strangers and fellow misfits then grew into a breeding ground for the next generation of American fiction. Featuring Sam Lipsyte, Wells Tower, David Eggers, Dan Clowes, Barry Hannah, a yet-to-be-famous Stephen Colbert, and many more, with an introduction by Patrick DeWitt.
fp12 THE KARAOKE SINGER’S GUIDE TO SELF-DEFENSE by Tim Kinsella $14.95
Reunited for a funeral, a family finds dissonance in the fragments of their shared memories: a thoughtful dancer back at her bar, a bitter father working in a toothpaste factory, and a fist-fight addict struggling to keep his nose clean. Across town, a boy is locked up in a delusional man’s home, and a teenage runaway looks for a new life in a strip club. Cruelty is a given. Karaoke is every Thursday.
fp11 THE UNIVERSE IN MINIATURE IN MINIATURE by Patrick Somerville $14.95
In this genre-busting book of short stories we find a Chicago man who is bequeathed a supernatural helmet that allows him to experience the inner worlds of those around him; we peer into the mind of an art student grappling with ennui; we telescope out to the story of idiot extraterrestrials struggling to pilot a complicated spaceship; and we follow a retired mercenary as he tries to save his marriage and questions his life abroad.
fp10 DADDY’S by Lindsay Hunter $14.95
You ever fed yourself something bad? Like a candied rattlesnake, or a couple fingers of antifreeze? Nope? You seen what it done to other people? Like while they’re flopping around on the floor, you’re thinking about how they’re fighting to live. Like while they’re dying, they never looked so alive. That’s what Daddy’s is like.
fp09 THE AWFUL POSSIBILITIES by Christian TeBordo $14.95
A girl among kidney thieves masters the art of forgetting. A motivational speaker skins his best friend to impress his wife. A man outlines the rules and regulations for sadistic child-rearing. You’ve heard these people whispering in hallways, mumbling in diners, shouting in the apartment next door. In these stories, Christian TeBordo locates the awe in the awful possibilities we could never have imagined.
fp08 SCORCH ATLAS by Blake Butler $14.95
A post-apocalyptic novel of 14 interlocking stories, set in ruined locales where birds speak gibberish, the sky rains gravel, and millions starve, disappear, or grow coats of mold. Rendered in beautiful language and in a variety of narrative forms, from a psychedelic fable to a skewed insurance claim questionnaire, Blake Butler’s full-length fiction debut paints a gorgeously grotesque version of America.
fp07 AM/PM by Amelia Gray $12.95
If anything’s going to save these characters from their troubled romances, their social improprieties, or their hands turning into claws, it’s a John Mayer concert tee. This flash-fiction collection tours the lives of 23 characters across 120 stories full of lizard tails, Schrödinger boxes, and volcano love. It’s an intermittent love story as seen through a darkly comic lens, mixing poetry and prose, humor and hubris.
fp05 BORING BORING BORING BORING BORING BORING BORING by Zach Plague $14.95
When the mysterious gray book that drives their twisted relationship goes missing, Ollister and Adelaide lose their post-modern marbles. He plots revenge against art patriarch The Platypus, while she obsesses over their anti-love affair. Meanwhile, the art school set experiments with bad drugs, bad sex, and bad ideas. This is a hybrid typo/graphic novel which skewers the art world, and those boring enough to fall into its traps.
fp04 THIS WILL GO DOWN ON YOUR PERMANENT RECORD by Susannah Felts $9.95
At the beginning of a lonely summer, 16-year-old Vaughn Vance meets Sophie Birch, and the two forge an instant and volatile alliance. When Vaughn takes up photography, she trains her lens on Sophie, and their bond dissolves as quickly as it came into focus. This YA novel illuminates the pitfalls of coming of age as an artist, the slippery nature of identity, and the clash of class in the New South.
fp03 HIDING OUT by Jonathan Messinger $13.95
This collection is filled with playful and empathic tales of misguided lonely hearts: A jilted lover dons robot armor to win back the heart of an ex-girlfriend; an angel loots the home of a single father; a teenager finds the key to everlasting life in a video game. Sparkling with humor and showcasing an array of styles, these characters dodge consequences while trying desperately to connect.
fp01 SONS OF THE RAPTURE by Todd Dills $12.95
Billy Jones and his dad have a score to settle. Up in Chicago, Billy drowns his past in booze. In South Carolina, his father saddles up for a drive to reclaim him. Caught in this perfect storm is a ragged assortment of savants: shape-shifting doctor, despairingly bisexual bombshell, tiara-crowned trumpeter, zombie senator.
fp00 THE ENCHANTERS VS. SPRAWLBURG SPRINGS by Brian Costello $12.95
This novel is a satirical, riotous story of a band trapped in suburbia and bent on changing the world. A frenzied “scene” whips up around them as they gain popularity, and the band members begin thinking big. It’s a hilarious, crazy send-up of self-destructive musicians, written in a prose filled with more music than anything on the radio today.
Zachary Schomburg is the author of four books of poetry, and the publisher of Octopus Books. He lives in Portland, OR. Mammother is his first novel.
zacharyschomburg.net
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