Call it America. Vast the tumble-rocket-particle-wave shows the world in a rush to arrive depart and become and forget and remember everything all at once. Call it history. Call it time and memory the way water is the measure of the clock your bones the measure of love. I mean everything passes. I said the earth is a sentry, everything passes and nothing escapes. Call it home; call it exile in a kingdom of rain. - Empire Burlesque, Charles Talkoff
276 pages | 5" x 8" | ISBN 978-1-926716-42-8 (pbk.) | Softcover
276 pages | 5" x 8" | ISBN 978-1-926716-42-8 (pbk.) | Softcover
"Call it America. Vast the tumble-rocket-particle-wave shows the world in a rush to arrive depart and become and forget and remember everything all at once. Call it history. Call it time and memory the way water is the measure of the clock your bones the measure of love. I mean everything passes. I said the earth is a sentry, everything passes and nothing escapes. Call it home; call it exile in a kingdom of rain." - Empire Burlesque, Charles Talkoff
The first novel in an upcoming trilogy, "Empire Burlesque" is an attempt at reaching a realism with modernity, finding a continuity in fractured timelines and significance in chaos in a world in which these very things--realism, continuity and significance--have been deconstructed and possibly destroyed. In this "Empire Burlesque" of modernity, many things occur in the novel (life) with no apparent significance until imbued with meaning by the subject (us) and narrative authority (authority) itself is assailed by arbitrary, chaotic and decentralizing forces. This means the plot (political framing) to the extent one exists, may be ignored or contradicted and information might arrive to intrude into the narrative for no apparent reason and with no obvious connection to the events in the story. Welcome to the modern, schizoid, fragmented,unhinged burlesque empire that the West has become where Trumpian characters define reality and distort reason. An existential detective story with Theseus and the Minotaur as characters, taking on the many forms of man versus beast, citizen versus state, liberty versus control, "Empire Burlesque" renders our modernity with all its farcical, Faustian fog.
The Ministry of Ambiance, Fluffy-eared Generals, Special Agent Automatic Turpentine, Katzenberg’s Super Atomic Piston Ring, Mr. Jellybean and Agency men all vie for your thoughts. Welcome to a post-9/11 paranoid world that would have had Hoover dancing in his closet. In the finest tradition of William S. Burroughs and Thomas Pynchon, comes a strong American author writing in the great American paranoiac’s voice as every page busts forth with a wild and elusive prose that takes the reader on a wild ride where anything becomes a possibility...
The Ministry of Ambiance, Fluffy-eared Generals, Special Agent Automatic Turpentine, Katzenberg’s Super Atomic Piston Ring, Mr. Jellybean and Agency men all vie for your thoughts. Welcome to a post-9/11 paranoid world that would have had Hoover dancing in his closet. In the finest tradition of William S. Burroughs and Thomas Pynchon, comes a strong American author writing in the great American paranoiac’s voice as every page busts forth with a wild and elusive prose that takes the reader on a wild ride where anything becomes a possibility...
5 x 8 | 302 pages | ISBN 978-1-926716-10-7(pbk.) | Hardcover
A modern and radical work, Unfictions dramatizes the way in which we react to such an information-rich environment in all of its glorious simultaneity--the beginning of a type of 'New Realism' in letters – reflecting faithfully a society so saturated with events and quotations that it can no longer distinguish between them and their relative meanings.
288 pages | 5 x 8 | ISBN 978-0-9809108-6-5 (pbk.) | Softcover
This book is a response to ongoing literary trends: the treatment of words as images in art writing; the evolution of criticism as a form of creativity; and contemporary literary narrative that treats fiction as the greatest truth.
“Through this fast-paced novel, replete with kidnappings, espionage and fugitive war criminals, Abraham Boyarsky captures the Chassidic communities, their lives and their voices.”
Sender Pleskin is a self-proclaimed trauma specialist dedicated to serving his Chassidic community and to ‘gently’ nudging it into modernity.
When a Bubmer Hasid child falls inexplicably into a coma, Sender and his team jump to action. Hunting down leads in his investigation, Sender follows the signs that he interprets to be Divine Providence as they lead them down a circuitous path that will test not only his faith, but all he was and is.
5. 5 x 8 | 228 pages| ISBN 978-1-926716-40-4 (pbk.) | Softcover
An American jet fighter pilot is shot down over Laos during the Vietnam War. Twenty years later, his body is found. An American team travels to the jungles of Laos to recover the remains of the pilot for burial at home. But upon arriving, they must deal with corrupt government officials, a police chief out on a personal vendetta and suspicious, reluctant villagers who believe it is their sacred duty to conceal the remains of the pilot from them.
5 x 8 | 296 pages | ISBN 978-1-926716-36-7 (pbk.) | Softcover
The Ministry of Ambiance, Fluffy-eared Generals, Special Agent Automatic Turpentine, Katzenberg’s Super Atomic Piston Ring, Mr. Jellybean and Agency men all vie for your thoughts. Welcome to a post-9/11 paranoid world that would have had Hoover dancing in his closet. In the finest tradition of William S. Burroughs and Thomas Pynchon, comes a strong American author writing in the great American paranoiac’s voice as every page busts forth with a wild and elusive prose that takes the reader on a wild ride where anything becomes a possibility...
5 x 8 | 302 pages | ISBN 978-1-926716-10-7(pbk.) | Hardcover
THE MATCHSTICK GIRL brings LGBT undercurrents to nineteenth-century Russia, as our young protagonist struggles with class differences, schoolgirl relationships and her search for self-empowerment._x000D_
In a remote village of Laos, rival gangs plot to seize control of the land and exploit its resources for their own gain. But when their plans are threatened by Sithana's appearance, a deadly chain of events is set in motion that will test the limits of loyalty, courage, and love. As tensions rise and alliances shift, a web of corruption and deceit is revealed, and the villagers must band together to fight for their way of life.
From hitch-hiking across the 49th parallel to plane trips to Montreal, road trips to Halifax, drinking in parkades and jamming in friends’ lofts, Unwanted Hopeless Romantic Morons captures the trials and disenchantment of a disconnected generation. Lost in the vastness of Canada, the “Dead-at-25s” isolated in suburbia are lured somnabulistically to cities where they find further alienation and disappointment.
"The prose flows, liquid with passion..." Levi Asher, Literary Kicks.
172 pages | 5 x 8 | ISBN 978-0-9809108-9-6 (pbk.) | Softcover
Rathwell’s writing is “a fistful of sentences written with the subtlety of a geisha and the terse certainty of stainless steel.” - John Olson, Author
“There must have been a bad bite. Something had gestated. He wasn’t imagining it. There were wet, frozen pebbles tumbling in his veins. There was a sugary sense of euphoria, a smell of orange blossoms, of piss, of diesel.”
“For now, there is Baldie Fitzgerald. He doesn't know it yet, but he too will be changed.”
Sarah. On a wall in a house in Florida she collects postcards and photos from a hundred years ago: Baldie, the young man with one short leg; Ora, the girl with a wandering eye; Jack the chairboy: all three come alive under Sarah's probing gaze.
"All the fireworks of James Joyce's Ulysses its sleight of hand, and the streaming consciousness of Faulkner are at play..."
"...a unique roller coaster, and it's not one you want to get off."
--Author, Mark Jay Mirsky
Haystacks Kane is a 607-pound professional wrestler and dedicated butterfly collector. He’s been preyed upon, his innate kindness and gentle good nature harvested by unscrupulous promoters and conniving managers; an ex-wife who keeps him on the hook for alimony; fellow denizens of the sordid netherworld he inhabits; and the raucous ravenous crowds with a thirst for violent cheap thrills. After suffering a severe injury in the ring, Haystacks lies in his hospital bed, unable to speak and struggling to uncover the deeper truths of his existence.
Schlam’s exceptional talent as a writer shines through in this novel, as he skillfully weaves together a tapestry of voices, perspectives, and emotions to create a powerful and thought-provoking literary work that is sure to leave a lasting impression on readers.
Daniel is in the twilight of his life, tormented by doubts, of cuckolding, illegitimate children, horrors of war and the inanity of all human activity. A miraculous childhood survivor of the Nazi prison camps at Bergen-Belsen, Daniel recounts how he is shipped to Canada when the war is over...
182 pages | 5.5" x 8.25' | ISBN 978-1-926716-57-2 (pbk.) | Softcover
The FLQ have bombed the Montreal Stock Exchange. The streets are charged and a referendum is called on secession. Frederick E. Bryson captures a defining moment in Canadian history in his latest novel "Crossing to Tadoussac".
"Crossing to Tadoussac" evokes the experience of being a Quebecker in the reader, awakening the historical and spiritual struggles that have formed the province and its people.
438 pages | 5 x 8 | ISBN 978-1-926716-00-8 | Softcover
The Ministry of Ambiance, Fluffy-eared Generals, Special Agent Automatic Turpentine, Katzenberg’s Super Atomic Piston Ring, Mr. Jellybean and Agency men all vie for your thoughts. Welcome to a post-9/11 paranoid world that would have had Hoover dancing in his closet. In the finest tradition of William S. Burroughs and Thomas Pynchon, comes a strong American author writing in the great American paranoiac’s voice as every page busts forth with a wild and elusive prose that takes the reader on a wild ride where anything becomes a possibility...
PERESTROIKA: An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth by João Cerqueira
398 pages | 5.5 x 8.5 | ISBN 978-1-926716-77-0(pbk.)
In the turbulent landscape of an alternate Europe lies the captivating tapestry of "Perestroika," a literary masterpiece that weaves together the threads of revenge, redemption, and catharsis against the backdrop of an imaginary country called Slavia. With a masterful narrative, this novel stands as a testament to the indomitable spirit of humanity in the face of political upheaval.
Finalist for the 2021 Eyland Awards, Finalist for Fiction Factory Chapter Novel Competition 2022, finalist in the 2023 Latino Book Awards, and winner of the 2023 HFC European Book of the Year.
Set in Montreal, Ensemble takes us through the throes of existential crises as lives and marriages are overturned by a man’s restless yearning.
A philosopher is suddenly forced to face the questions he lectures on when they materialize out of the theoretical and into the practical after he falls for a student in his class. Meanwhile his wife, an accomplished musician is left to deal with the disintegration of their marriage and the new silence that descends upon her life as she dissects her husband’s inner workings and confronts the object of his desire. Told in clinical honesty, Ensemble deconstructs love and relationships in the 21st century.
4.72 x 7.48 | 148 pages | ISBN 978-1-926716-29-9 (pbk.) | Softcover
Price$15.88
Call it America. Vast the tumble-rocket-particle-wave shows the world in a rush to arrive depart and become and forget and remember everything all at once. Call it history. Call it time and memory the way water is the measure of the clock your bones the measure of love. I mean everything passes. I said the earth is a sentry, everything passes and nothing escapes. Call it home; call it exile in a kingdom of rain. - Empire Burlesque, Charles Talkoff
276 pages | 5" x 8" | ISBN 978-1-926716-42-8 (pbk.) | Softcover