Headless (Little House on the Bowery) - Softcover

Weissman, Benjamin

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1888451491 ISBN 13: 9781888451498

Publisher: Akashic Books, Ltd., 2004

Synopsis

"Headless is fearless, fun, and sometimes filthy . . . an alphabet soup of -delight in language. Eat up."
Alice Sebold

"Brilliant. Wildly inventive, profane, and hilarious."
Bret Easton Ellis

The author of the acclaimed cult classic Dear Dead Person ("refreshing, nauseating, hilarious" Kirkus) returns with this long-awaited collection of brilliantly written and outrageously imaginative short stories.

Benjamin Weissman is the author of Dear Dead Person (High Risk/Serpent’s Tail, 1995). He is a contributing editor to Bomb Magazine and writes regularly for the contemporary art magazines Parkett and Artforum. A painter and a professor at Art Center College of Design and Otis College of the Arts, he now lives in Los Angeles.

About this title

About the Author

Dennis Cooper is the author of 'The George Miles Cycle,' an interconnected sequence of five novels published in the US by Grove Press and translated into fourteen languages. His most recent novel is God, Jr. (Grove, 2005). He lives in Los Angeles.

From Publishers Weekly

Weissman's second story collection is surprising, rollicking and clever, but not for the faint of heart: there's scatological humor, graphic sex scenes (including one between bears) and an enduring, buoyant enthusiasm for the profane. In "The Fecality of It All," an unnamed narrator takes a forced break from dubbing rented porn tapes to contend with cleaning up the house after the toilet overflows, and implores the reader to have pity on him, for "humble is the man who is backed against the wall by his own bowel movement." In "Hitler Ski Story," Weissman (Dear Dead Person) details the fuhrer's travails on the hills: Eva Braun, "after a day of flirty skiing with... Gunter, Heinz, and Klaus," catches up with the unathletic Hitler on the bunny hill, sprays snow on him and taunts "Dolfy on his duffer." What makes these stories exciting and more than pretentiously outre experiments is Weissman's zesty, original use of language and his unflinching approach to describing human truths, especially the awkward, bizarre or undesirable ones. In "Marnie," one of the collection's best stories, a Cal Arts grad student and skiing freak vacillates between "full-throttle hysterics and an eerie composure" when his gorgeous friend has a terrible accident on the slopes. When the doctor tells him two holes had to be drilled in Marnie's head "to relieve brain pressure," Sam thinks "Holes? Drilled? I couldn't help thinking, What is this, woodshop?" It sounds flip, but it's not - it's honest and bold, just like the rest of these truly original stories.
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About this edition

• Publisher: Akashic Books, Ltd.
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 1888451491
• ISBN 13: 9781888451498
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 152