A Piece of Monologue: Literature, Philosophy, Criticism

28.1.12

Burroughs 23: Charles Gatewood's Photographs of William S. Burroughs

A collection of largely unseen Burroughs photographs

William Burroughs and Brion Gysin in London, 1972. Photo: Charles Gatewood

If you're a fan of William S. Burroughs and the photographer Charles Gatewood, oh, and if you have $3,000 to spare, you might be interested in Burroughs 23. Essentially, it's a 'deluxe artist's book' by Charles Gatewood, published back in 2011 by Dana Dana Dana in San Francisco (a big thank you to Volker Frick for the link): 'Each 11"x14" hand crafted book features high-quality digitally printed reproductions of photographs of american author William S. Burroughs (b. 1914 - d. 1997) shot in London, England in 1972, and in New York, New York, USA in 1975. The book also contains photos of writer Brion Gysin, Led Zeppelin singer Jimmy Page, and Rolling Stone Magazine journalist Robert Palmer. Many of these photos have never been seen or published before now.' [Read More]

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Writers: William S. Burroughs

Picador 40th Anniversary Series

Picador re-issues titles by DeLillo, Ellis, McCarthy, Bolaño and others

Cormac McCarthy, All the Pretty Horses

John Banville, The Sea

Bret Easton Ellis, American Psycho

Don DeLillo, White Noise

Roberto Bolaño, The Savage Detectives

To celebrate Picador’s 40th anniversary, the publisher is re-issuing 12 of its classic fiction titles. [Read More]

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Bret Easton Ellis on Imperial Bedrooms and Less Than Zero

New York Magazine interviews controversial American novelist

Marla Hanson, Jay McInerney, and Ellis at a New York party for a movie premiere in 1990. Photo: Catherine McGann/Getty Images

In an interview with Carl Swanson of New York Magazine, Bret Easton Ellis talks about Imperial Bedrooms, the sequel to his debut novel Less Than Zero: 'I did not want to write a sequel to Less Than Zero, but I was interested in, well, where is Clay now and what is he doing? [...] And it just sort of haunts you. The question doesn’t go away. You can tell yourself, Look, forget about it, concentrate on something else, but it just doesn’t happen. So then you start making notes, you start going, Well, I guess he’s a screenwriter. What does that mean? I guess he’s back in Los Angeles, right? And then you want to follow it through, regardless if it is for a reader or for an audience. Regardless of whether this is a betrayal of the text of the first book or not. It’s something that you as a writer really don’t have a whole lot of control over.' [Read More]

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Bret Easton Ellis on American Psycho

Bret Easton Ellis on American Psycho

Video interview conducted in 2011

American novelist Bret Easton Ellis discusses the legacy of his most controversial novel. The interviewer is a little on the aggressive side, but Ellis' responses are interesting nonetheless.

Andrew Gallix on the Death of Literature

Is literature a work of disappearance?

As part of The Guardian website's 'In Theory' series, Andrew Gallix discusses the role of contemporary literature, and the work of Tom McCarthy, Lee Rourke and Lars Iyer: 'By this token, the novels of Tom McCarthy, Lee Rourke and Iyer himself are not so much evidence of a nouveau roman revival as instances of a new type of hauntological fiction which explores the lost futures of Modernism.' [Read More]

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28.1.12