Disclaimer

Urban Book of the dead is my second book to be published, after 'The Unrequited Zombie'. It is a rather less experimental work, though still unusual, vivid, and descriptive. I would describe the book as both psychedelic and surreal, being rather pedantic about the use of those two words. That is, if it were surreal I would be dealing with a psychological work, something that looked towards expanding knowledge of the Id, that primitive part of our nature that is repressed by social conventions and the need to plan to get what we want. It is, in that it is self gratifying without recourse to opinion, it is every animalistic urge that can only be released through art, because to do it any other way would have terrible repercussions. Having said that, next to my early work, it is not particularly arty or deep. It is psychedelic because it looks to reaching a higher consciousness by through creativity, to reach a state beyond the normal level of seeing things, it is also psychedelic and surreal in the commonly understood sense, it is 'trippy' and sometimes deals with drugs. It starts like this… "I floated above my body, I was a bubble fit to burst, I squeezed and struggled with my form, my clothes gripping and distorting my figure with their relative solidity, were the same ghost like material as the rest of me. Down below my face stared back at me; distorted and grotesque as the spirit shapes on the bark of trees, I felt my ghost face and it was etched there too, deforming me, chiselled by a million molecules of heroin, I had my wings, hung as from a pin, spread and feathered, and spanning the whole nicotine ceiling. I stared at the blue marbled arm; growing out like the gnarled branch of a tree, the fingers gesturing me towards it, and hanging from it, the syringe full of bubbles, blood and a quicksand of powdered death whirling like a vortex. A spoon lay on the floor and a small bit of cigarette filter in it, all having served a purely symbolic process. It seemed years of injecting powders and stuff flicked down to a dirty lemonade had paid off, perhaps a bubble could kill you after all." The book is I think taking one thing at least to a new level in literature, egomania. That is because the concept of the book is I the authors fight with god who is defeated, whilst at the same time dealing with my real life struggles as I go back through things that really actually happened to me in my drug filled and violent life as a drug dealer and through prison etcetera, and, changing them. I say egomania but again I mean the Id, the ego compromises, the Id does not. It is a very angry book because I am taking back the control that was taken from me, in that, to a very large extent I did not choose my life but it was forced on me, as with all the mishaps of all my dead friends who did not survive, through suicide, alcoholism, heroin overdose and murder. Enter God. God then is a symbol for society, capitalism, and the state, and also, plain bad luck. So is God then not God, is the book not satanic? My interest in black magic personally does not extend to believing in it, or God in any accepted sense either. I believe in magic as will, that Hitler could gain power through will is magic, that people can realise the future not through clairvoyance but precognition, taking in the world around them and understanding consciously or unconsciously where it is all going to lead, that kind of magic I believe, the other sort I only have a fair knowledge of as an interest and I am not a Satanist, that would be a misplacement of effort. "The noise got louder, but lower, rather than higher, so it travelled further and vibrated the walls. Crack's appeared in the walls in the form of a hundred distorted faces of people I had known, adventured and suffered with. A fragment of glass from a picture of 'Judith with the head of Hollerfernes' hit me in my eye, almost bursting my substance, which it settled in like a bloody monocle, magnifying the African tribal Fang mask in the centre of the wall, with its pale long wooden nose and owl like brow, its jutting chin; appeared to grow eyes that searched with the deepest hideous depth around my room and the dead body of me whose 'nakedness' I wanted to cover from the gaze. The mask bowed and came out of the wall, after it a huge body wearing the blue pinstripes of my wall paper and looking every bit the business man, come to settle my accounts, I was not about to make it easy. The scrambled voices became one, the word "Jonathan!" boomed. This was God, this was the confrontation I had been waiting for my whole life." The meaning of that is obvious in the pinstriped suit I think, but also a little later the meaning and symbolism is made totally obvious. "God spoke "I am the unity, I am the morals and the law, think like me and my triumphs will be your triumphs because there will be no difference, surrender all self generated thought of conflict, all difference is imaginary, it is not held and is alien to mind." I replied simply, my head turned to him from my place on the ceiling, "I am my desire." -A little later it gets really obvious. "With haste I flew forward and stabbed God in the eyes with my fingers, which flattened against the harder substance of Gods eyes, I cried out "This is for poverty, this is for the atomisation of life, this is for your prisons and the police, for all my friends who are lost yet alive, and all those you sent to hell which is a place on Earth. This is for everything." Soon events from the past unfold, and people I knew come into the picture such as Jay. Jay was a traveller; that is he moved from town to town, lived rough and begged. He had the unnerving attribute of being both friendly, warm, and a complete psychopath, loyal and perverse, he was a real good character for a book. I meet Jay again fishing in Hell. "I dropped my line in the molten lead from my rod. Immediately the rod bent almost double, despite its thickness. It pulled so hard I estimated that what ever was on the end must have been over two hundred pounds. I reeled in my rod and a giant fish splashed on the end of it, it looked like some kind of gigantic roach, its tail splashing molten lead at me as its body curved in the waves trying to get away. I landed the fish in the boat and it suffocated there its mouth open and body heaving, I marvelled at the square scales on its silver body, bigger than my hands. As I stood fascinated, the body of the fish, distorted as if something inside was trying to push its way out, a fist punched its way through, then two hands, pulled the fish apart, then before me was the crouched naked body of Jay, covered in a stinky fish slime, he held his nose and spoke nasally. "Hello Monster!" he said smoothly. Jay stood up tall, rocking only slightly; and threw chunks of fish in the water, now without the protection of its tough outer layers, the bits of fish flamed up as they entered the sea, with puffs of flame and billows of smoke. He held the rest of the carcass above his head, his arms at full length, and chucked that in after it; there was a huge flaming that threatened to engulf the boat, but it went out fast. I was pleased to see Jay, I had him picked out as my right hand man, there was something about him that persuaded you to trust him at the same time as acknowledging he wasn't entirely trust worthy, a slightly sly warmth, a look in the eyes that said he was tough and dependable, but somehow self centred. But, however he was useful, very handy; a good person to know. I asked a searching question. "How are you here? As far as I know you're still alive." Jay looked at me long and hard "Doesn't bloody look like it does it Monster. In Hell as well. What did I do to deserve that? A few fights, drug dealing, a couple of rich burglaries, fucking a tree on LSD, underage sex and a sexual assault in McDonalds that was nothing but feeling some ones leg, and I'm in Hell." Yes, he was really like that and he did all those things. The character of Jay is a rich part of the book, to which I am indebted to knowing him, not that many people will ever read it, but I live to write, quite literally. Another theme of the book is the yearning for togetherness, community, against the very real need for individuality, adventure and subjectivity. The two themes run through every religion, philosophy and form of politics to a varying degree of scientific application. It is not as simple as one or the other and both sides in the book take both approaches. There is no answer in human nature between the two, it is irreconcilable and all we can do is draw attention theoretically to the issue between fascism and anarchism, individuality and togetherness, though we do find more honest and liveable conditions in libertarianism than dictatorial politics. The problem between wanting togetherness and a shared identity, but being repulsed at having to give up subjectivity so pervades the book that many characters rebel against the human form, whilst not giving up the need for community, and become many headed monsters. But, the book insists, the need for adventure is the unifying theory that makes sense of our misery and creates a symbiosis between the conflicting forces. "As the ship rowed closer I realised it was the rule of these creatures, my brave men which is what they were, to reject the human form given by God for those of their own imagination, and to conjoin like the ultimate pack of animals, or; what I had seen in human riots when a crowd does indeed become a single and very different animal than the sum of its parts. I saw men who had formed their joints together to form the bodies of double kneed, twelve-foot men with two heads. Two had done that. The dragon with seven necks and six heads was also there, waiting in futility for my strange communion, for I was still attached to the human form, it still represented for me a thing of beauty and free autonomy." The book is all about conflict, but as Buddhists say, all conflict is imaginary, so I think, we are all in a state of symbiosis in a world where assistance between organisms is the norm even when it appears in the form of its opposite. That's all I want to say about the book.<

Llevada hace unos años al cine, Los duelistas es una de las obras capitales de Conrad, la historia de una interminable contienda entre dos oficiales de la Grande Armée, enzarzados en una insensata guerra privada, en los intervalos y escenarios de las guerras napoleónicas. El relato, que llega a adquirir caracteres legendarios, convierte sutilmente a ambos duelistas en `dos artistas dementes, empeñados en dorar el oro o teñir una azucena`. La lucha contra el otro, para acabar con el otro, será así, sin paradojas, el verdadero fin de toda existencia.<

Ce roman d'aventures est la dernière oeuvre que Joseph Conrad conduisit à son terme. Peyrol, ancien forban, se retire sur le rivage méditerranéen, non loin de la rade de Toulon, dans une période troublée – l'action se déroule sous la Convention et le Consulat – où la paix à laquelle il aspire va lui être ravie par la force des circonstances. Sur la toile de fond mi-terrestre mi-maritime, se meuvent des personnages fortement individualisés, marqués par les événements de l'époque – rivalités politiques nationales, massacres de la Terreur, etc.<

La aventura y la angustia de la encrucijada de un destino.

Hay momentos en que todo lo que ha sido un hombre, todo lo que ha hecho, todas las experiencias, relaciones e intereses de su vida, pueden conden¬sarse en un solo instante dramático: es entonces la situación límite, la aventura o la catástrofe, el desenlace o la reiniciación. Los testigos de uno de esos momentos excepcionales pueden no enten¬der, el novelista sí entiende. Es la historia de una de esas situaciones límite la que narra Conrad, en una obra maestra hasta ahora desconocida para los lectores de lengua castellana.

All alone now, with no audience and no wickedness waiting for her, she danced in the twilight, lost herself in the song, and for a while she was incredibly free. But always in the wings, he was there watching, waiting. In the riverside town of Bedford, four students can hear the haunting voice of a woman singing. The beautiful melody is coming from their neighbour – a reculsive creature who never opens the door to anyone or leaves her home in daylight.

They have no way of knowing that the woman next door, Madeleine Delaney is driven by a dangerous memory that for over twenty years has controlled her meagre existence…

Madeleine’s angelic voice and striking looks may capture the hearts of many. But she only has eyes for club owner, Steve Drayton – a devastatingly handsome but terrifying man.

Then one night she witnesses a horrific crime, and her life is irrevocably changed forever. The kindness and friendship of one girl – Ellen, rescues Madeleine from utter devastation. But in order to survive, they must flee London, leaving behind those they dearly love, and danger is following them wherever they go…

Devastated by the deaths of her husband and infant son in a car crash that she alone survived, Casey Maldonado has taken to traveling, accompanied by Death, whom only she can see. She ends up in Clymer, Ohio, a small town devastated by the defection of a manufacturing company. She quickly becomes involved with Home Sweet Home, an organization that feeds struggling families, and she also takes a part in a local theater production. When she learns of the apparent suicide of a local woman, Ellen Schnieder, she begins an investigation, along with Ellen’s boyfriend, to prove that the death was actually murder. Complicating matters, the theater’s director seems to be in some kind of trouble with some unsavory men, and Casey is being pursued by executives from the car company who paid her settlement. An interesting premise (shades, almost, of The Fugitive) and a vulnerable but strong protagonist are the highlights here, though the character of Death adds an unexpected dimension.<

When Casey Maldonado and Death hitch a desperate ride away from one disaster, they throw themselves right into the middle of another one.  The semi in which they are traveling crashes, and before the Grim Reaper takes Evan the Trucker away, Evan whispers to Casey about a stash hidden in the truck that she should keep away from . 

Casey, uncertain how to proceed, is led by Death to a group of teenagers looking for something other than dust and crops to fill their days – and their nights.  Using their limited resources, she finds her way into a maze of greed and desperation – and into the clutches of people who don’t care who gets hurt as long as they get what they want.

Casey is determined that no one else should die because of the desires of one group of criminals, and finds herself defending not only herself, but the teenagers, a few other kind locals, and perhaps even the trucking industry itself.

Los Premios anticipa la fiesta de ingenio y trangresión que Rayuela supondría para la literatura en español. Los pasajeros que se embarcan en el Malcolm para un crucero de placer se ven envueltos en un misterio que tiene tanto de alegórico como de disparate colosal. La ilusión de un corte con la vida anterior, propia de los viajes, incita a este grupo de hombres y mujeres a lanzarse a la exploración del enigma y al conocimiento mutuo. Y lo hacen con el aplicado entusiasmo de un juego, con la libertad y el riesgo que sólo Cortázar sabe concederle a sus personajes.<

Considerada un clásico de la literatura moderna en lengua castellana, Rayuela (1963) es una de las obras más innovadoras de las últimas décadas. La clave de su ruptura con el orden clásico del relato radica en la postulación de una estructura inorgánica: el libro puede leerse en forma normal del capítulo 1 al 56 y terminar ahí, después están los capítulos?prescindibles?, del 57 al 155. Estos se leen alternadamente según un orden que el autor va dando, mezclados con los primeros. De esa manera la novela comienza en el Nº 73. Entre estos artículos prescindibles, algunos de difícil lectura, hay cosas que tienen que ver con la trama principal, pero también aparecen otros personajes, lugares y reflexiones. El capítulo 62, por ejemplo, dio luego origen a otra novela de Cortázar: 62/Modelo para armar. Amor, ternura, amistad, humor, geografía urbana, música, constituyen algunos de sus temas recurrentes, en un ámbito de de exploración estética que recuerda a la improvisación de los grandes maestros del jazz.<

Una abuela, una madre, una hija. A lo largo de esta saga, tan verídica como espeluznante, tres mujeres luchan por sobrevivir en una China sometida a guerras, invasiones y revoluciones. La abuela de la autora nació en 1909, época en la que China era aún una sociedad feudal. Sus pies permanecieron vendados desde niña, y a los quince años de edad se convirtió en concubina de uno de los numerosos señores de la guerra.<

Based on a decade of research and on interviews with many of Mao’s close circle in China who have never talked before — and with virtually everyone outside China who had significant dealings with him — this is the most authoritative life of Mao ever written. It is full of startling revelations, exploding the myth of the Long March, and showing a completely unknown Mao: he was not driven by idealism or ideology; his intimate and intricate relationship with Stalin went back to the 1920s, ultimately bringing him to power; he welcomed Japanese occupation of much of China; and he schemed, poisoned and blackmailed to get his way. After Mao conquered China in 1949, his secret goal was to dominate the world. In chasing this dream he caused the deaths of 38 million people in the greatest famine in history. In all, well over 70 million Chinese perished under Mao’s rule — in peacetime.

Combining meticulous research with the story-telling style of , this biography offers a harrowing portrait of Mao’s ruthless accumulation of power through the exercise of terror: his first victims were the peasants, then the intellectuals and, finally, the inner circle of his own advisors. The reader enters the shadowy chambers of Mao’s court and eavesdrops on the drama in its hidden recesses. Mao’s character and the enormity of his behavior toward his wives, mistresses and children are unveiled for the first time.

This is an entirely fresh look at Mao in both content and approach. It will astonish historians and the general reader alike.

The forces of history and the exceptional talents of this young writer combine to produce a work of nonfiction with the breadth and drama of the richest, most memorable fiction classics. Wild Swans is a landmark book, with the intimacy of memoir and the panoramic vision of a monumental human saga, which tells of the lives of Jung Chang, her mother, her grandmother, and of 20th-century China. 16-page photo insert.

***

"Bursting with drama, heartbreak and horror, this extraordinary family portrait mirrors China 's century of turbulence…[Chang's] meticulous, transparent prose radiates an inner strength." Publisher's Weekly

"The story reads like the sweeping family sagas of genre fiction but rises far above the norm. The characters are well drawn, the events are riveting, and the story teaches lessons of history as well as lessons of the heart. It also allows listeners to visit a world unfamiliar to most Westerners. The author brings memories of a foreign life and illuminates them with graceful prose." Jacqueline Smith, Library Journal

"[This] is one of the most intimate studies of persecution, suffering, and fear in Mao's time, before and after his triumph in 1949, and one of the finest…It is the most harrowing and extended account I have read of the years between 1966 and 1976, and the most analytical." The New York Review of Books

"By keeping her focus on three generations of female kin and their practical adaptations to the shifting winds of political power, Ms. Chang gives us a rare opportunity to follow the evolution of some remarkable women who not only reflected their times, but who also acted upon them in order to change their individual destiny." Susan Brownmiller, The New York Times Book Review

"Despite its interesting details, Wild Swans does not tell us much that other memoirs, similarly written from a position of privilege, have not already revealed. One looks forward to an account of China 's recent past which will not merely focus on the experience of the privileged urban elite." The Times Literary Supplement

"[The author] tells stories and anecdotes, in straight chronological order, with little contrivance, providing real-life fables as open-ended answers to the puzzles of 20th-century China…Taken in pieces, Chang's narrative can be prosaic. But in its entirety, the author achieves a Dickensian tone with detailed portraits and intimate remembrances, with colorful minor characters and intricate yet fascinating side plots." Time

"An evocative, often astonishing view of life in a changing China." The New York Times

***

Amazon.com Review

In Wild Swans Jung Chang recounts the evocative, unsettling, and insistently gripping story of how three generations of women in her family fared in the political maelstrom of China during the 20th century. Chang's grandmother was a warlord's concubine. Her gently raised mother struggled with hardships in the early days of Mao's revolution and rose, like her husband, to a prominent position in the Communist Party before being denounced during the Cultural Revolution. Chang herself marched, worked, and breathed for Mao until doubt crept in over the excesses of his policies and purges. Born just a few decades apart, their lives overlap with the end of the warlords' regime and overthrow of the Japanese occupation, violent struggles between the Kuomintang and the Communists to carve up China, and, most poignant for the author, the vicious cycle of purges orchestrated by Chairman Mao that discredited and crushed millions of people, including her parents.

From Publishers Weekly

Bursting with drama, heartbreak and horror, this extraordinary family portrait mirrors China 's century of turbulence. Chang's grandmother, Yu-fang, had her feet bound at age two and in 1924 was sold as a concubine to Beijing 's police chief. Yu-fang escaped slavery in a brothel by fleeing her "husband" with her infant daughter, Bao Qin, Chang's mother-to-be. Growing up during Japan 's brutal occupation, free-spirited Bao Qin chose the man she would marry, a Communist Party official slavishly devoted to the revolution. In 1949, while he drove 1000 miles in a jeep to the southwestern province where they would do Mao's spadework, Bao Qin walked alongside the vehicle, sick and pregnant (she lost the child). Chang, born in 1952, saw her mother put into a detention camp in the Cultural Revolution and later "rehabilitated." Her father was denounced and publicly humiliated; his mind snapped, and he died a broken man in 1975. Working as a "barefoot doctor" with no training, Chang saw the oppressive, inhuman side of communism. She left China in 1978 and is now director of Chinese studies at London University. Her meticulous, transparent prose radiates an inner strength.

The title of Cronin's debut collection of eight interconnected stories, set between 1979 and the present, implies that the content will be devoted to the relationship between the eponymous duo. Instead, they don't appear in the same tale until halfway through, detailing their marriage in their early 30s after both become teachers. Before this, there's a lengthy opening story concerning the events leading up to the accidental death of O'Neil's parents, Arthur and Miriam; another story on how O'Neil and his older sister, Kay, cope with the aftermath; and a third about the abortion Mary has at the age of 22. After the wedding, the stories still don't always focus on the pair, with one devoted solely to Kay's own dysfunctional marriage. Cronin, a graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop, is an accomplished craftsman, and at times his prose is quite moving and beautiful, though the sadness he channels is too often uninflected by humor. Playing out variations on the theme of the inability of parents and children to truly know one another, Cronin is capable of creating fresh poignancy. Readers interested in going straight to the best of the collection should head for "Orphans" and "A Gathering of Shades," in which the author affectingly paints how the two siblings help each other through the pain of living and dying, showcasing the real love story here. Agent, Ellen Levine. (Feb. 13) Forecast: This is a promising debut collection, and national print advertising in the New Yorker and alternative weeklies should target the appropriate readership. Sponsorship announcements will also feature the title on NPR. <