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I won't recommend this novella to every reader because of its graphic violence and a certain amount of equally graphic S&M sex, but it's a powerful book exploring intolerance and racism and seems particularly apropos given the present (I write this in May) circumstances in the Middle East, Afghanistan, and pretty much anywhere else in the world where violence is seen as a solution, rather than for what it is: part of the problem...
...Northern Gothic is a dark and brutal book. Its violence and hopelessness tear at the heart. And while I doubt I'll return to it, reading this novella was an instructive reminder of why we must always stand up against intolerance and defend every individual's right to personal freedom. |
| ...this story, with the fresh perspectives it skilfully offers on both a historical episode that is widely forgotten and on the nature of New York, delivers more of interest than many a novel five times as thick. |
| Undeniably brilliant, unrelentingly violent, unredeeming in its hopelessness, Northern Gothic invades the mind and attacks the viscera. Read it if you want to taste the fruit of a writer who will assuredly make his mark on the literary scene. |
| Nick Mamatas is one of the liveliest and most exciting new writers around. | |
Northern Gothic
Nick Mamatas
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| Paper | 6" x 8" | 98 pgs. | ISBN: 1-887128-74-3 | List: $10.00 | 09/1/2001 |
Available on Powells.com, Amazon.com, from your local BookSense store, and bookstores everywhere!
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About the book: July, 1863: William Patten learns exactly what his life is worth. $300 is the amount needed to legally avoid the draft into the meat grinder of the Civil War. Drawn into New York's Civil War Draft Riots--the bloodiest in our nation's history--something snaps in William, and he prowls the cobblestones of Chelsea, looking only to kill, and drown his pain and fear in blood.
July, 1998: Ahmadi Jenkins is new to New York City. He's making friends, trying to get laid, and working shitty temp jobs, until the inexplicable begins to happen. Voices, fires, uncontrollable rage, as the ghosts of the past return. New York isn't just a city, it is history written in stone and steel, and history is about to catch up with Ahmadi Jenkins.
Links: Read an excerpt from the book here; visit Nick Mamatas's weblog (and fansite); and check out Nick's other books, Kwangju Diary (co-author), Before and After (contributor), Everything You Know is Wrong (contributor), and You Are Being Lied To (contributor). |
