Scream Queens of the Dead Sea: Sex! Heavy Metal! Linguistics! - Softcover

Elbom, Gilad

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1560257342 ISBN 13: 9781560257349

Publisher: Thunder's Mouth Press, 2005

Synopsis

When a young graduate of the Israeli army decides to moonlight as an assistant nurse at a mental hospital in Jerusalem, the job seems like a nice break from everyday life in the Promised Land. What could be easier than exercising power over a small group of heavily medicated zombies? But as the human inventory inside the insane asylum begins to mirror the psychotic norms of the outside world, the inexperienced ex-soldier finds himself trapped in a hilarious yet terrifying freak show, surrounded by a motley crew of mad patients gone madder: a religious poet who writes obsessive love sonnets to a Hollywood porn queen, an exhausted narcoleptic who refuses to go to sleep without proper pay, a living dead girl who claims she was raped by the Dharma Bums, a charming racist who wears only purple, an Arab who thinks that Robinson Crusoe was a Jew, and a criminally insane murderer who doesn’t believe in anything, not even in nihilism.

Scream Queens of the Dead Sea is a fast and furious first novel saturated with ruminations on sexual aberration, heavy metal, structural linguistics, horror movies, and satanic poetry—the good things in life.

About this title

From the Inside Flap

"There are no easy answers and no roadmaps on offer in Scream Queens of the Dead Sea, just a lot of painful, hilarious groping in the dark. Gilad Elbom is a real talent and this is a tough, funny novel."

--SAM LIPSYTE, author of Venus Drive and The Subject Steve

"Razor-sharp, tongue-in-cheek, an ironic Mack truck of a book, Scream Queens of the Dead Sea is populated by wacky-yet-believable characters, punctuated with crackling-yet-poignant dialogue, and propelled by a narrative drive that takes few prisoners and knows how to pack a punch."

--IMAD RAHMAN, author of I Dream of Microwaves

"With a wink and a roll of the eyes, Gilad Elbom provides a wry, illuminating glimpse into the lives of real Jews and Arabs, both ordinary and eccentric, who are more likely to be interested in Playboy magazine than an Uzi magazine. Scream Queens of the Dead Sea goes where the news cameras don’t to capture the contemporary Middle East in all its glorious insanity."

--MARY WORONOV, author of Snake, Niagara, and Swimming Underground: My Years in the Warhol Factory

About the Author

Gilad Elbom was born in Israel in 1968. After studying English and Arabic at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, he worked as an assistant nurse in a mental hospital, then moved to Los Angeles to attend the graduate writing program at Otis College of Art and Design. He lives in Grand Forks, North Dakota.

Edition details

• Publisher: Thunder's Mouth Press
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 1560257342
• ISBN 13: 9781560257349
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 288