An Arty Berlin Theme Hotel

I am thrilled that my novel, The Correspondence Artist, will be coming out with Two Dollar Radio. When Eric asked me if I would blog a bit about my book, I thought it might be interesting to give potential readers a little background information about my characters – specifically, the four fictional manifestations of “the paramour,” the narrator’s celebrity lover whose “true” identity must remain undisclosed.

I’m dedicating this week to items relating to Duong Van Binh, the twenty-something digital art star currently living in Berlin.

My narrator, Vivian, first met Binh in the lobby of an arty theme hotel there called Propeller Island City Lodge. It’s run by Binh’s friend, Lars Stroschen. Lars also has a record label (experimental electronic).

That first encounter between Vivian and Binh is a little disorienting. There’s a weird confrontation with Binh’s jealous ex involving Coca-Cola and violence. Vivian’s confusion on that trip is only augmented by the fact that she’s staying in the “Upside Down Room”:

Still, despite my narrator’s awkward experience, I wouldn’t dissuade you from staying at Propeller Island. In fact, you may want to check out a couple of the other rooms:

The White Ribbon

Michael Haneke’s The White Ribbon has already been exterminated, exfoliated and hermaneuticized, and will undoubtedly be the subject of numerous PhD theses. But let’s cut to the chase. The film’s historical context, the assassination of the Archduke Ferdinand in Sarejevo, immediately forces the viewer to pluck out his or her retrospectroscope. Should the viewer call to mind Daniel Jonah Goldhagen’s Hitler’s Willing Executioners, which throws cold water on the banality-of-evil theory invoked by Hannah Arendt in Eichman in Jerusalem, or turn to Elias Canetti’s Crowds and Power to understand the impending sense of doom and horror that grows amidst Haneke’s astonishing, unflinchingly beautiful set pieces? Christian Berger’s cinematography owes more to Zeno and Parmenides of the Eleatic School of pre-Socratic philosophy than to film-school technique, as his black and white shots strive towards a prison-like stasis. It is almost disturbing to detect motion in some of the compositions, which are interrupted by movements so discreet that we at first mistake them for trompe l’oeil.

Etiology and innocence are the themes that Haneke (The Piano Player, Caché) is playing with, and his mise en scène is virtually inextricable from the narration. The oppressive luminescence of sunlight on snow is one of the recurring images in this exploration of human sadism and childhood’s lack of innocence. The butchering of an already crippled bird, the torture of two children (one retarded), the tripping of a horse and rider, an adolescent put to sleep with his hands tied to preempt masturbation—these are just a few of the images woven into a tapestry of evil that becomes a work of great beauty. Evil beauty is not an oxymoron if we consider The Divine Comedy, or Nancy Milford’s book about Edna St. Vincent Millay, Savage Beauty. Emily Dickinson's memorable line, “Split the lark and you’ll find the music,” gives a hint what Haneke’s getting at, only in this case it’s the music that leads to a dead bird. One can’t help can’t help but think of Bergman’s Winter Light. Haneke’s stern pastor is a dead ringer for Gunnar Bjornstand, who plays a similar role in the Bergman film. The two cinematic personae are due for a tête a tête.

[This was originally posted to The Screaming Pope, Francis Levy's blog of rants and reactions to contemporary politics, art and culture.]

Our Authors are Effing Rad

In the future we plan to incorporate blog posts from our various authors, since it can become kind of stale (and redundant) reading (and writing) solely from one person's vantage. And what better source for additional perspectives than our very own authors?

Starting Monday, Barbara Browning, author of the forthcoming The Correspondence Artist (early 2011) will be guest-posting for the entire week.

Equally awesome on the awesome-thermometer, is that we asked some of our authors whether they'd be willing to model our line of tee shirts for our website. Below are some of their glamour shots (there are more to come!):

Xiaoda Xiao, author of The Cave Man and

The Visiting Suit: Stories From My Prison Life (Nov. '10).

Grace Krilanovich, author of The Orange Eats Creeps (Sept. '10).

Joshua Mohr, author of Some Things That Meant the World to Me

and Termite Parade (July '10).

Amy Koppelman, author of I Smile Back.

Francis Levy, author of Erotomania: A Romance.

Questions for John Martin

In 2007, while we were waiting for our new distribution contract with Consortium to take effect, I spent some time researching older presses and publishers because I found it both interesting and inspiring. I read about Noel Young of Capra Press "69ing" books by featuring an experienced author on one side and a debut writer on the opposite, which is where I got the idea to flip the two autonomous Wurlitzer novels Flats and Quake. Around this time I was also fortunate enough to meet Barney Rosset (twice!) and hold his Hedada Award (which was extremely heavy).

From my internet scrounging, Young appeared to be a part of a vibrant West Coast publishing scene that included City Lights and John Martin's Black Sparrow Press. Black Sparrow, to me, felt like a working-man's Grove Press. While the two don't necessarily feel comparable other than that to my impressionable mind, they were two of the vital independent presses of the mid-century that truly pushed literary culture forward. But where Grove seemed attracted to the spectacle of the obscenity trials and the opportunity to publish work that intentionally frayed nerves, Black Sparrow seemed to embody a more hard-nosed literary idealism.

I mailed John Martin a letter and he sent me an email in response. He was very encouraging, and said:

"There really is no sure-fire 'formula' for first establishing a publishing company and then making it successful. But you have to be smart enough and lucky enough to attract and choose authors whose books will actually sell. (Publishing only your friends or yourself will lead to disappointment.) Then there's the matter of sufficient capital. I started Black Sparrow in 1966 with a cushion of ca. $30K which both kept me in groceries for 2-3 years and also paid off the cost of the books as I published them. I also kept my day job. And by the time that money was gone Black Sparrow had begun to turn a tiny profit. Not to scare you off, but to start Black Sparrow again in 2007, and to publish the kind of literary books I was interested in, I think I'd need a cushion of at least $300,000 to pull it off. ($300,000 in today's money just about equals $30K in 1966 money.) At the same time hard work can overcome almost any obstacle and I wish you all the best!"

Martin had sold his collection of rare first-editions in order to strum up that initial $30K.

Over the past couple months I've been exchanging emails with Martin, with the intentions of interviewing him. I'm not certain it will pan out, thanks largely to scheduling and finding the time, but I did scribble down a number of questions that I would have liked to ask the man:

What was the atmosphere of the time like in the ‘60s when you decided to start publishing?

Was there some kind of specific impetus you can pinpoint?

Was it hard for you to part with the copies of your rare first-edition books?

Did you feel as though you were part of a community in Santa Barbara?

Your books have a very particular, intentional aesthetic – what was your inspiration?

I read in a previous interview you gave that a press from the ‘20s, Black Sun, was your guiding light so to speak – can you tell me about your attraction?

What was it that drew you to Bukowski initially?

You offered him a monthly advance to publish with you, which was part of your monthly salary at an office supply company?

Your meeting with Bukowski has been romanticized throughout the years – who were some of the other authors that you published who made an impression on you? Or make for a good story?

Thanks to your particular taste and publishing choices, you were envisioned as a champion of the undercurrent, the counterculture. What were a couple of books that you published that you feel exemplify this reputation, that you think maybe if you hadn’t taken them on they may not have been published?

Noel Young printed some of your books, as well as ran his own press. I’ve heard he was a character. What was your relationship like with him?

Did you have any relationship with Lawrence Ferlinghetti or Barney Rosset?

What was your reception like among New York City’s literary elite?

You’re well known for bringing the work of Paul Bowles back into print, and your correspondence is archived at the University of Delaware. What was your relationship like with him?

I’ve heard people say really complimentary things about Jane Bowles’ novel, Two Serious Ladies, which I see is now published by Ecco – was this one of those books you sold the rights to Ecco?

Were there any other authors whose work you tried to bring back into print but couldn’t for one reason or another, or someone else beat you to the punch?

Who were some of the contemporary presses who you considered allies or peers who may have drifted into obscurity now or ceased publishing altogether?

You operated through a period of encroachment from box stores on neighborhood bookstores – nowadays, these box stores are the ones struggling, with Barnes & Noble executives anticipating half of their mega-stores closing in the next year or so. What’s your take?

What do you make of all the fuss being made about e-readers and print-on-demand book machines? And of software like the “Vook”?

The last two years, the writer who has won the Nobel Prize has been published in the U.S. solely through university or independent presses before receiving the award – is this a recent trend? Does it surprise you?

Are there any contemporary writers you would have liked to publish?

A friend who is a publisher mentioned to me that he doesn’t read as many actual books as he used to, which is something I’ve begun to notice as well. Did you have a similar experience? Did you ever feel that you were missing out on contemporary literature, especially in the late ‘60s or ‘70s when there seemed to be a period of greater experimentation or risk in publishing?

5 For $45

This week, our special offer is any 5 TDR-published titles for just $45.
[Offer available through 3/15.]

Gazelles Talk Like Girls, BTW

Kieran O'Hare used to draw a strip called Unnihilistic when Noise was an ill-formed editorial-type thang, before it morphed into the blog you behold today.

He's a pretty great artist. He started his own blog, and has a trailer for his new short film, called 80 Billion Guys, screening as part of the FilmShop's show tonight at the Music Hall of Williamsburg.

Here's the trailer:

And a short called Three Tigers and Another Tiger:

Henry Miller: Asleep + Awake

Unlike most email bulletins, I consistently look forward to opening the one sent from Arthur Magazine. There's never any shortage of relevent and amusing content.

From the latest bulletin there are new reviews from Byron Cooley and Thurston Moore, quality music recommendations for beach-fire singalongs, and the following documentary of Henry Miller giving a tour of his bathroom:

HELP: We Need a Name!

We're putting together a music concert and social to take place in May that will benefit literacy, specifically Girls Write Now, a truly worthwhile organization servicing teenage girls in New York City. We need help coming up with a name for the event!!!

In the past, we've called the show 'Rock for Literacy' (lame) and 'Get Lit' (amusing, but...). So, please, write in with any ideas and suggestions. Ideally, to avoid the mental image of lighters and communal sing-alongs, I'd like to keep the word "benefit" out of the fray.

Pertinent details are being ironed out now, and we hope to have more information on the event - such as a specific date, location, and bands - available by the end of this week.

Also, anyone who may be interested in sponsoring the event can drop an email for more specifics to Brian Obenauf at brian [at] twodollarradio.com.

Why Does Love Sound So Boring?

It very well could be the phase I'm at in life, but I cannot imagine a book summation sounding any less appealing than the lead review for this Sunday's New York Times Book Review:

"In Cathleen Schine's novel, two sophisticated Manhattan sisters, one wildly emotional, one smartly sensible, come to the aid of their beloved aging mother."

The book is The Three Weissmans of Westport, a novel by Cathleen Schine. It is within possibility that the book is amazing. Although it is hard not to imagine that someone was searching for a decent novel about love to coincide with Valentine's day, and I'm wondering: is that necessary?

How Do You Follow Up Tut-Tut, Now Shake Ya Butt?

Japanther's last album, Tut Tut, Now Shake Ya' Butt has pretty much become a mainstay in the Two Dollar Radio radio. Our little girl, Rio, likes to dance around screaming "Tut Tut, Now Shake Ya' Butt." Apparently a new album is out March 2, with another title Rio should go ape for, Rock 'n' Roll Ice Cream.

The First Card is Written

I recently finished reading a book that received a mountain of praise last year, Hans Fallada's Every Man Dies Alone. It tells the story of Otto and Anna Quangel, a common, quiet, hard-working German couple who, following the death of their son in battle, confront the Nazi Party by writing postcards with political slogans and leaving them in public spaces.

What was particularly dizzying about the book was the rampant deceit practiced by one neighbor upon another:
"The air was thick with betrayal. No one could trust anyone else, and in that dismal atmosphere the men seemed to grow ever duller, devolving into mechanical extensions of the machines they serviced."

(This reminded me of a piece that Xiaoda Xiao wrote for the Huffington Post in which he blamed the government for the everyday persecution and antagonism amongst the population in Mao's China.)

The subject matter and the knowledge that the Quangels are based upon a real couple executed by the Gestapo lend a heavy gravity to the work, and the most moving passages are between the Quangels behind closed doors:
"...whether their act was big or small, no one could risk more than his life. Each according to his strength and abilities, but the main thing was, you fought back."

Love Must be Reinvented

We went to a wedding last summer in Denver and had some time to kill before our return flight home. Since we were outlandishly hungover, we decided to check out a movie. The only thing playing in theatres, literally, was the Terminator with Christian Bale. Last year, the best movie I saw in theatres was The Hurt Locker, and I thought it was good but not great. I think I've pretty much given up on new movies even being slightly impressive. And I think, as a society at large, our standards have been generally lowered.
Since the beginning of the new year, I've made a point to watch older films I haven't seen before, and I feel like I've seen some really stellar ones. Following, are some that I would highly recommend:

Forthcoming: The Orange Eats Creeps (9/2010)

“A ‘vampire’ novel as Céline might have written, with dashes of Blake and Burroughs: hallucinatory, poetic, passionate, excessive, sexually charged, hardcore in all the best senses of the word. Twilight this is not.”
—Steve Erickson

It’s the ’90s Pacific Northwest refracted through a dark mirror, where meth and madness hash it out in the woods. . . A band of hobo vampire junkies roam the blighted landscape—trashing supermarket breakrooms, praying to the altar of Poison Idea and GG Allin at basement rock shows, crashing senior center pancake breakfasts—locked in the thrall of Robitussin trips and their own wild dreams.

A girl with drug-induced ESP and an eerie connection to Patty Reed (a young member of the Donner Party who credited her survival to her relationship with a hidden wooden doll), searches for her disappeared foster sister along “The Highway That Eats People,” stalked by a conflation of Twin Peaks’ “Bob” and the Green River Killer, known as Dactyl.

With a scathing voice and penetrating delivery, Grace Krilanovich’s The Orange Eats Creeps is one of the most ferocious debut novels in memory.

Grace Krilanovich has been a MacDowell colony fellow, and a finalist for the Starcherone Prize. Her first book, The Orange Eats Creeps, is the only novel to be excerpted twice in Black Clock.

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If you are affiliated with a media review outlet and would like to receive an advance reader's copy of The Orange Eats Creeps, please contract Brian Obenauf at brian [at] twodollarradio.com.

Forthcoming: The Visiting Suit: Stories From My Prison Life (11/2010)

“A masterful storyteller.” —Bookforum

“Xiaoda Xiao has made a stark and unforgettable contribution to the literature of imprisonment and survival.” —Scott Spencer

“When it comes to prison literature, China remains a great enigma. Whereas the Soviet Union gave us Alexander Solzhenitsyn, China has, of yet, produced no such comparable international voice in the modern age. Xiaoda Xiao’s The Cave Man is . . . a small start . . . a compelling look at Mao’s forced labor prisons.”
—Los Angeles Times

When Xiaoda Xiao was twenty years old, he tore a poster of Chairman Mao while inebriated. Several months later, Xiao was arrested in order to fulfill an absurd quota, and, without trial, declared a counterrevolutionary. He was sent to a labor prison on an island in Taihu Lake, where he worked in a stone quarry.

The Visiting Suit chronicles Xiao’s arrest through his release from the labor prison five years later.

The book, told in stories—which have appeared in The Atlantic Monthly, DoubleTake, Confrontation, and Antaeus—focus equally on Xiao’s fellow inmates (a local theatre director, a veterinarian, a university professor), and capture their mutual everyday struggle to survive their sentences with dignity intact.

The cruelties inflicted upon the Chinese population by the government are ongoing, and The Visiting Suit provides a unique and important glimpse behind the curtain.

Xiaoda Xiao is the author of The Cave Man, a novel.

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If you are affiliated with a media review outlet and would like to receive an advance reader's copy of The Visiting Suit, please contract Brian Obenauf at brian [at] twodollarradio.com.

Forthcoming: The Correspondence Artist (2011)

“The Correspondence Artist is smart, funny, sexy, knowledgeable, subtle, disturbing, light-hearted, obsessive, and tragic: a comedy that, I surmise, is wholly confessional and wholly imaginary. Readers are urged not to resent a wit superior to their own, since it is deployed entirely for their particular entertainment.”
—Harry Mathews

Vivian, a writer, is carrying on a relationship with an internationally acclaimed artist. There are those who stand to profit—and suffer—from the revelation of her paramour’s identity, so in the service of telling her tale she creates a series of fictional lovers.

There is Tzipi, a 68-year-old Nobel-winning female Israeli writer; Binh, a twenty-something Vietnamese video artist; Santuxto, a poetic Basque separatist; and Djeli, a dreadlocked Malian world-music star.

Largely through Vivian’s email correspondence, she divulges the story of their relationship, from their first meeting to their jumpy spam filter, which arrests the more explicit notes that result in Vivian captive in a tiger cage in a Berlin hotel/being chased by a Medusa-like woman on a Greek Island/imprisoned by a splinter cell of Basque separatists/in an African hospital with a bout of Dengue Fever.

Barbara Browning’s captivating wit and passionate intelligence make The Correspondence Artist a love story like none other.

Barbara Browning has a PhD from Yale in Comparative Literature. She teaches in the Department of Performance Studies at the Tisch School of the Arts, NYU. She’s also a poet and a dancer. She lives with her son in Greenwich Village.

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If you are affiliated with a media review outlet and would like to receive an advance reader's copy of The Correspondence Artist, please contract Brian Obenauf at brian [at] twodollarradio.com.