Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Interview with Norman Lock at The Collagist with Matt Bell

Interview with Lock at the Collagist

Norman Lock, author of the recent SHADOWPLAY (Ellipsis Press) interviewed by Matt Bell over at The Collagist. Here are two bits:

Life apart from the page has become difficult – this, I know to be the result of self-consciousness, which in my case is a flinching from the assault of consciousness on a sensibility insufficiently armed against its painful disclosures. I’m sure this is true for many other sensitive people; I’m just one who has happened to make self-consciousness a subject of fiction.

and another bit:

To say that I am a writer and am interested in stories is not the tautology it might appear. At least for one who was once suspicious of stories. I came of age when language was foregrounded and stories were mere plots and to be despised. Even before language was preeminent, characterization was everything; the psychological work of fiction, this was the ideal to which a young writer with very little experience of world literature – with no experience at all of anti-naturalistic forms – aspired. My mistrust of stories may have been a misunderstanding of what fiction is; even psychological fiction tells stories – yes? I may have confused story with plot, or perhaps not. Do we not seem to prefer “fiction” and “narrative” to “story” in our description of what we do? In our minds don’t we make a distinction between literary fiction and mere stories, which are what general readers seek in the best-sellers we disdain? (Perhaps writers younger than I are today suspicious even of the literary.)

Read the rest of the interview at: http://thecollagist.com/wordpress/?p=371

Thursday, October 22, 2009

Norman Lock, Joanna Ruocco, and Gary Lutz read for Ellipsis Press


Book party for Shadowplay & The Mothering Coven
.

Norman Lock, Joanna Ruocco, and Gary Lutz
read for Ellipsis Press
Saturday, October 24th, 2009 4-7PM
Readings start at 4PM.



at Barbès | DIRECTIONS: 376 9th St, Brooklyn, NY

Come celebrate the launch of new Ellipsis Press titles by Norman Lock and Joanna Ruocco. A hypnotic tale of artistic obsession, Norman Lock's SHADOWPLAY tells the story of a Javanese shadow-puppet master. "Wise up and get all you can of Lock," says Gordon Lish. Joanna Ruocco's THE MOTHERING COVEN is a "work of wonder" (Carole Maso), a singular act of prose daring. Also reading will be special guest and short story master: Gary Lutz.

Friday, October 16, 2009

Excerpt of SHADOWPLAY in The Collagist


The rods were awkward in Guntur’s hands, and the puppets faltered behind the screen. No longer supple, his hands had forgotten how to divine the presence of the unseen. His voice also faltered. It would advance haltingly, as if words were stones above the surface of a river to be crossed with deliberation. During his exile, Guntur had lost the habit of speech. But an uncommon — even unnatural — sympathy for the wayang had not lessened during the years he had kept himself apart from people and puppets, both. If anything, it had increased while he taught himself to enter the minds of his puppets, especially that of Arjuna with whom he most identified...


Read the rest at http://www.thecollagist.com/archive/October2009/Lock/index.html

Thursday, October 15, 2009

Norman Lock's SHADOWPLAY and Joanna Ruocco's THE MOTHERING COVEN officially released today!

Buy from Ellipsis Press at: http://www.ellipsispress.com/

And come to the launch party on Saturday 10/24 from 4-7PM:

A hypnotic tale of artistic obsession, Norman Lock's SHADOWPLAY tells the story of a Javanese shadow-puppet master. "Wise up and get all you can of Lock," says Gordon Lish. Joanna Ruocco's THE MOTHERING COVEN is a "work of wonder" says Carole Maso, a singular act of prose daring. Also reading will be special guest and short story master Gary Lutz.

Saturday, October 24th, 2009 4-7PM
at Barbès | 376 9th St, Brooklyn, NY

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Derek White reviews SHADOWPLAY

Shadowplay in Bangkok


Seeker and Scriber Derek White -- about on one of his many and various peregrinations -- reviews SHADOWPLAY:
"Lock is a master storyteller that transcends place & time. more than a storyteller, Lock seeks to reveal new meanings & truths in his explorations, to unveil the unseen [not to expose, but to reVEIL[& thus reveal]. he doesn't just seek to entertain, you get a sense he is deeply (& oddly) compelled towards his plots."
Read the rest here: http://5cense.com/09/BangTokDon/Re_Siam.htm



Monday, October 12, 2009

Eugene Marten's WASTE reviewed in THE QUARTERLY CONVERSATION

Eugene Marten’s Waste is blurbed up by the Lish School (including Lish himself) so I was expecting a quirkily written, intelligent effort more concerned with the structures of its sentences than narrative cohesion; what I got is a brutal, disturbing little novel that works beautifully both for those who read for story and those who read for the artistry—or at least those who read for those things but who can deal with a shocking amount of physical and psychological trauma distilled down into sharp, tight sentences.

Read the entire review at http://quarterlyconversation.com/waste-by-eugene-marten

Wednesday, October 7, 2009

THE KING OF SWEDEN reviewed at Bookslut.com.

Norman Lock's previous book THE KING OF SWEDEN (Ravenna Press) reviewed at Bookslut.com.

"Lock demonstrates a keenness for bringing the inanimate to life… The fresh language that Lock employs makes reading it more akin to lyric poetry than no...vel. … [A] brilliant miniaturist…"
--JESSE TANGEN-MILLS at Bookslut.com
http://www.bookslut.com/fiction/2009_10_015190.php

Monday, October 5, 2009

Eugene Marten in The Brooklyn Rail

Excerpt from Eugene Marten's forthcoming novel Firework (New York Tyrant) in the current Brooklyn Rail

Dennis Cooper gives a nice shout out to WASTE on his blog

Along with Blake Butler's SCORCH ATLAS, Tao Lin's SHOPLIFTING..., and Matt Bell's THE COLLECTORS, DC cites Eugene Marten's WASTE among books he's "read recently and loved."