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Where did the idea come from for the book?
Jeremy M. Davies: Exposure to cosmic rays. Living in Central Illinois for altogether too long. Daring myself to write a book without using any similes or falling back on my usual tricks. A casual conversation with a couple of cat-owners about the perils of leaving over-complicated instructions for the people they’d gulled into taking care of their pets. Which led me for some reason to speculate in turn on the (comedic, ontological) potential of leaving instructions that, like Conlon Nancarrow’s player-piano rolls, could never actually be performed by a human being, or that, like certain compositions by La Monte Young (among others) function more along the lines of a “happening,” without a concrete or controllable result intended (release six butterflies into the room while petting cat #7 lengthwise with a dough whisk). And then, further, imagining how a person confronted with such instructions might react, if he or she took them in deadly earnest and read into them some greater significance. What it might mean, indeed, to live or think in such a way that something so formal yet inconsequential and ridiculous might creep out into your life and even the world at large and start wrecking up the joint.
What actors would you choose to play the part of your characters in a movie rendition?
JMD: My first novel, Rose Alley, is rotten with cinema (or cinephilia, I guess). I don’t think I left much room for adaptation here. I have no idea how anyone would go about it, so I’ve never given it any thought, nor would I know how to begin. (That said: Ben Rivers, call me …)
What is the one sentence synopsis of your book?
JMD: I can write very long sentences, you know. How about: “Fancy purports to be a series of instructions given by an elderly shut-in to a young couple who’ve come to pet-sit his many cats while he’s away on an uncharacteristic trip abroad; but his continual comic, erotic, and surreal digressions range far from his intended subject, leading to hints that something sinister underlies his peculiar lifestyle, and that his protégés’ duties might not be entirely as advertised.”
Or, if you prefer, Henry James’s Wittgenstein’s Mistress?
Or, H. P. Lovecraft’s Cat Care Essentials?
How long did it take you to write the first draft of the manuscript?
JMD: About four years.
Who or what inspired you to write this book?
JMD: The absence of anyone or anything to inspire me to write a saner one.
What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?
JMD: It has some pretty filthy bits for all it isn’t meant to rely on the same tools as Rose Alley, which is “purple verging on blue,” as they say. There’s also a fair amount of slapstick, repetition, philosophy, and strange happenings on trains. Oh, and cats. Probably.
Jeremy M. Davies FANCY
Ellipsis Press
'An elderly shut-in delivers a series of pet-sitting instructions to a young couple who’ve come to watch over his many, many cats. A story (or series of stories) about the ways that methodical, abstract systems interface with messy, personal obsessions, Fancy is a kissing cousin to the work of both the late Henry James and the early Thomas Bernhard: an object lesson in how our need to make sense of the world winds up devouring it whole.'-- Ellipsis Press
'Whether it dissolves a genre or invents a new one, Fancy will be the most weirdly riveting and beautifully composed book you read this year. In an unlikely literary sleight-of-hand, Jeremy M. Davies transforms an agoraphobe’s catsitting instructions into a virtuoso meditation on being, perception, and solitude. He has written an utterly original novel with the fever of a Bernhard monologue and the command of a Schoenberg score.'— Eric Lundgren
Excerpt
Rumrill said: On a day when my employer still remembered his wife, he told me the story of how she and he had reacted to the news, conveyed by our neighborhood doctor, that she would not live to see the end of whatever season it then was when she and he had wended down their sovereign thoroughfares to his (the doctor’s) examination room. The Brocklebanks had walked through the snow or dandelions to consult the doctor on the subject of those pains which occurred regularly in that part of Mrs. Brocklebank’s body of which she had lately been given cause to complain.
He added: Or do I need to slow down.
Rumrill said: Husband and wife removed their boots at the boot-check in the doctor’s anteroom, a space sunk the depth of an upright man into the ground, this upright man’s head at the level perhaps of the second internode of an immature Taraxacum—in which a collection of other white- or red-faced townspeople were already seated in the smell of worms and melted ice. Doctors are privileged to enter into contact with all strata of society, grouped as it is in large part into families of different sizes, possessed of bank accounts of different sizes, and checkbooks imprinted with all manner of watermark.
He added: The image perhaps of a surmullet: the fish used, I’ve read, as a primitive sort of television by the ancient Romans, on account of the many vibrant colors it turned as it suffocated and expired in the air.
Rumrill said: Our town doctor, perhaps of a mind to see what colors Mrs. Brocklebank might turn as she expired, agreed to see her ahead of the other citizens in his anteroom, other patients who had been there longer but whose families were not yet friendly—or not yet friendly enough—with their friendly GP: a man in late middle age whose kited, crenellated ears these recent initiates into the ranks of the unwell found comic, which fact they marshaled the vigor to comment upon even as they felt their vis vitalis sapped by whatever symptoms they had trekked through our lurid streets to ask said comically eared physician to diagnose. Seated and frustrated with the sight of Mrs. Brocklebank ushered with conciliation into the examination room when by all rights these other patients should have preceded her, the townspeople scowled through their rheum in piqued accusation of the husband, abandoned, as he brushed or rebrushed the snow or pollen stains off of his two boots.
He added: With an east-coast newspaper.
Rumrill said: The doctor in no time pronounced Mrs. Brocklebank to be host to a disorder not uncommon whose name and other particulars escape me. He told her, in short, that the processes that constituted Mrs. Brocklebank, citizen and organism, had in their wisdom and for a change of pace decided to leave off their usual obligations and turn instead to the ingestion of this same Mrs. Brocklebank—a decision not at all characteristic of said processes, given that the perpetuation of precisely this Mrs. Brocklebank had been their one notable responsibility to date—and then build with those same resources that had once been devoted to Brocklebankian continuity some other item or function or entity that, unhappily, was not quite the triumph of design that was our Mrs. Brocklebank, whatever her flaws, not least her terrible posture, and would therefore in its construction end with the probably unintentional murder-suicide of both the tenuous concatenation still named, despite this metamorphosis, “Mrs. Brocklebank” (and which would, tragically, remain enough of a Mrs. Brocklebank throughout the procedure to be aware of and suffer through the untenability of this incomplete and ill-considered reconfiguration of said resources), as well as those very systems that had decided, for reasons of their own, to undertake this desperate improvisation.
He added: And which could not be reasoned with.
(continued)
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___________________
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'Readers familiar with Lindsay Hunter’s short fiction are well aware of the bursts of electricity packed into what are often only a few pages. In two collections of stories—the small press release Daddy’s and FSG’s Don’t Kiss Me—Hunter lays claim to being one of the premiere creators of voice-driven, often first-person narratives while chronicling an assortment of characters whose lives are far from luxurious. Hunter’s first novel, Ugly Girls, employs a similar format, composing short chapters that while having the feel of short stories ultimately work in favor of crafting a much long, richer story. Unlike a majority of her short stories though, Hunter writes Ugly Girls in third-person, and while the switch might jar long time followers, the shift in perspective gives Hunter greater range to explore a cast of unique and fascinating characters. The raw and vivid language that makes Hunter such a distinctive talent remain, however, and such trademarks make Ugly Girls the perfect novel for adventurous readers in search of wild, unexpected, shockingly-original fiction ...
'Also of note, Hunter’s expertise with language should appeal to many readers. There’s a feeling of simplicity in much of Hunter’s prose as she never extends beyond the vocabulary of the people she writes of. And yet while seemingly unassuming, Hunter still succeeds in capturing an image in just the right tone: “The rising sun the color of pineapple candy, no more than a fingernail at the horizon” comes early in the novel as Perry and Baby Girl wrap up an overnight joyriding excursion; later, in describing Perry’s stepfather Jim from the Jamey’s perspective, Hunter writes that he “was made of engine parts and cogs and second hands on the inside, this man everyone would tell you was one of the good ones right up until you felt a sting across the back of your knees.” The language is, perhaps to some, vulgar in places but yet also rather authentic, given the characters Hunter writes about, and although some may find it off-putting, readers willing to challenge themselves will find a great appreciation in the way Hunter crafts flawed but believable characters.
'In her third book and first novel, Lindsay Hunter continues to be at the forefront of a group of distinct and unique female voices establishing themselves in American fiction, and like the works of Amelia Gray, Alissa Nutting, Mary Miller, and Elizabeth Ellen, Ugly Girls offers a challenging and rewarding reading experience likely to be enjoyed by the most vigorous and audacious of readers.'-- Books & Whatnot
Lindsay Hunter Ugly Girls
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
'Perry and Baby Girl are best friends, though you wouldn’t know it if you met them. Their friendship is woven from the threads of never-ending dares and power struggles, their loyalty fierce but incredibly fraught. They spend their nights sneaking out of their trailers, stealing cars for joyrides, and doing all they can to appear hard to the outside world.With all their energy focused on deceiving themselves and the people around them, they don’t know that real danger lurks: Jamey, an alleged high school student from a nearby town, has been pining after Perry from behind the computer screen in his mother’s trailer for some time now, following Perry and Baby Girl’s every move—on Facebook, via instant messaging and text,and, unbeknownst to the girls, in person. When Perry and Baby Girl finally agree to meet Jamey face-to-face, they quickly realize he’s far from the shy high school boy they thought he was, and they’ll do whatever is necessary to protect themselves.
'Lindsay Hunter’s stories have been called “mesmerizing… visceral … exquisite” (Chicago Tribune), and in Ugly Girls she calls on all her faculties as a wholly original storyteller to deliver the most searing, poignant, powerful debut novel in years.'-- FSG
Excerpt
Perry and Baby Girl were in the car they’d stolen not half an hour before. A red Mazda. Looked fancier than it was, had to use hand cranks to put the windows down. Perry gathered it probably belonged to someone who wanted to look fancy but couldn’t squeeze enough out her sad rag of a paycheck. Like how for years Myra, her mother, kept a dinged-up Corvette because it was red and a two-door. Couldn’t even get the tiny trunk open without a crow-bar. Then Jim came along with his logic and calm and sense and had it scrapped. Myra drove a mint-green Tercel now. Four doors. No dings.
Perry knew the Mazda was a woman’s car ’cause of all the butts in the ashtray, all tipped with lipstick. Baby Girl had lit one up first thing, held it between her teeth, squinting through the smoke, cranked down the window so she could rest an elbow. Baby Girl with her half-shaved head, her blond eyelashes, her freckled arm resting on the steering wheel. Fake-ass thug. Sometimes it seemed mean thoughts were all Perry had for Baby Girl, but when she caught sight of herself in the side mirror she saw she was doing all the same shit.
They’d turned onto the busted-up highway, Baby Girl swerving like they were in a go-kart so the Mazda wouldn’t get a flat. The rising sun the color of a pineapple candy, no more than a fingernail at the horizon. Not a single other car to be seen.
Baby Girl was muttering along with the music meandering out of the speakers. You want some / you gonna have to take some / and I’ma get mine. This was her favorite line. Her motto. She tried to make it Perry’s also but Perry was not into that shit.
Perry was annoyed. Tired. Felt like her skin was turning to dough. Her legs and arms and heart, all starting to give in. The clock said 6:25 a.m. Eight hours and twenty-five minutes past when Perry said she was going to bed. She’d have to explain herself to Jim and Myra when she got home. She hated explaining herself, ’cause most of it was stuff she’d have to make up.
She’d meant to do right. She’d meant to stay in bed and fall asleep like Jim wanted, ’cause she liked Jim. But she made the mis- take of opening her window, hoping it would cool her room down. All it did was let more hot air in, let her hear the quiet outside her window, the stillness she could not stand. The windows in the nearby trailers were mostly dark but for the flicker of a television, and it was like she had to do something, something other than turning out the light and closing her eyes and letting the night pass on by, like Myra. She had to make something happen.
And plus she’d got that text from Baby Girl. Lets do this. They had no plan. Just a general desire, like always.
It was easy to creep out of the trailer. Perry didn’t even ease her window shut like she usually did. She knew Myra wouldn’t be able to hear over her program, and Jim had gone to work his night shift at the prison. Even if Myra did hear, it was unlikely she would do anything about it. Just keep sipping her beer and snuggle down tighter under the covers.
Baby Girl had been standing by the pay phone at the Circle K. Her arms moving in that fluid way, heavy and slow, like she was thrashing underwater. She had her music on. When she saw Perry she yelled, “Wadup wadup?”
Baby Girl didn’t care how people saw her. In fact, she wanted them to be afraid. Like how people used to act around Charles, only worse. Once, the greeter at Walmart told them they had to leave if they were just going to stand by the doors acting a fool and not buying nothing. “Suck my dick,” Baby Girl told her.
(continued)
Interview with Lindsay Hunter
from "Don't Kiss Me," by Lindsay Hunter
Breakfast With the Author Episode 5: Lindsay Hunter and Natalie Edwards
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'A Los Angeles artist has just published a book of his private e-mails and Gchat conversations—so maybe it's time to start using the "off-the-record" option. As reported by Complex, Beau Rice's Tex compiles messages sent to and from friends, family, colleagues, and even strangers over the course of 18 months.
'The publisher, Penny-Ante Editions, calls the project "a performance act in print," describing the likely-unwitting participation of Rice's Gmail contacts as "walk-ons by various interlocutors." The 255-page tome spares no indignity, providing uncensored records of Rice's attempts to arrange a casual encounter with an out-of-towner looking for BDSM and mummification, and of an embarrassing foot injury sustained while practicing ballet in a bathtub.
'Though artnet News can't imagine that all of Rice's contacts will be pleased to see their correspondence published in such a public forum, the artist sees the project as a commentary on how the nature of relationships is rapidly evolving in the Internet age.
'"Technology has birthed a paradoxical space between isolation and connectivity, profoundly expanding the possibilities for how and with whom we create intimacy," reads the book's description. As the conversations we conduct via the Internet become more and more pervasive in our every day lives, we may have to chose between adjusting our expectations for privacy, or altering our habits.
'The question of privacy is sure to make this project controversial, but most will likely relate to at least some of the conversations Rice shares, such as his surreptitious on-the-job Gchatting. "i'm being a horrible employee by texting you right now," reads one excerpt. "i'm like crouched behind the register counter, hiding."' -- Sarah Cascone, artnet
Beau Rice TEX
Penny-Ante Editions
'In the twenty-first century, relationships have been transformed in unprecedented ways. Technology has birthed a paradoxical space between isolation and connectivity, profoundly expanding the possibilities for how and with whom we create intimacy.
'An experiment between the epistolary and the ectype, Tex is a performance act in print. Featuring walk-ons by various interlocutors, this mnemonic outpour examines the potentiality of relationships in the digital age. Metonymic displacements, grammatical violations and verbal spillage form this rowdy non-narrative documenting one LA artist’s sexual exploits, an evolving attachment to Texas-based former fling, Matt G, and the determination and opportunism involved with the continually forthcoming publication of this, his first book.
'Rated X for strong language and sexual content.' -- Penny-Ante Editions
Excerpt
from Dazed Digital
[Thu, May 23, 1:28PM]
FROM: JAME-------@HOTMAIL.COM
TO: beaubeauricerice@—.com
Nice posting. Very dominant and like a boy in his place. I’m not into fucking... more into having you completely immobile - hands, feet, cock/balls tied, blindfolded, gagged. Once securely bound, then I like to experiment with cbt/tt - clothespins, hot wax, ben gay, more. Also love a guy in mummification - saran wrap and duct tape. How much discipline can you take... like to push you until you are in tears. I respect all limits… just need to know them upfront. Can I have you bound all night? I get up at 6am :)
I’m 47, 6’1, 177, 33w, 41c, smooth, gay, ddf/neg. I’m in town (I come here weekly for work) and can host at my hotel – Westin LAX. Would love an ongoing boy to train.
Send pics and if you are interested.
Far from the Westin? Very serious... no BS.
FROM: beaubeauricerice@—.com
TO: JAME-------@HOTMAIL.COM
Hey Sir, thanks for the response.
You sound like fun, I really like the things You mention here (not so into mummification, but not completely opposed to it either). Here are some photos. Do you have BDSM gear with you at the hotel?
[Attachment: Three Beau selfies]
FROM: JAME-------@HOTMAIL.COM
TO: beaubeauricerice@—.com
Traveling so I don’t.... Could you pick up some rope, clothespins, etc.? I could pay you back... Otherwise I could go out before you come. Can I have you bound all night? Limits? Most into? Very serious here.
FROM: JAME-------@HOTMAIL.COM
TO: beaubeauricerice@—.com
Hi...I just checked and there is a home depot 5mins away. I could pick up plenty of toys for tonight. Interested? Game?
FROM: beaubeauricerice@—.com
TO: JAME-------@HOTMAIL.COM
Interested but not sure, at least not about tonight. Sorry to do this but let me get back to you in a bit, I’m about to go out shopping for a bit.
[Sun, Sep 22, 2013 9:35PM]
BEAU R
[Photo: A shiny purple cane on the ground]
i am using a cane
MATT G
What happened
BEAU R
i was doing ballet moves in a
hot tub with ryan T
(famedrop? sars) and i tore a
ligament attached to my big toe.
MATT G
Is that real
BEAU R
yeah
MATT G
You would have a cane
BEAU R
why
MATT G
I dunno i can see you
getting beaten up or
having too much fun
--------------------------------------------
[Sun, Sep 23, 2013 4:21PM]
FROM: beaubeauricerice@—.com
TO: GOODBO—@—.com, K—@—.com
Hey bosses,
Last night I was doing ballet moves in a hot tub (I know) and I injured my foot. It’s swollen and sore and I can’t put any weight on it at all. The Internet seems to indicate that I tore a ligament attached to my big toe. It’s a bummer.
Tomorrow morning I’m going to see a podiatrist who will hopefully give me a clear prognosis. I don’t think this should cause me to miss any shifts, and I’m still planning to go to New York this week, but I wanted to let y’all know now because I’ll probably be limited to cashier work and other low-mobility activity for about four weeks. I’ll stay in touch as I learn more. And you can expect me to come in tomorrow night on crutches.
; /,
Beau
TEX Book Trailer
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___________________
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'The prose of some books keeps you at arm’s length. Resists the idea of transparency or security. Dares you to look deeper to find meaning. The sentences in Jac Jemc’s collection, A Different Bed Every Time, require untangling. Sentences like, “Your body flood us and we rocks and fogs, delivering. The climate outside our body are a busy woman,” dare us to think about the certainties of language and structure we take for granted. Jemc’s is not light or easy prose, but prose that is beautiful and complex. And worth the effort.
'There’s something to be said for an author creating an experience of reading that acts as a physical manifestation of her character’s lives. Jemc does this in A Different Bed Every Time. She translates the distressing emotional entanglements of character into the reading process itself. We, her readers, feel frustration and alienation on the same level as her characters. Jemc’s sentences, fraught with the juxtaposition of generalities and uniquely specific metaphors, are a mirror for each character’s angst. These sentences require us as readers to sort through complexity; it’s a reflection of the way the characters look at the world. ...
'Jemc writes emotion with naked honesty, but often comes to concrete images or analogies in a roundabout way. Her collection is unique for its command of unusual imagery. Jemc never goes for the easy comparison or the simple metaphor. What this means is her sentences require more time. More attention. Does this result in meaning that lies just out of our reach from time to time? Yes, but this is only a way to encourage us to read more carefully. To look deeper.
'This is a collection that’s hard to read in a sitting. I found that the punches of each story, and so many stories in succession, were almost too much to take in in at once. Jemc’s stories are rough. Unapologetic. And they’re not easy or transparent. But read in doses, they reveal something about not just the characters, but how we as readers want to read character in a story. What’s comfortable for us as readers? Why might an author want to shake that foundation? How can an author push language to be more complex? Jemc presents something hyper-ordinary in A Different Bed Every Time.'-- Heather Scott Partington, The Rumpus
Jac Jemc A Different Bed Every Time
Dzanc Books
'A thief steals the air from a room. Children invent a nursery rhyme to make sense of their fate, and a band of girls rot from the outside in. These characters stumble through joy and murder and confusion, only to survive and wait for the next catastrophe to arrive. Moments so brief and disturbing you can’t afford to look away.'-- Dzanc Books
'To Jemc the world is a place where each person, every human cypher, must devour another. What then can we do, if we are devoured, if we are overcome with our own devouring? Her escape plan is inspired and ancient -- to become protean, to dwell in costume after costume, parcelling away the truth that can be found in each. But where is it hid? Ask her, though she may not say.'— Jesse Ball
Excerpt
from The Nervous Breakdown
The Wrong Sister
Okay. Say the reason you’re stuck here in limbo is totally unclear to you. Say you were a woman who cared about little but treated others basically well. Say you had a twin who was married to a doctor, but because you were so ambivalent, you never agreed to partner up, never liked anyone enough to commit or even give someone a real chance, to ever approach the situation where you might have to explain these feelings to another human being because you’ve joined to have and to hold, in sickness and in blah blah blah…
But every once in a while, because it seems harmless and because sometimes your sister needs a break and because you gave up on that theater degree long ago but missed the thrill of lying, of being genuinely dishonest—let’s say ever year or two you relieve your sister, and unbeknownst to her husband you replace her for a week or two, tops. Your sister’s husband is the most crass and unpolished doctor you’ve ever met. He’s a rube with a medical degree. You don’t even recall the branch of medicine, so uninvolved and detached are your interactions even when you’re pretending to be his wife. Somehow this man is actually a really good doctor—top of his field, full of expertise.
You live in a big city in a small neighborhood when you’re playing his wifey. When you’re you, you live on the other side of town. No one really knows you. The grocery store clerk might recognize you if you smiled at her once in a while, but as earlier stated, you’re a bit heartless, so you haven’t. Most people who see you assume you’re your sister on a bad day. Let’s say your sister comes to you and tells you her husband’s really in a 39 mood lately and though she still loves him, to be around him right now is to tear her hair out. “Please,” she says, “Be me.”
You shrug. Agree to it. Let her know what’s going on at work, switch cellphones, squeeze into those pointy-toed shoes she thinks are chic, erase yourself into her. Drive in her car, to her house, and get ready for a week off. Cook some lobsters for dinner, listen to their screams without interest. Smile at the rooftop garden, at her husband’s color-coded tie rack, at that godforsaken dog confined to the laundry room.
When her husband gets home, you know what she means immediately: he’s acting up. His eyes clock around, avoiding your face, landing on it at every quarter hour and ticking away. His facial hair seems mangy and patchy—like he’s been letting the razor slide around willy-nilly. He unloads groceries and you’re surprised he’s done shopping. This doesn’t seem like him, but then you see that it’s nothing to be floored by: ten pounds of center-cut rib-eye, two hundred massive garbage bags, straws, beef jerky, a box of donuts. You look at him, and in your best impersonation of your sister, you say, “What the hell is all this?” He grabs the bundle of zip ties from you, and replies curtly that it’s stuff he needed from the store that you (your sister) had not gotten for him. You pluck the lobster from the warmer and say, “Dinner, mon cher, is served.” He plops himself down and before you have properly buttered your meal, he’s inhaled his and is heading towards the garage. “You’re welcome,” you call, and his response is an insouciant, “Fuck you.”
You know what’s going to happen before it does, and you don’t do anything to stop it. He’s down in the garage with his supplies defining the margins of his sanity. He’s making illegible decisions and convincing himself he’ll decipher the handwriting later. Here is your sister’s husband, your husband, for the sake of the rest of the story, and he’s planning her demise, your demise, accordingly. And you know it’ll be complicated for your sister when all of this unravels: but there’re no children involved so you say, “What the hell?’”
You wonder about your sister’s blaming herself but figure she’d rather feel guilty than dead. You, however, are ambivalent. Here’s what will happen. Your husband will come upstairs and apologize. He’ll ask if you want to go get a drink. He’s had a wretched week. You’ll say, “Where?” He’ll say, “How about we just head around the corner to Ray’s?” You’ll say, “Sure,” and head for the garage. He’ll rush after you, pull your arm, suggest you just walk. The car’s been acting funny. You can imagine what he’s got laid out in preparation in the garage already. Trash bags, cutting tools. If he’s smart: some lye. God love this man and his nutty streaks. He has no idea anyone is onto him, least of all, his victim. You think how foolish he is to do it in the garage— the concrete will stain— but it’s not your problem. You think of calling your sister and saying something cryptic that might ease her guilt after the fact, but decide it might be too fishy. You want her free and clear of this nut job ASAP.
Birds glide beneath your skin. For a moment, you think, who’s the nut now? You’re convinced this joker’s gonna kill you tonight. What? Suddenly you’re clairvoyant? But you know too well; he has that calm about him where he’s sure of himself and he doesn’t need to do any convincing—he just needs to let the story unravel.
The birds keep chirping, but you’re still convinced you cannot get gone enough. He’s sure this will solve all his problems, but you know this gesture will be read like a waste land. It doesn’t matter what’s been or what will be. Tenses have been paved over.
Say you walk to Ray’s. You sneak to the bathroom. You examine your face in the mirror. You’re pretty sure you don’t believe in an afterlife, but in the event there is such a thing, who knows if you’ll be able to see anything, much less your own face. You look at the blue-flame tinted circles beneath your eyes. You think of all the deaths you’ve avoided: the canoe trip in the storm, the mugging, that time your appendix jammed itself huge into the rest of you. All incongruous warnings for the decision you’re making right now.
You look a little longer. No, you’re not getting sentimental, but you want to make sure there’s enough time for the sedative to dissolve in your drink. You don’t want to wake too early to a gray foggy cloud of your own bright scarlet. You don’t want to see the brownish tint of you as the yellow pages sop up your gore.
You emerge, and the bartender gives you a look like he has a secret he knows he should tell you, but you look away quickly so he doesn’t feel implicated. The whiskey barks down your throat all familiar-like, but husband is all fanned eyebrows and tilted breath.
You gulp the drink down and smile at husband and bring his hand to your mouth for a kiss. It is sweaty, but you make nothing of it.
The rest is blurry: you get loopy and other patrons notice. Husband takes you home. He butchers your somnolent self like a fine-boned rabbit. He flushes fourteen pounds of you down the toilet. He files a missing person’s report and your sister grows confused. They never find the rest of you.
Stories start coming out around the neighborhood: large purchases of rubber gloves, trash bags, knives and saws. A regular at Ray’s says he saw the two of you there and tells how you’d gotten wiped out with one glass of whiskey. Husband’s office reports missing quantities of sedation samples.
The police find the wad of your muscle and fat in the septic tank, but your husband’s lawyer argues a person could survive the loss of this much flesh. He charms the grand jury into thinking the evidence is inconclusive. Turns out it doesn’t matter if people recognize you buying the damning supplies. Husband remains a practicing physician in the free world. Your sister can see what happened, and as soon as the trial is over, she runs as far away as possible to start a new life.
About a day after you’re chopped to bits, you wake up in some mental state at Ray’s, bodiless. “This must be the ghost life,” you think. But you never cared about anything. What could you have to settle? And here? Say this boredom is eternal. “Well, then,” you think half-heartedly, “all these men are stuck smoking with the wrong sister.”
Jac Jemc interviewed
Jac Jemc reads her short story "Filch and Rot"
The Great Writers Steal Experience: Jac Jemc
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p.s. Hey. ** Jonathan, Hey, J! Ha ha, I am, re-cooperating, it seems, based on the gradually lessening ughs. Trip was insane. Happy to tell you about it, for sure. Let's meet up asap! Really glad you liked Katie Gately. I just discovered her stuff recently and ... yeah, pretty great. I want to hear the new Andy Stott. Cool. How've you been? Yeah, let's hang and see/do something. Call/text me, or I'll do the same. ** David Ehrenstein, Hi. Wow, that's a nice compliment to me. About the mind meld with Mr. Delaney. I was on a panel with him once, but we never actually met. ** Sypha, My pleasure on the shout out. Your album is cued-up for the next break I take during my theater piece writing. Today. E.M. Cioran ... you know what? Maybe I haven't read him? I've meant to. I'll try to find that ' ... Despair' book, thanks. Well, I'm personally glad you're giving Blake's book a shot since you know I'm a giant fan of him and of that novel. As a writer who restudies and re-explores motifs a fair amount, I say sometimes you have to trust that a motif, i.e. Blake's 'haunted house' thing, is complex and rich to the writer, and that it's not a matter of relying on it in a lazy way, but rather an obsessive belief that it forms a conducive framework in which to get at other stuff. Or something. But a writer has to earn a reader's trust, and that's always the reader's call. Anyway, cool. ** Tosh Berman, Hi! I haven't talked to Benjamin in a while, so I don't know, but my guess, knowing him well, would be that he hasn't really thought about that aspect yet? ** Kyler, Hi. X-rated ... oh, yes, my imagination quite quickly fills in that blank, although, since most of my initial conjectures seem to involve the word 'dick', ... well, I was going to say that seems kind of un-DC's, but, in fact, I guess it's only un-DC, i.e. un-me, not un-you guys. Honestly, I don't like Paul Auster's work one little bit. Nope. But he's important to you, so I'll keep my reasons in my throat or my head or wherever they are. ** Steevee, Yeah, it's perpetually strange to me that documentaries don't have the same shot at theater release as fiction films given that TV, which I guess is the most immediate graph of public taste, is full of non-fiction. Anyway, I'm going to hunt the films down. Some of them might get super-limited releases in Paris, but I'll have to keep my eyes peeled. Grauerholz is, or, at least was, a big jerk, and a jerk of the myopic kind who wouldn't even realize that he was coming off like a jerk. ** Nicki, Hi, Nicki! Very glad to hear you're fine. I'm ever improving and the volume on my ouches is ever lowering. Love to you! ** Bernard Welt, Hey, B! Yeah, third time for me on the broken ribs front. Strange. They seem to be mending as far as I can tell. Let me see if I can find 'The Big Snooze' online somewhere. Are you publishing the series on dream-related films somewhere seeable? Either privately or publicly? ** Bill, Hi. Thanks much about the gig selection. Yeah, Ashely Paul is really nice. All credit to The Wire on that one. My painkillers are the usual codeine-inflected paracetamol things. They work-ish. At least I'm not avalanching them down my throat like I was for a while. But, yeah, broken ribs are just annoying mostly. ** Kier, Hey, hey!Yeah, I don't think I actually shimmy and shake even when I'm a fireball of health, or, if I do, it's really subtle. Maybe I should. Hm. A photo of Lucifer would be sweet! I wish I could follow you around while you worked on that farm. I promise that I would be as quiet as a mouse. Fir wreaths ... oh, like Xmas wreaths? Is Norway really into Xmas? Man, Iceland sure is. Reykjavik had, like, six Xmas stores, and it's not a very big city. And they had these red mailboxes everywhere where you could send letters to Santa Claus. Bardufoss, I've heard of that. I can't remember why. We saw the Northern Lights, as I think I told you. But it was just a couple of green streaks, not that that wasn't cool. Oh, thank you, thank you for the A4 'Wonderful Witches'. Thank you!!! Yesterday, ... first I tried to work on the theater piece because I'm so far behind and there's so much to do, and I was semi-successful, and I need to pick up the pace today. I made a blog post. I'm in a big scramble to fill up the blog's future at the moment. So most of the day was work stuff. In the afternoon, I met up with my friend Josh who's this young amazing artist who I met years ago when he stayed here at the Recollets for a bit. He's briefly in Paris, and it was awesome to see him and catch up. Then ... oh, I had thought Xiu Xiu was playing here at the end of the month, and Zac and I were planning to go and hopefully hang out with Jamie Stewart, but I found out too late last night that they were playing last night, so I wrote to Jamie to say, shit, I fucked up, and asked if Zac and me could meet up with him today, but he wrote back and said that he left Paris right after the show, so that sucked. Mm, if anything else happened, I can't remember. I'll try to have illustrative fun today. In the meantime, please illustrate your day, if you don't mind. ** Etc etc etc, Hi, Casey. Thanks. Full-court blitz mode is exciting. I like that mode. Fingers crossed re: every one of your fronts. I didn't know or I spaced out about the DFW Reader book, huh. Gotta get that. Thank you for the tip, yes. Oh, I have projects galore at the moment: writing theater piece, editing our film, novel, this and that. I'm pretty locked down re: work for the next while. Cool, send me stuff, and I'll make myself check my email. I will. ** Tomkendall, Hi, Tom! Fingers crossed until full entanglement that the news from that agency is very good. Oh, gosh, please use this space, yes! I'll go investigate that crowd funder myself, and, in the meantime, ... Everyone, please listen up. The superb writer and dude and d.l. Tomkendall wants to alert us to something that sounds extremely interesting and worthy of your support and attention. Here he is: 'I was hoping i could use this space (and maybe up above as i still can't get the links in place here… i know i'm a simpleton) to draw attention to a crowd funder my wife is involved in: "The Quipu Project is an interactive documentary about women and men who were sterilised in Peru in the mid-1990s. Many did not give full consent for it to happen. Twenty years later, they are still seeking justice. Using a specially-developed telephone line and web interface, we are working with some of the affected people, providing the framework for them to tell their story in their own words and bringing it to an international audience.The story emerges as the archive of testimonies and responses grows."Quipu Project Website</>, Quipu Project @ Facebook, Quipu Project Fundraiser page @ Indiegogo</>.' Please take some time and check that out today, okay? Thanks! ** _Black_Acrylic, Hi, Ben. Cool, glad the Katie Gately material intrigued, and, yeah, it's quite unique, I think. You have 4 Art101 episodes nearly ready? That's epic! Really great, man! ** Keaton, Hey. People can't be landscapes? Tell that to my libido, ha ha. Cool, thanks for sneaking out that cemetery report. I like Xmas too, it's weird. Or not weird. No, it's weird. Somehow. I am feeling better. You sound like you're feeling better too. ** Misanthrope, Hi. Yikes, about your brother's coughing damage. Even with my little breakage, coughing is the absolute worst. Wrenching pain spasm every time. Sure, I'll keep the Icelandic bills for LPS or send them to you or something. No prob. Oh, man, obviously, that idea of her home schooling him sounds like a really bad plan, and hopefully you'll talk her into the official alternate plan. Why would she object to that, for goodness sake? ** Chilly Jay Chill, Hi, Jeff! Thanks! I loved the Godard 3D film a lot, really a lot. I keep thinking and thinking about it. 'Burroughs: The Movie' was directed by a very close friend of mine, the late Howard Brookner, so, yes, I know it, and heard/knew a lot about it as Howard was making it. I'm excited to see it again. I remember it being pretty good, and definitely much better than the more recent Burroughs doc of a couple of years back. Me too, re. fashioning a theater piece in fits and starts. I hear and feel you. Yeah, I'll see if Zac will dropbox me a bunch of Iceland photos. He took the great majority of images there. I would really try to spend more than a few days there, if you can. There are amazing things around Reykjavik to see, but, to really get how astounding the country is, it's really, really best to take the time to drive all the way around, which we did in 10 days, although you could do it quicker. The entire country is mindbogglingly beautiful, and a lot of the most incredible places are more than a day-trip out of Reykjavik. ** Terence Hannum, Hi, Terrence! How great to see you here! Well, my total pleasure and honor to get to host your work here. I love that piece and, of course, your work in general. Respect! ** Mark Gluth, Hi, Mark! Dude, seriously, do what you need to do to go to Iceland when you can. It's unbelievable. And spend a fair amount of time there and travel around the country's perimeter by car when you do. We were there just under two weeks. You could do the country and get a good, un-rushed look and feel in about 10 days, I'd say. I get that not being able to breathe thing whenever I climb stairs or go up a hill. Or I did until maybe yesterday. It's scary. And when I fell and smashed my ribs, I literally couldn't breathe for about a minute. I thought my lung had collapsed. Horrible. My pain killers are the non-intoxicating kind. Or I guess very mildly intoxicating. More like befuddling. I'm a big opiate wimp too, thank goodness, I think. ** Right. There are some new books up there that I highly recommend. Peruse their evidence today, if you will. See you tomorrow.