Later Stories

Nominated twice for the National Book Award, proposed as well for the 1973 Pulitzer Prize by the late Guy Davenport (juror with Edmund Fuller, Herman Kogan), a master of prose and a genius in his own right, Alexander Theroux has been highly praised by everyone from Saul Bellow to Cormac McCarthy, from Anthony Burgess to Robertson Davies, from Norman Mailer to John Updike, from Andrew Wyeth to Will Friedwald, from Jacques Pepin to Robert Crumb. Davenport fondly wrote of his subject, "As Nigel Nicolson wrote of James Pope Hennessy, I would say of Alexander Theroux - 'He dipped his fingers deep into the treasury of the language, dishing out strange words like rubies, and his sentences, paragraphs, chapters, finish, when another writer's might simply end.' No page of his does not blaze like jewels in Ali Baba's cave."\nAlexander Theroux now comes to us in full flame with Later Stories, a collection of 13 new explosive narratives, only one which has been previously published, the third and last volume of this series, including Early Stories and Fables. His genius for plot, the power of his sparkling invention, the unsparing brilliance of his satire, the unforeseen twists and force of irony he wields, along with the astounding philosophical sense that inform his insights, are truly matchless. No scenario is predictable. Intrigue underpins the tale of an enigmatic Iraqi writer who is sought out with devastating consequences. We encounter an opinionated feminist poet from Maine, merciless in her impatience but eminently quotable. An operatic tenor in Italy faces down a waistline problem. A greedy diamond merchant flees Nazi-occupied France only to meet with grave consequences. Why in one story does a ballerina refuse to appear at curtain calls? What, in another, is the unforeseen and final turn of fate in the life of a young, seemingly unredeemable English thug? How do books and reading effect the life of young Filipina orphan brought to New Hampshire? We are presented a masterful college lecture on a French painter that amounts to a personal confession. We meet a group of seminarians who to pass the time seek a playful diversion. False piety figures in several tales with catastrophic results. And we are treated to a new saga of the Mayflower pilgrims.\nWith the turn of each page, we find again Theroux's love affair with language, his passion for the perfect phrase, a scholar's pressing need to inform.\nAs literary critic Larry McCaffery in "A Rose to Look At"in Some Other Frequency writes, "Of contemporary fiction writers, only Alexander Theroux comes close to [poet and novelist Robert] Kelly in terms of being able to articulate his concerns within the full range of words and storytelling skills available to writers."

Literature & Fiction

THEROUX, ALEXANDER

Literary

Tough Poets Press

Product Description New edition of Steve Katz's first collection of short stories, originally published in 1970 by Random House."The most extreme and perfectly executed fictional work to emerge from the Pop Art scene of the late 60s." - 20th Century's Greatest Hits: 100 English-Language Books of Fiction by Larry McCaffery"Steve Katz is a witty fantasist who can homogenize pop detritus, campy slang and hallucination to achieve inspired chaos." - New York Times About the Author Steve Katz (1935-2019) was an American post-modern/avant-garde writer. He received his bachelor of arts degree from Cornell University in 1956 and his master of arts degree from the University of Oregon in 1959. He taught creative writing at the English Language Institute and the University of Maryland Overseas (both in Italy), Cornell University, the University of Iowa, Brooklyn College, Queens College, and Notre Dame University. In 1978, he became Director of Creative Writing at the University of Colorado, Boulder. Katz was the recipient of two National Endowment for the Arts grants (1976 and 1981), and a Creative Artists Public Service grant (1976). Has also worked for the Forest Service in Idaho, in a quicksilver mine in Nevada, and on dairy farms in New York State. He started teaching Tai Chi Chuan in1971.At Cornell in the 1950s, Katz encountered Vladimir Nabokov and Thomas Pynchon, and later roomed at the Chelsea Hotel in Manhattan where he met Janis Joplin, Andy Warhol, John Ashbery, George Plimpton, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., Philip Glass, and countless other artists and scenesters of the 1960s and '70s.Literary critic Jerome Klinkowitz wrote that Katz has pushed innovation farther than any of his contemporaries, and W. C. Bamburger dubbed him the most important living American novelist. (43 Views of Steve Katz, Popular Writers of Today, vol. 69, Borgo Press, 2007)

Creamy and Delicious: Eat My Words (In Other Words)

Katz, Steve

Humor & Satire

Fables

Fables, the second volume to be published of Theroux's short stories, truly among his richest and thought-provoking, is a compilation of among his most imaginative, daring, whimsical, highly inspired, and characteristically unconventional work. It will be followed by the third and last of the triad, Later Stories.This collection, which includes pieces long and short, including two ballads, has been much anticipated by his faithful readers. In these narratives, Theroux has mastered in the originality of sheer invention the folklorish, even fairy-tale quality, of the moral fable, touching in his chronicles on the tried-and-true plots of romance, mythology, mystery, puzzles, secrets, and questions of intrigue without making any of the pieces didactic or overly doctrinal. We encounter in this gathering an assemblage of little sagas, epics, and apologues an intrepid explorer deep in the Amazon jungle seeking a black orchid for Queen Victoria. A disturbed German violin student undergoes in the course of his lessons a strange and unpredictable response to a rare, priceless instrument. A love story in old China finds two sweethearts in the dire peril of a venomous court intrigue. The ancient linen wrapping of Egyptian mummies leads to a weird conspiracy that takes place, unpredictably, in the state of Maine. The neuroses of a mother-hating son have ghastly consequences in his own marriage. Nothing can match for weird enchantment the wizard-architect named Vinegarfly.At the turn of every page a surprise awaits in these unforgettable stories, where, in his own right proving a wizard himself of the language, Theroux handles words like Fabergé his eggs, for, in a final analysis, language once again is his subject. As David Bowman observed in the New York Times, "Alexander Theroux . . . is one of America's premier frotteurs, to use a French term the impeccable James Salter applies to someone who 'rubs words in his hand.'"

Fables, the second volume to be published of Theroux's short stories, truly among his richest and thought-provoking, is a compilation of among his most imaginative, daring, whimsical, highly inspired, and characteristically unconventional work. It will be followed by the third and last of the triad, Later Stories.\nThis collection, which includes pieces long and short, including two ballads, has been much anticipated by his faithful readers. In these narratives, Theroux has mastered in the originality of sheer invention the folklorish, even fairy-tale quality, of the moral fable, touching in his chronicles on the tried-and-true plots of romance, mythology, mystery, puzzles, secrets, and questions of intrigue without making any of the pieces didactic or overly doctrinal. We encounter in this gathering an assemblage of little sagas, epics, and apologues an intrepid explorer deep in the Amazon jungle seeking a black orchid for Queen Victoria. A disturbed German violin student undergoes in the course of his lessons a strange and unpredictable response to a rare, priceless instrument. A love story in old China finds two sweethearts in the dire peril of a venomous court intrigue. The ancient linen wrapping of Egyptian mummies leads to a weird conspiracy that takes place, unpredictably, in the state of Maine. The neuroses of a mother-hating son have ghastly consequences in his own marriage. Nothing can match for weird enchantment the wizard-architect named Vinegarfly.\nAt the turn of every page a surprise awaits in these unforgettable stories, where, in his own right proving a wizard himself of the language, Theroux handles words like Fabergé his eggs, for, in a final analysis, language once again is his subject. As David Bowman observed in the New York Times, "Alexander Theroux . . . is one of America's premier frotteurs, to use a French term the impeccable James Salter applies to someone who 'rubs words in his hand.'"

Product Description Described as "a principal part of a longer work in progress," the first section of Paul Herr's only published novel, Journey Not to End, appeared in the Autumn 1959 issue of Chicago Review. The full novel was originally published in 1961 by Bernard Geis Associates and released as a paperback the following year by Signet Books.The novel relates the experiences of an unnamed protagonist, beginning with his escape from a displaced-persons camp in Europe at the end of World War II, followed by years of aimless travel on various freighters, and eventually leading to a chance encounter with a high-ranking Mexican military official who convinces him to help organize shipments of arms to Cuban revolutionaries attempting to overthrow the Batista dictatorship. As the novel progresses, the protagonist discovers his talents as a writer, and seeks to replace his existential fatalism with real purpose in life and an ever-elusive inner peace. About the Author Paul Edward Herr (1920-1980) was a Midwestern writer whose style was often compared to that of Albert Camus. His first novel, Journey Not to End, was heralded as a literary triumph in 1961, and was translated into many languages following its release. During his years in Chicago in the 1950s and early '60s, Herr was part of a talented circle of writers which included Nelson Algren, Saul Bellow, and Studs Terkel, among others. He was also a frequent correspondent with German/American political theorist Hannah Arendt during that time. While pursuing his career as a writer, Herr worked in advertising and was a freelance editor. He also taught English literature at the University of Southern California and the University of Indiana for several years, specializing in James Joyce and other modernists. His second novel, The Amnesiacs, was never published, although chapters from it were published in The Chicago Review and other literary magazines. Paul Herr was the father of three children, two of whom are writers, including Natalia Rachel Singer, author of Scraping by in the Big Eighties, and Mira Bartok, author of The Memory Palace. Paul Herr died in New Orleans in 1980.

Journey Not to End

Herr, Paul

First-ever new edition of Movieland, the 1930 English translation of Spanish proto-surrealist Ramón Gómez de la Serna's 1923 novel Cinélandia. According to translator Angel Flores, Movieland "deals with an ideal Hollywood, with a Hollywood more amazing, if that were possible, than the one we know.""Brilliant satiric fantasy." - Sioux City Journal"A baroque and flippant literary antic . . . the novel is thoroughly satisfactory." - New York Times"For a man who has never been in Hollywood, not even the U.S.A., Ramón did well, uncommonly so, by the allegedly fictitious characters of his opus. Each chapter, almost each paragraph, is a complete sparkling little jewel in itself. Synthesized, they become equally sparkling, witty, cynical yet refreshing facets of a larger gem." - Brooklyn Daily Eagle

Movieland

Gómez de la Serna, Ramón

Novelist Donald Newlove (1928-2021) contemplates how alcoholism has affected the lives and work of other writers, as well as himself.\n". . . a passionate blend: part autobiography, part confessional, part sketches of famous alcoholic writers and part sermon on the dangers of 'Drunkspeare' . . . its bird song and purling ravishment, bliss of self-love. . . . Like improvisational jazz . . . the Newlove sound is robust and swinging, the mark of a man who has discovered that his talent is intoxication enough." 
- R.Z. Sheppard, Time\n"Newlove's memoir makes The Lost Weekend by Charles Jackson seem like a dull college weekend. It is, quite simply, terrifying, a tale to chill the blood of anyone who's ever hoisted a drink in a bar. It is a book with both literary merit and social value of the most redeeming sort imaginable." 
- Judson Hand, New York Daily News\n"Those Drinking Days ought to be read. It is an astonishing, moving memoir." 
- Joel Oppenheimer, New York Times

Those Drinking Days: Myself and Other Writers

Biographies & Memoirs

Newlove, Donald

Arts & Literature

On April 24, 1966, Pookie and Paul Sweetmeat, rock idols of America's youth, mysteriously disappeared from their hotel room in New York City. G. F. Gravenson's The Sweetmeat Saga is the documented account of subsequent events.\n"The Sweetmeat Saga, An Epic Story of the Sixties deserves to be left in a time capsule because it beautifully describes the decade without drifting into maudlin nostalgia. . . . The best thing about The Sweetmeat Saga is the way it's told. Instead of ordinary sentences and paragraphs, Gravenson has dropped standard literary form altogether and used snippets of conversation, plot, and commercials to create an intricate aural collage; like the Firesign Theatre on paper, or maybe more like constantly flipping the TV dial and trying to piece together a story from seemingly unrelated fragments. . . . The Sweetmeat Saga might be hard to find because it was first published in 1971 and has since gone out of print. But just wait and read it when you get the chance. It has its flaws, but these are far outweighed by its plate-juggling literary technique and its har-dee-har type humor." 
- The Cincinnati Enquirer, April 7, 1973

The Sweetmeat Saga

Gravenson, G F

A Tale of Five Cities & Other Memoirs is a collection of eight previously unpublished autobiographical essays by novelist Joyce Elbert (1930--2009), spanning the years from the Great Depression through the mid-1980s, when she was no longer able to find a publisher for her "zany, sexy, campy creations" (her words). 
Written with subtle humor and often brutal candor, Elbert's memoirs recount her childhood aspirations, her failed relationships with men (some famous), her struggles with alcoholism, and, of course, her life as a writer.

A Tale of Five Cities and Other Memoirs

Elbert, Joyce

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Books by Tough Poets Press

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

Later Stories

Later Stories

Creamy and Delicious: Eat My Words (In Other Words)

Fables

Fables

Journey Not to End

Movieland

Those Drinking Days: Myself and Other Writers

The Sweetmeat Saga

A Tale of Five Cities and Other Memoirs