This collection of 23 stories written when the author was living in Japan is a consumable portion of Lowe's writing pie. With a pastry crust of obsessive machinations and a meaty filling of surreality, this is a dish you'll be wanting more of.
There are certain authors that spring to mind when reading Lowe. Bataille, Robbe-Grillet, Philip K Dick and Italo Calvino, perhaps a little Vonnegut Jr... But these names are simply a small number of the ingredients that make up the pie. Lowe's style is all and none of these.
A lot of thought has gone into these stories, which may be considered formulae, wrapped around a narrative darkly. Lowe isn't just unravelling a good yarn for our entertainment. He's playing cat's cradle with the entrails. Many of his stories are segmented into time, place, film take, camera shot. He takes one world or scene or character and duplicates it. He takes a code and sets out to break it. He takes a formula and twists it around until he's created something new. His subjects include voyeurism, murder, sex, parasites, sweat, semen and severed limbs. His world may not be for all tastes but to the rest of you I say only this: Bon Appetit!
"Having read most of these fictions over the last several years in the various publications where they first appeared, online and in print, I can truly state these fictions bear up to re-reading. They are full of ideas and questions, clues and insinuations, vivid images, "jagged edges" and carefully constructed but unsolvable mazes. While they contain elements of noir and detective fiction, as a whole this collection conveys a distinctive quality all its own."
Louise Norlie
Read the rest of Louise Norlie's review
here.
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ALSO AVAILABLE to purchase from ISMs Press:
In collaboration with
Blood Pudding Press:
BONE BODICED by
JULIET COOK and
RACHEL KENDALL.
Copies to the UK/Europe cost
£4.00 inc. p+p
This is a collection of six poems by Cook interspersed with six morsels of prose by Kendall.
The collection's thematic flirtations include alteration,mutilation, transfixiation, entrapment, & the peculiar claustrophobia of being trapped within a decorative box or an ornate cage. The collection's tone is horrific, obsessive, and perversely titillating.
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THE GARDEN OF DOUBT ON THE ISLAND OF SHADOWS
a novella by
MARK HOWARD JONES
Copies to the UK/Europe cost £4.00 inc. p+p
Synopsis: It's Autumn 1974 and Sandy's lover has disappeared in silence, leaving her behind, along with his successful musical career. But has he gone to seek seclusion and inspiration, or has something more sinister happened to him? Convinced that she hasfound clues to his whereabouts in the lyrics of his latest album, she sets off for
an obscure island said to lie near his childhood home. But she has no idea if the island is really there or what she will find when she reaches it.
"A tale of modern culture and lyrical serendipity darkly haunted by a labyrinthine originality as well as older echoes: fictions by (Christopher) Priest and (John) Fowles, 'The Wicker Man' film and (John) Cage's prepared pianos."
D F Lewis
