Heresy Press announces the launch of Animal: Notes from a Labyrinth, a series of startling narratives artfully stitched together to form a magical carpet alive with passion, ecstasy, despair, and the longing for human connection. A slim, fierce book—coming in at 124 pages—Animal is a full-blooded work of autofiction that pulls no punches. Alan Fishbone’s stories—loosely patterned on Roman poet Catullus’s fragments—delve into the twilight zone of New York’s shady bars and cocaine dens, explore a German expressionist painter’s troubled soul, describe a latter-day “hunger artist” bent on self-exorcism, explore the tangled lives of prostitutes at the margins of society, and link our contemporary political, social, and personal fixations with the desires and hang-ups of Romans like Horace and Petronius. A work both outrageous and wise, Animal relentlessly probes the human condition in all its glorious and wretched complexity.
Advance Praise:
“A devilish double pour of modern grit and love of antiquity, Alan Fishbone’s Animal is honest, fearless, and stunningly inventive.” — Daniel Magariel
“Alan Fishbone occasionally conjures the Roman poet Catullus (amid many subjects), and like that great role model he’s unafraid to explore the messy effluvia of life: wet coffee grounds on a wall, excreta, the smell of a musky goat. He’s also not afraid to explore the pain of betrayal. His voice in this collection of edgy, gritty encounters with life is interspersed with that of his scarred German friend, Dieter, to form a jangling, modernist counterpoint that’s highly addictive.” — James Romm, Professor of Classics at Bard College and author of The Sacred Band: Three Hundred Theban Lovers and the Last Days of Greek Freedom
“Toggling between erudition and” carnal “fetishes and violence, the narrative is hard to stomach, beautiful, forgiving, and tender in equal measure, much the same way as looking in a mirror is liable to feel. Fishbone’s work is courageous, curious, and experimental.” — U.S. Review of Books
Heresy Press Promotes Outspoken Voices to Meet the Demand of Today’s Robust Readers
Heresy Press was founded in 2023 with support from Joyce Carol Oates, Steven Pinker, Nadine Strossen, and other notable writers and public intellectuals as an initiative to counter the malaise of timidity, undeclared censorship, and identity-essentialism that currently dogs mainstream publishing. Heresy Press publishes outspoken authors of all backgrounds, requiring only that their work demonstrate literary excellence.
“The readers we aim to reach are not frail creatures in need of protection from potentially discomfiting experiences but resilient, curious, and adventurous individuals,” said Bernard Schweizer, Founder & Director of Heresy Press. “Animal by Alan Fishbone shows that the best works of fiction are those that are searingly honest, boldly transgressive, and fully committed to exploring the human condition without political agendas.”
Visit the Heresy Press website to read the latest updates about Animal: Notes from a Labyrinth and a Q&A with the author. For any other inquiries, please contact info@heresy-press.com
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