Red Mosquito

High-octane paranoia deranges a writer and fuels a dangerous plan to return home at the tail end of El Salvador’s long civil war.

Is the plan a dream or a nightmare?

Is he courageous, foolhardy, or just plain dumb?

Is the bubbling brew of horrors and threats actual or imagined?

After he seeks relief for liver pain through hypnosis (while drinking more than ever, despite the treatments), his few impulse-control mechanisms rapidly dissolve, and reality only rarely intrudes on his cogitations. Harebrained murder plots, half-mad arguments, hysterical rants: the narrative escalates at a maniacal pace, infused with Horacio Castellanos Moya’s uniquely outlandish and acerbic sense of humor.

BurtReynolds wrote:

BurtReynolds wrote:Backing up a bit.

Backing up a bit.

Simple Torture wrote:Keeping it going:

High-octane paranoia deranges a writer and fuels a dangerous plan to return home at the tail end of El Salvador’s long civil war.

Is the plan a dream or a nightmare?

Is he courageous, foolhardy, or just plain dumb?

Is the bubbling brew of horrors and threats actual or imagined?

After he seeks relief for liver pain through hypnosis (while drinking more than ever, despite the treatments), his few impulse-control mechanisms rapidly dissolve, and reality only rarely intrudes on his cogitations. Harebrained murder plots, half-mad arguments, hysterical rants: the narrative escalates at a maniacal pace, infused with Horacio Castellanos Moya’s uniquely outlandish and acerbic sense of humor.

Mickey wrote:

Simple Torture wrote:Keeping it going:

High-octane paranoia deranges a writer and fuels a dangerous plan to return home at the tail end of El Salvador’s long civil war.

Is the plan a dream or a nightmare?

Is he courageous, foolhardy, or just plain dumb?

Is the bubbling brew of horrors and threats actual or imagined?

After he seeks relief for liver pain through hypnosis (while drinking more than ever, despite the treatments), his few impulse-control mechanisms rapidly dissolve, and reality only rarely intrudes on his cogitations. Harebrained murder plots, half-mad arguments, hysterical rants: the narrative escalates at a maniacal pace, infused with Horacio Castellanos Moya’s uniquely outlandish and acerbic sense of humor.

How was El Asco?

Viking marauders descend on a much-plundered island, hoping some mayhem will shake off the winter blahs. A man is booted out of his home after his wife discovers that the print of a bare foot on the inside of his car's windshield doesn't match her own. Teenage cousins, drugged by summer, meet with a reckoning in the woods. A boy runs off to the carnival after his stepfather bites him in a brawl. Wells Tower's version of America is touched with the seamy splendor of the dropout, the misfit: failed inventors, boozy dreamers, hapless fathers, wayward sons. With electric prose and savage wit, Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned is a profound new collection of stories.

durdencommatyler wrote:So... turns out Zadie Smith can really fucking write, huh?

Holy shit.

Reading 'On Beauty' and it's wonderful!

Strat wrote:

durdencommatyler wrote:So... turns out Zadie Smith can really fucking write, huh?

Holy shit.

Reading 'On Beauty' and it's wonderful!

ahem

Simple Torture wrote:I've had this book on my to-read list for more than 10 years. I forget why I was even interested; probably heard an interview with the author on the radio. Let's give it a whirl!

Viking marauders descend on a much-plundered island, hoping some mayhem will shake off the winter blahs. A man is booted out of his home after his wife discovers that the print of a bare foot on the inside of his car's windshield doesn't match her own. Teenage cousins, drugged by summer, meet with a reckoning in the woods. A boy runs off to the carnival after his stepfather bites him in a brawl. Wells Tower's version of America is touched with the seamy splendor of the dropout, the misfit: failed inventors, boozy dreamers, hapless fathers, wayward sons. With electric prose and savage wit, Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned is a profound new collection of stories.

Steve Albini wrote:Whenever there's active promotion on the part of somebody else, whenever I see somebody all dolled up for a fancy photograph and someone's handing out flyers or whenever there's active promotion for something like that, as an imposition on my day, I hate all those people and I want them to fail. I have a visceral reaction to advertising and promotion. There's just something about salesmanship that grates on me on a very base level and I react very negatively towards it. I want those people to suffer and I want their enterprises to fail.

tragabigzanda wrote:I love JS but never read this. What’d you think?

digster wrote:I bailed on this a few years back, giving it another shot.