Tag: innovative fiction

“A literary masterwork”…

We are proud to present this extraordinary blend of fiction, myth, dream and memory – filled with haunting literary pleasures.

ADVANCE PRAISE FOR A FASHION DICTIONARY

“A Fashion Dictionary is a literary masterwork in which Gaurav Monga firmly and clearly displays his enviable talents, and marks him as a writer to be reckoned with. Make no mistake, the entries he has written are alive with story. Monga’s impressive ability to find and firmly entrench story in the terms, phrases and articles of clothing he references is a literary feat worth noting, and admiring.”
—Jason E. Rolfe, author of Invisible Influences and The Puppet-Play of Doctor Gall

“A subtle and deft exploration not only of fashion but of everything fashion rubs up against: identity, selfhood, desire, death. Monga strikes a very delicate balance in this dictionary that both is and isn’t a dictionary, sliding from the descriptive to the narrative and back again, creating a pattern as elegant as a spider’s web draped quivering and fragile over the tips of one’s fingers.” —Brian Evenson

“What a little gem of a book for anyone who uses clothes or words, but especially for those who are used to reading and writing about fashion, as it offers a respite from the tired and familiar narratives of both academic fashion theory and fashion journalism. It manages to “make strange” the most familiar and mundane items like ankle socks, buttons and hair bands; it gives body, sensuality and a defiant flair to Pathani suits and Phirans; it endows neck ties with an eerie sensibility. Oscillating between fact and dream, real and imaginary spacetimes and histories, literary and fashion references, it perpetually keeps the reader on their toes and trains us to (sometimes anxiously) question the agencies and agendas of everyday objects whose close proximity to us usually allow them to remain unnoticed.”
–Jana Melkumova-Reynolds, cultural sociologist

“Highly recommended!”
—Seb Emina, READ ME

A Fashion Dictionary
Gaurav Monga
151 pp., $14.95
ISBN 979-8989433032

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Gaurav Monga is a writer and teacher originally from New Delhi. He is the author of Tears for Rahul Dutta (Philistine Press, 2012), Family Matters (Eibonvale Press, 2019), Ruins (Desirepath Publishers, 2019), Costumes of the Living (Snuggly Books, 2020), My Father, The Watchmaker (Hawakal Publishers, 2020), The English Teacher (Raphus Press, 2021) and Raju and Kishore (Raphus Press, 2022). His work has appeared in numerous literary magazines, including B O D Y, Fanzine, Dismantle and Vestoj. He is a regular contributor to Outlook India.

NEW FICTION COLLECTION

SACRIFICE is perhaps Harold Jaffe’s most personal book, while at the same time assaulting the assaulters of an earth in its final throes. As always, the assaults are brilliantly multi-faceted: “unsituated” dialogues, razor-sharp satire, faux-reportage, precisely cadenced rhetoric, and a deep spirit-feeling for the disappeared and dispossessed—human, animal, and plant.

Each of Jaffe’s volumes has been groundbreaking. He has written some of the most innovative fiction of our time. —Toby Olson

Harold Jaffe’s latest work, Sacrifice, is an omnidirectional cry of alarm and call to action concerning the multifarious and often extinction-level problems facing our world. In a series of insightful and often ironic short texts, ranging from docufiction tosocio-philosophical commentary and self-examination, beginning with references to Greek philosophers and meandering through the most critical issues of our day, Jaffe’s adept prose is a heart-filled and intellectualized reaction to terrestrial issues, a combination of rage, revulsion, and an implied plea for amelioration—in the fullest form of self-sacrifice, if necessary. —Sebastian Bennett

SACRIFICE
Harold Jaffe
A BlackScat Paperback Original
140 pp., 7.13 x 7.25 inches; $12.95
ISBN 979-8-9859996-0-0

CRITICAL PRAISE FOR HAROLD JAFFE:

From the docufictional shards of GOOSESTEP emerges a savage prophetic voice as grief-maddened as Isis picking through the bones on illusion’s killing floor to reassemble a dream that cannot be reanimated.—Patricia Eakins

As TERROR-DOT-GOV vividly demonstrates: We are spiritually imperiled by illusions masked as “news.” Omissions, slants, pallid editorials all testifying to servitude to a slavish, enslaving “text.” Harold Jaffe knows this by heart. Everywhere in Terror-dot-Gov, is exemplary skill, faultless tonality, and courage. Don’t forget courage. —Daniel Berrigan, SJ


“Jaffe’s convincing portraits of the dispossessed are moving, insightful glimpses of the human spirit under stress.” —New York Times Book Review


As always, Jaffe’s writing is moving, comical, marvelously deft.”
—Washington Post

Also Available from Black Scat:

This collection of Harold Jaffe’s short, one-act plays is exceptionally diverse. The nine innovative dramas feature Billie Holiday & Lester Young; Antonin Artaud & Georges Bataille; Marilyn Monroe & Marlon Brando; Samuel Beckett; condemned prisoners in Texas making their final statement before execution; Israelis & Palestinians in life-or-death dialogue; Charles Manson unleashed; Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin & Jim Morrison burning it at both ends; & the potently satirical “Splish Splash,” exploring gender discord.

And now for dessert . . .

EXCERPT

from SWEET AND VICIOUS / Copyright © 2014 by Suzanne Burns

sweet-cover

“Sweet and Vicious is an inspired exploration of Waldeinsamkeit and (post)romantic angst that turns the mundane into something beautiful and wild. Burns is a gifted writer.”
—D. Harlan Wilson

Black Scat Books is proud to present this innovative work of fiction by Suzanne Burns.

Sweet and Vicious is a provocative and relentlessly compelling new novel.

CLICK HERE TO ORDER

___

Suzanne Burns writes poetry and fiction in Bend, Oregon (and sometimes in Paris, France). She is the author of Siblings, Misfits and Other Heroes, and Love Songs for Las Vegas, among other books. Sweet and Vicious is her first novel.