The following is a draft excerpt from my novel in progress, Housebreaking the Muse. In this passage I present my protagonist, Ray Burke, through the eyes Ubu Reformé, one of the novel's narrative entities. Ubu pays a visit on a more youthful Burke in "them punk rock days o' yore" when Burke headed up an…
Ian Curtis would have been 58 years old today. This draft is part of a sidebar project on which I’m collaborating with artist Jeff Edmunds. The project is a collection of illustrated biofictional shorts we’re calling “Evocations” because they seek to evoke the spirit of their subjects. For those not among the cognoscenti, you can…
Roughly 10 years ago I was asked to contribute to an anthology of William Burroughs ... well, I'm not sure criticism is the correct word here, and I wonder about scholarship, at least in the sense of traditional, received notions of scholarship. What the hell was it? Perhaps I can best describe the anthology as…
The following is a draft excerpt from my novel in progress, Housebreaking the Muse. The novel is haunted by the character of Jacques Rigaut, the French dadaist, gigolo, drug addict, dandy, and suicide. This fragment is from one of a number of first-person passages that present Rigaut on the night of his suicide. Rigaut Failure…
The following is a draft excerpt from my novel in progress, Housebreaking the Muse. The novel is haunted by the character of Jacques Rigaut, the French dadaist, gigolo, drug addict, dandy, and suicide. It is also narrated, in part, by a reformed Père Ubu. In this fragment, Ubu introduces the setting for much of the…
Ed Desautels' Maximum Fiction 