NEW STORY - "Electric Pink" - COMING SOON

"Electric Pink"

I'm chuffed to have a new short story - "Electric Pink" - coming out soon in an anthology of gay male genre fiction, cross-genres, actually. 

**OKAY, the publisher has updated their official Publication Date and changed it to October 2022, so this post is now a bit premature . . . however, it will come out someday, one hopes**

PINK TRIANGLE RHAPSODY, edited by Andrew Wolter, will be published in late December 2021 October 2022, from Lycan Valley Press. Other authors appearing in this anthology include Hal Bodner, Jacob Budenz, Aaron Dries, Robert Dunbar, Ryan Field, David Gerrold, Darrell Grizzle, Greg Herren, Adrik Kemp, Corey Niles, Gregory Norris, Norman Prentiss, Rick R. Reed, Andrew Robertson, J. Daniel Stone, and Lee Thomas. Cover art by Joe Phillips. Interior art by Aaron Dries. You can pre-order from www.lycanvalley.com.

 

WHAT I'M READING ...

THE PASSENGER by Ulrich Alexander Boschwitz

THE PASSENGER
by Ulrich Alexander Boschwitz
(Metropolitan Books)

I recently finished reading this extraordinary novel, THE PASSENGER, by Ulrich Alexander Boschwitz. It is something of a rediscovery, as it was written in the late 1930s, shortly after Kristallnacht occurred in Nazi Germany. The author, Boschwitz, was a young Jewish man who had already managed to flee Germany but was living a harried and harassed life as a refugee. He had written one other novel before this, but THE PASSENGER is what he is now remembered for. 

THE PASSENGER was published in various forms in English, French, and some other languages back in the 1930s and 1940s, but never in the original German in which it was composed. It was only in the last few years that the original German-language manuscript turned up, and was re-edited according to the intentions left behind by the author in some correspondence (before he sadly perished after his transport ship was torpedoed by the Germans), and was published finally in Germany. It is this new German edition that has formed the basis of several translations into other languages, and we are lucky that the English translation, by Philip Boehm, is now out in the United States from Metropolitan Books (and in the United Kingdom from Pushkin Press). 

I never like to review the plot of a book too fully in a mini-review like this. Suffice to say, the main character, a Jewish businessman in Germany who always thought he looked rather Aryan, finds himself the target of persecution, along with all other Jews throughout Germany, after the horrors of Kristallnacht. He then learns that the clock has been ticking behind the scenes, the last five years since the Nazis came to power, while everyone including himself thought this all would just "blow over." Then it is 1938 and it is too late. He is unable to get himself or his family out of Germany, and it takes a great deal of time for him to even understand that he has no meaningful German citizenship left, and no ability to cling to his assets . . . he will have no choice but to find some way to get out of Germany (illegally, as there is no longer any legal means, and he is not likely to be welcomed by any country he might be able to get himself to). So he becomes a passenger, going from here to there in different points across Germany, hoping not to be taken into custody by the Nazis, but really only just buying a bit of time. The inevitable is going to come, and it is truly too late.

Although some have compared THE PASSENGER to Kafka, I think that is not really accurate in the sense that everything that happens to the hero of THE PASSENGER is all too real, not surreal or fantastical. And it is a fate that can and does happen to anyone, anywhere in the world, who finds him- or herself suddenly the so-called Enemy of the State, for no other reason that one's own ethnicity. 

I highly recommend that everyone read THE PASSENGER before it vanishes again.

UPDATES ON MY WRITING ...

UPDATES ON MY WRITING.

I've been more active in recently with my writing, and it's starting to appear here and there. So here is an update, for anyone who's been looking for new stuff:

Short Stories:

"Electric Pink" forthcoming in PINK TRIANGLE RHAPSODY, Lycan Valley Press, approximately October 2021 2022.

"The Man Who Hated Foley" was published in THE PULP HORROR BOOK OF PHOBIAS, VOL. 2, Lycan Valley Press, December 2020.

"Let's Make a Face" was published in THE VALANCOURT BOOK OF HORROR STORIES, VOL. 4, Valancourt Books, October 2020.

Novels:

I have completed the final draft manuscript of a new novel - more info to come in future as it progresses, but I hope it will be published someday.

My queer vampire novel OUT FOR BLOOD was republished by Valancourt Books, October 2019.