This strange, autobiographical text by a wealthy American eccentric—think Raymond Roussel sans literary pretensions—stands as a sublime absurdist curiosity. Originally published in 1802, the book features surreal stream-of-consciousness writing, bizarre spelling, wicked run-on sentences, and a complete absence of punctuation.



Too random to qualify as an Oulipian specimen, this unconstrained, egotistical work includes lunatic rants and ridicule aimed at politicians, the clergy, society — even his wife.

A self-anointed “Lord,” Timothy Dexter described himself as a genius, worthy of serving as emperor of the United States.


Let Dexter reign!

“Hilarious.”— John Marquand

“A curious effort.” — The New York Times

“Lord Timothy Dexter established his own court in a sumptuous mansion. Besides his nagging wife, crazy daughter, and alcoholic son, his ‘courtiers’ included a fortuneteller, a six foot seven inch tall idiot whom he called the dwarf, and a poet laureate appointed by himself. This ‘laureate’ was a former fishmonger and purveyor of pornography, whom Dexter dressed in cocked hat and silver-buckled shoes.” — Readers Digest Book Of Strange Stories And Amazing Facts

Perhaps you lie awake at night, your mind racing with questions. Why did Yolanda hang a flotation device from the ceiling? What happened to the Butler Bullion? Can a duck teach a dog to fly? Will Dover and Larson explore that mysterious door? What typos are most prized by collectors? Will Thyrsis and Gallus escape the wolf? And what will Bach’s 37 children do when they’re kicked out of the house?

These, and many other questions not mentioned here, will be answered by the stories in Papa Bach. You might be too amused and stimulated to go back to sleep, but your life will be richer, and, above all, more enjoyable. And you’ll never know what these stories are about unless you read them. Dig in!    

PAPA BACH & OTHER STORIES
Doug Skinner
Trade paperback; 146 pp., $12.95
ISBN 979-8-9932444-7-1

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Doug Skinner has contributed to The Fortean Times, Fate, Weirdo, Nickelodeon, Cabinet, Typo, and other fine publications. His many books include Music From Elsewhere (Strange Attractor Books), The Potato Farm, and Nominata (both from Black Scat Books). Black Scat has also published his translations of Alphonse Allais, Alfred Jarry, Luigi Russolo, Isidore Isou, Claude-Sosthène Grasset d’Orcet, Caroline Crépiat, and Corinne Taunay. Other translations include Three Dreams by Giovanni Battista Nazari (Magnum Opus Hermetic Sourceworks), The Cocktail Hour by Marcel Requien and Lucien Farnoux-Reynaud (with Gaylor Olivier, Corps Reviver), and The Science of Love by Charles Cros (Wakefield Press).

He has written music for theater and dance, most conspicuously for Bill Irwin’s show The Regard of Flight, which toured for decades.His albums That Regrettable Weekend, It All Went Pfft, An Afternoon in the Arboretum, and Music From Elsewhere are available on Bandcamp.

TV and movie appearances include Great Performances, Martin Mull’s Talent Takes a Holiday, Ed, Crocodile Dundee II, and several of George Kuchar’s videos. He has played piano on the BBC, played ukulele on the Joe Franklin Show and at an Aerosmith release party, MC’d at the Rainbow and Stars, read the audiobook of Kiarna Boyd’s scary novel Blessed and Cursed Alike, and lectured on various questionable topics at the American Visionary Art Museum, the Morbid Anatomy Museum, the Bakken Museum of Electricity in Healing, Lily Dale Assembly, the International Fortean Organization, the Minneapolis Institute of Art, and other places.

You can track his progress at dougskinner.net.

Congratulations to Temenuga Trifonova—her film adaptation of her novel TOURIST has just won “Best Feature” at the Mostra Cinema Taranto film festival in Italy.  Black Scat Books is thrilled to be publishing TOURIST  in July.

TOURIST tells the mysterious story of Jack Sturrett, a book reviewer for a London literary magazine. Dissatisfied with his job, he makes an impulsive decision to leave the city without informing anyone of his departure. He boards a bus which takes him to a small town up north where he gets a job as a tourist guide after becoming so widely read in the town’s history that he passes for a local. Outside work he maintains the identity of a tourist, living in hotels and constantly reinventing his back-story. As his fake local persona becomes threateningly real, he finds himself a suspect in a murder investigation.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Temenuga Trifonova is Associate Professor of Cinema and Media Studies at York University in Toronto. Her first novel, Rewrite, was published by NON Publishing (Vancouver) in 2014. Trifonova is the author of the scholarly monographs Warped Minds: Cinema and Psychopathology (2014) and The Image in French Philosophy (2007), and the edited volumes Contemporary Visual Culture and the Sublime (2017) and European Film Theory (2008). She has been a visiting scholar and/or artist at the American Academy in Rome, the Brown Foundation at the Dora Maar House (France), The Fondation des Treilles (France), the New York University Center for European and Mediterranean Studies, and the Pushkinskaya Art Centre in St. Petersburg. She is currently a Marie Curie Fellow at Le Studium Centre for Advanced Studies in Tours, France.

[This post was corrected 6-3-18]

Black Scat Books wishes you all a peaceful & healthy 2016. May your new year be filled with lots of good books.