“The single brilliantly funny voice of something genuinely new.” – Walter Benn Michaels, American literary theorist, and author of The Shape of the Signifier: 1967 to the End of History "It is a pleasure to think about what Grimes's art is thinking, but the greatest pleasure, like the pleasure of music, is in the unfolding inventions of the language itself." – Curtis White, American Book Review From take-off to landing, The Pornographers moves at the speed of sound through post 9-11 angst, yoga, bureaucratic helplessness, marriage, collective public insecurity and family. A group of minor bureaucrats operating under the unfunded directive of “Homeland Security” try to start a commercial pornography site in order to generate revenue for their city. Their research into the the porn industry does in fact suggest it as a viable solution to their economic woes. Meanwhile their wives threaten to follow a guru to India in search of their own inner security. The Pornographers sizzles with ripe language, humor and serious and real concerns about America in the 21st Century, all bundled with good, old-fashioned dramatic suspense. Oh, and by the way, the novel is written as a single, grammatically-correct sentence.

The Pornographers: a novel

Grimes, Christopher

Literature & Fiction

Jaded Ibis Press

This edition is the short story version of the novel, The Pornographers, and is sold only on Jaded Ibis website, or free with purchase of The Pornographers by Christopher Grimes. Contact the publisher for more information: questions at Jaded Ibis Productions dot com From take-off to landing, these linked stories move at the speed of sound through post 9-11 angst, yoga, bureaucratic helplessness, marriage, collective public insecurity and family. A group of minor bureaucrats operating under the unfunded directive of “Homeland Security” try to start a commercial pornography site in order to generate revenue for their city. Their research into the porn industry does in fact suggest it as a viable solution to their economic woes. Meanwhile their wives threaten to follow a guru to India in search of their own inner security. Pornographies humorously lays bare serious and real concerns about 21st Century America.

Pornographies: short stories

Short Stories & Anthologies

The short fictions collected in Public Works explore the extremes of human nature and literary technique. From the manic, single-sentence fiction "Public Sentence" to the carefully structured and plot-twisting "We Stand Here, Swinging Cats," Grimes' stories have an idiosyncratic and associative quality-nothing follows predictably from anything, and beginnings never foreshadow ends. While reading, one has the sense that, despite recognizable voices and themes, this imagination seems alien, as though divvying up and parceling out the world by its own rules. In "Glue Trap," a one-legged shopkeeper offers expert instruction in the art of one-on-one combat with a rat. In "Making Love: a Translation," the stream of consciousness creates a fiction as simple as Hemingway, as wistful and dissociative as Julio Cortazar. Ultimately, Grimes' stories question the grids and schemas we impose on "reality." His is a formal defiance of the tyranny of traditional narrative, expressed with a thematic daring that moves between the contemplation of ordinary buckets and high art.

Public Works: Short Fiction and a Novella

United States

Fiction Collective 2

BLACK & WHITE EDITION "The single brilliantly funny voice of something genuinely new." -Walter Benn Michaels, author of The Gold Standard and the Logic of Naturalism and The Shape of the Signifier: 1967 to the End of History "In fiction of this sort, there is huge pressure on the line-by-line life of the prose. Happily, it is in the energy and inventiveness of its language that this novel is most alive. Because that is what the work is finally about, that wonderful redundancy we call "art," showing us once again...the way from death to life." - Curtis White, American Book Review From take-off to landing, The Pornographers moves at the speed of sound through post 9-11 angst, yoga, bureaucratic helplessness, marriage, collective public insecurity and family. A group of minor bureaucrats operating under the unfunded directive of "Homeland Security" try to start a commercial pornography site in order to generate revenue for their city. Their research into the the porn industry does in fact suggest it as a viable solution to their economic woes. Meanwhile their wives threaten to follow a guru to India in search of their own inner security. Written as a single, grammatically correct sentence, The Pornographers humorously lays bare the real and serious concerns about America in the 21st Century.

Contemporary

After growing up enthralled by Laura Ingalls Wilder and her love of the pristine prairie around DeSmet, South Dakota, I found another form of austere prairie beauty in the retreat and despair of Christopher Grimes’s (fictional) Freyman, North Dakota. Following Public Works (2005) and The Pornographers (2012), Grimes’ The Economist continues probing the ways economies and public policies intersect with individual lives and personal conflicts. To bring pathos to an emerging “deplorable” takes this novel far beyond social commentary and well into art. 
Cris Mazza, Author of It’s No Puzzle

The Economist

Humor & Satire

Spuyten Duyvil Publishing

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Grimes, Christopher. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Grimes, Christopher

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Grimes, Christopher. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

The Pornographers: a novel

Pornographies: short stories

Public Works: Short Fiction and a Novella

The Pornographers: a novel

The Economist