The Game is Afoot!

“Pell’s satire doesn’t lack for sharp edges. His twisted humor is sure to appeal to crime-fiction lovers.” —THE RAP SHEET

Black Scat proudly presents Derek Pell’s  MISSING MYSTERIES — the most baffling and hilarious reference book ever published. This  special collector’s edition features a complete history of nonexistent mysteries (1840 – 2015) in one deluxe, large format paperback.

Packed with pulp, crimes, dicks, dames, thugs, puns, gumshoes and stoolies. Loaded with laughs, maps, gaffs, noir, conundrums, puzzles & quizzes. 196 pages crammed with over 100 full-color cover reproductions, plus startling excerpts, scathing reviews, outlandish blurbs and mysterious synopses.

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In the words of Mystery Writers of America Grand Master Lawrence Block: “Derek Pell is quite mad, in rather a brilliant way.”

Novelist Robert Coover has called Pell “…a wordplay master and a parodist of great wit and cunning,”  and MISSING MYSTERIES offers further evidence.

CLICK HERE TO ORDER DIRECT FROM OUR PRINTER  / CLICK HERE TO ORDER ON AMAZON

Three Plays by D. Harlan Wilson

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Black Scat Books is proud to add D. Harlan Wilson to its list of luminaries. This is the renegade author’s first collection of plays, and it’s guaranteed to provoke  standing ovations — or perhaps we should say “fistfights in the orchestra” as Jarry’s Ubu Roi did so long, long ago.

Over the last two decades, D. Harlan Wilson has established himself as a writer of avant-garde fiction that has been called many names, ranging from speculative, literary and postmodern to irreal, bizarro, absurdist and “splatter-schtick.” Some say he defies categorization and is a genre unto himself. In THREE PLAYS, Wilson subverts traditional forms of stagecraft, unmans the helm of narrative, and exposes the nightmares that distinguish everyday life in urban and suburban America. Channeling Samuel Beckett and Jon Fosse in one scene, Russell Edson and Alfred Jarry in the next, he subjects actors as much as audiences and readers to mindless violence and torrid irrationality under the auspices of literary theory, psychoanalysis, philosophy and science. These plays belong more to an ultramodern zoo than a modern-day theater. In “The Triangulated Diner,” a Camero fishtails across the stage and runs over actors as jungle animals attack the audience. An elephant is hung onstage by a crane for stomping on the head of an abusive handler in “The Dark Hypotenuse.” “Primacy” finds a husband and wife struggling to write the perfect obituary, ideally one that includes wuxia death matches and flying holy men . . . This collection describes a microcosm that is at once uncanny and familiar, weird and ordinary, comedic and horrific. Wilson puts the human condition on trial and challenges us to view theatrics in a different light.

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The official publication date is March 15th, but ADVANCE COPIES ARE AVAILABLE NOW on Amazon. CLICK HERE to order.

THREE PLAYS BY D. HARLAN WILSON
Trade paperback; 160 pages; $12.95
ISBN-13: 978-0692631539

Cover photograph by Lodiza LePore / DESIGN BY NORMAN CONQUEST

Alphonse Allais’s Absurd “Affair”!

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Adapted to film four times, “L’Affaire Blaireau” has remained popular and in print in France since its original appearance in 1899. This is its first publication in English. It is humorist Alphonse Allais’s only novel and, in the words of translator Doug Skinner: “It isn’t quite as wild or cruel as his early stories, but I find it delicious anyway. Summer in the provinces, the shrewd but impressionable Blaireau, futile political squabbles, a ridiculous but charming love story, what more could one want? And innocence is rewarded!”

Here’s a taste from Chapter I:

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THE BLAIREAU AFFAIR is a rare find to be savored by the author’s growing circle of fans in America.

CLICK HERE TO ORDER A COPY ON AMAZON

About the author:
ALPHONSE ALLAIS (1854 – 1905) began his career in Paris during the Belle Epoque. He was particularly active at the legendary cabaret Le Chat Noir, where he wrote for and edited the weekly paper. He quickly became known for his deadpan wit and inexhaustible imagination. Among other things, he also exhibited some of the first monochromatic pictures (such as his all-white “First Communion of Chlorotic Girls in the Snow” in 1883) and composed the first silent piece of music: “Funeral March for the Obsequies of a Deaf Man” (1884).

He was a crucial influence on Alfred Jarry, as well as on the Surrealists: Breton included him in his ANTHOLOGY OF BLACK HUMOR, and Duchamp was reading him on the day he died. Allais’s fascination with wordplay, puns, and holorhymes led Oulipo to call him an “anticipatory plagiarist”; the Pataphysical College dubbed him their “Patacessor.” His books have remained in print in France, and the Académie Alphonse Allais has awarded a literary prize in his honor since 1954.

TGIF the 13th!

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This must be your lucky day! The “Superstition” issue has arrived, and not a moment too soon.

This issue features 13 contributors: Paulo Brito, Eckhard Gerdes, Harold Jaffe, Soren James, Rick Krieger, Terri Lloyd, Monika Mori, Alice Pulaski, Frank Pulaski, Doug Skinner, Mylene Viger, Dominic Ward, and Carla M. Wilson. A sublime brew with a cover by Alice Pulaski.

BLACK SCAT REVIEW #13—innovative art & fiction that dares to walk under ladders.

Order your copy now on Amazon.

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Good luck!

A Grand Buffet!

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In this sublime bilingual edition, master chef and avant-garde gourmet Richard Kostelanetz serves up a classic feast guaranteed to spark one’s mental taste buds. From the main course of a carefully carved guinea pig in the form of Gustave Flaubert’s “Dictionnaire des idées reçus,” Kostelanetz carves delicious English morsels seasoned with artificial intelligence (aka Google Translate) and his own sympathies.

GUSTAVE’S POCKET DICTIONARY is a 21st Century classic.

Trade paperback, 190 pages, 5.06″ x 7.81″
$10.95

Click here to order your copy on Amazon