In an earlier post, I presented the synopsis of my novel in progress, Housebreaking the Muse. As noted, the novel is haunted by the figure of Jacques Rigaut, the French Dadaist, gigolo, addict, and suicide. Though I'd long had an interest in the Dadas, I didn't hear the name "Jacques Rigaut" until I stumbled upon…
The novelist Paul West has had the greatest influence on my development as a writer. I first had the great fortune of encountering this member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, winner of the Prix Médicis and the Lannan Literary Award for Fiction, Literary Lion of the New York Public Library system, and…
The following is a short short story I wrote years ago as a kind of crazy, Americanized homage to the style of the great Austrian novelist, Thomas Bernhard. It was inspired by the transvestites who used to hang out at the Savoy Restaurant in Philadelphia during my time there in the mid 80s. It was…
(spam poem by Edward Desautels) outdoor glasses open to lonely winter promise our Indians the reservations sold we affirm our pretty town behind the cannon preempt the encounter conduct our inquiries redeem thy foundry we cry on horseback our vapours seeth and tumble in the upper regions we have done ill will we have asked…
The following is excerpted from Manifesto: Maximalist Expressionism, or "Shut/-/Up(!) Fiction". As to what transpires in my novel Flicker in the Porthole Glass, I’ve been asked point blank: Does anything happen in this novel? My answer: The novel happens in this novel. In his book of essays, For a New Novel, Alain Robbe-Grillet sums up…
