Little Books, Big Ideas.
So New is an ultra-micro-mini publishing company (although company is a very strong word here because we don't make any money) whose goal is to seek out, publish and promote the Web's best writers.
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American Home Life Price: $12
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Honest, funny, and smart, David Barringer makes brilliant comic work of contemporary suburban fatherhood.
Henry Doran stays home while his wife, Tina, works as a family doctor, but the real stars are the kids, Lilly ("tall and lean, a second-grader, all limbs and a Broadway ego") and Lance ("a solid sensitive first-grader who loves facts about animals").
The literary equivalent of a TV sitcom, American Home Life tackles the domestic, the tragicomic, and the imminently futuristic (talking appliances, chore cards, implantable I.D. chips, corporate schools, kids who refuse to pay taxes, gay guinea pigs, drunk pollsters who spend the night, and shock bracelets that force you to lose weight).
The prose is clean and sharp, the family issues are urgent, and the observations are timeless. As in any family sitcom, though, it's the kids who steal the show.
With wit, intelligence and absolute love, David Barringer's American Home Life captures the suburban quest of the modern American family. There is laughter on every page, and a keen record of the moments every parent wishes they could capture.
Book club discounts are available on orders of 5 or more! Save 30% when you order for your book club. Please Email!
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Terminally Curious Price: $7 |
Twelve evil stories straight from the dictionary definition marked "sex" - the verb and the noun, and everything in between.
Dave Barringer has a way of leading you with one fist and knocking you out with the other. His stories have been published in too many journals to mention, and he has been nominated three times for a Pushcart Prize. One of these stories appeared in an Eastern European anthology on love and its darker side - or whatever the translation is.
But before you get too excited, remember these stories are also sexy - meaning funny, smart, touching and a little twisted. You won't end up where you thought you were going. That's a promise.
Also included:
An audio file of Barringer reading the story "Charity," first published in Monkeybicycle
A rock song: "Blame," from Letterbox
Desktop art
A So New Media Sampler in PDF
A Barringer Sampler in PDF.
A kick-ass sticker
Other goodies:
Visit Dave Barringer's website!
Also, check out the awesome artists who contributed to Terminally Curious!
David Barringer on Terminally Curious
Since coming to work with David Barringer, we've been alternately amazed by his energy, impressed by his professionalism, and irritated/humbled by his honesty. He is truly a blessing on the realm of independent publishing - not to mention the fact that his stories will infect your brain long after you've put the book down (in a good way!). The following questions do a little to illuminate the juggernaut that is Dave. Know this: he's in it for the long-haul, he's serious, and $7 for his latest book is a steal (and we set the prices).
1. Let me launch with the hard one: Terminally Curious - does the title mean that you believe our curiosity will kill us, or that, thanks to the current world living conditions, we're in the final stages of losing all the curiosity that makes life worthwhile?
DB: The title came from a story about artistic curiosity, the kind of curiosity that drives you to pursue an idealistic and life-affirming albeit Quixotean/Zorba-ish quest that will, no matter how it ends, suck your life away, if only because mortals have limited funds in their Time accounts. You have only so much time to spend. This existential condition is a given, and the trick for everyone is how to answer the question, "What now?" You have to have curiosity about the world in the first place in order to then pursue your curiosity, and that probably goes to your question concerning whether our corporate/media culture discourages curiosity by way of encouraging passive receptivity.
To be curious about something you have to possess: (1) the capacity to imagine the larger story behind what you're being told; (2) the will to do the work that imagination requires; and (3) a kind of focused recklessness that allows you to shut out other concerns in order to focus on a particular one in spite of the odds, that is, despite the uncertainty of the outcome, despite your relative lack of power with respect to the Goliaths of the world, and despite the likelihood that you will fail. To describe myself as terminally curious is maybe to have some philosophical fun with this whole endeavor, balancing a realism about the world with an idealism of the self, but instead of a pessimistic diagnosis, it is a reckless affirmation: despite the odds, I want to know.
There are other things to say about how I use the phrase terminally curious in this book, particularly on the cover, upon which is a kind of cat-woman (curiosity kills the cat) who shoots the prurient viewer whose curiosity is, in this case, terminal (the cat-woman kills the curious). A reversal of a cliché, which is maybe fun only for a cover. As for the book, I'm more concerned about how a passionately curious person makes their way in a world that promises no rewards for good-faith effort.
2. You've said the stories in this collection are outside what you would call your normal oeuvre - if I can use a complicated word - so what would you consider your normal story-scape, and just how does Terminally Curious diverge?
DB: Most people think that the order in which writers publish their work is the order in which they wrote it. For me, this isn't true. The first thing I wrote was a novel, which is, after five years, going to be published this summer. All my stories, satires, parodies, all of it, including every story in this collection, was written after that novel. So to compare any part of my writing with any other part is a tricky business.
In the case of Terminally Curious, the book collects stories in which I pursue some darker themes; there are no light-hearted parodies here, no satires, no jokes. In my previous books, you could always count on me throwing some self-conscious humor into the mix. In the case of TC, the comedy is either laced with tragedy or, in a couple stories, surrealism. In my previous books, I also usually have stories that self-consciously explore language in some way; you start to read a story and you're like, "Okay, he's trying something new here. Let's see what the hell this is going to turn out to be." To read those stories, you have to give me the benefit of the doubt and be prepared to let me fail for the cause. In the stories in TC, I don't do that much. I'm not asking for that kind of indulgence from the reader.
I pretty much lay out the story's conflict in the first sentence.
3. There is an edge of anger that runs through the stories in your collection - anger at lovers, parents, themselves, that seems to manifest itself in sex. Do you see sex as a weapon we use against one another, or just a casualty in the ongoing war?
DB: Only three of the twelve stories, in my opinion, deal in some way with the act of sex while several of the others do deal with relationships between the sexes or, in a few stories, erotic overtones in some typically non-sexual relationships (say, between daughter and father or mentor and mentee). In none of the stories is the sex angry sex, i.e. an assertion of dominance or a misdirected act of vengeance. There may be inequalities of age, status, power, etc., but when people are engaging in sex in these stories, no one is angry; to the contrary, they think everything is great. And many times, that is exactly the problem - or, to retreat to the amoral view of the artist, the source of dramatic tension.
We certainly experience any number of emotions during sex throughout our sexual lives, and we can be angry or manipulative or ignorant before, during and after the act itself. Human beings seem unable to let any opportunity for stupidity pass them by. We are also capable of using anything as weapons, sex included. What runs through many of the stories in TC, though, isn't sex or anger per se but, I think, failure. I hate to pick out themes like this, but in this case, if I look back over these stories, I do see every character struggling with failure. Characters are unwilling to admit their failures, unable to see any way out of them, or, in the best cases, still struggling, still hopeful.
This general theme is an after-the-fact observation; it certainly didn't drive the writing of the stories or function as a criterion for including them in the book. It does account for the darker spirit of these stories, which is a deviation from the bravado of many of my other pieces.
4. You seem to have two great loves - outside your family, of course - writing and graphic design. Which one wins, and how do you reconcile the competition?
DB: Writing wins. I am a self-taught graphic designer, and I got into it because of my day job. I write and design books and magazines for union and corporate clients. The graphic design I really love, though, has to do with books and writing. I love designing book covers, covers for literary journals or small-press books, posters for literary readings, postcards promoting someone's publication, etc.
Being an author, I like to pretend that I understand authors' feelings about their books, and I like to add or enlarge the themes of their books when I design their book covers. Sometimes I get it right and sometimes I don't. A writer is who I am; I can't help it. A designer is what I choose to be; I can take it or leave it.
The thing is, though, once you develop an expertise in something like design, you can't help but take it very personally when your own work is on the line, that is, when someone else is designing your books or laying out your stories. Graphic design does grab me in some deeper way (I suppose I would have a hard time leaving it completely; it's somewhat addicting), and so much so that I recently wrote a whole book about it for Émigré. But notice the irony: when I get worked up about graphic design, I WRITE about it! That recent book really helped me come to terms with why design is so important to me and how I can pursue design as an outsider, an amateur, and still make it artistically meaningful.
5. As a writer busting his ass in today's publishing gauntlet, how satisfied are you by your experience with the independent press?
DB: In practice, there is almost no separation between the author and the indie press.
If you want it to work, you have to be involved in the editing, proofreading, design, production, and promotion of the book. I should be clear that my experience with the indie press is both narrow and probably unique. I have published books with Word Riot Press, Brainpan Publishing (now defunct), and So New Media. I have also published books on my own, and I sell them on my website. I have worked for a long time developing non-writerly skills in graphic design and law and prepress and printing. So I'm able to do a lot of work for small indie presses like Word Riot, and our relationship is stronger for it. Small presses just don't have the resources; so anything an author can do is usually welcomed with relief. That said, I'm sure there are plenty of small indie presses out there who would not let me design and lay out my own books. And, to tell the truth, I've become so accustomed to exercising control over the design and production of my books that should the time come when I have to submit to the authority of a larger publisher, I can predict that I will not be pleased with the process or happy with the outcome.
This is pessimistic if not arrogant of me to say, but I can't help feeling that this will be true. So I love the indie press. I'd rather have artistic control and bust my ass on behalf of the little guys than make money. Do I put my money where my mouth is? Yes. I have given up royalties before and will likely do it again just to help the small indie press. They deserve it.
6. Tell me about Making Faces: When Kids Play With Their Food. How did that book come about and how did you put it together?
DB: I'm basically an at-home dad, and you will be surprised to discover, as I was, that kids need to eat at least one meal a day, and a day is usually how long that meal lasts. So I have to keep coming up with lunch ideas. One of my ideas was to make my kids food faces. I'd arrange cut-up fruits and veggies and whatnot on their plates, call them to the table, and they'd be like, "Wow! Cucumber eyes! A banana smile! Is that applesauce snot coming out of his nose? Are the raisins boogers?"
Pretty soon I got tired of making the food faces for them; so I'd put all the cut-up food into little bowls on the table and let them make their own food faces. They took so much time and care and imagination making their faces that I started taking photographs. After two years, I collected 27 of the photos, wrote poems to go with them, and printed out books on my new color laser printer. I figured it would help other parents trick kids into eating healthy foods. I also have see-through placemats that come with the book. My mom makes the placemats, and kids can insert their artwork. I haven't promoted this yet because friends and relatives keep buying up the placemats, and my mom has to keep making more.
7. How has being a father affected your writing and your ability to write - as in, how do you find the time outside work and family?
DB: I don't work full time, and I write when I can. The kids are now in school. That helps a little. The big thing with having kids and being an at-home parent is that you simply don't have much time either to write or to indulge in cinematic self-pity. You want to get something done, you've got to do it. Now. Or it won't get done.
I just finished a novel called American Home Life, and it takes my at-home-dadness as the central situation. The subject is contemporary suburban family life, and the form of the book derives from the reality of my situation, that is, I can only write in short bursts because that's all the time I have. So the book is a series of short sitcom-like episodes. It's wonderful to me because it has so much personal meaning. If it never gets published, I will still have the same great expansive feeling about it.
8. The Dead Bug Funeral Kit. It's a service for people who had pet bugs, right? Or people who just find dead bugs and want to be charitable?
DB: My mom and I were hashing out silly ideas one day, and we came up with several funny products, one of which was a dead bug funeral kit. I included it as a reference in one of my stories in American Home Life, coincidentally, and then later I thought, "What the hell. I'll make one." So I spent days walking around stores looking for the right buggy casket, the right buggy gravemarker, the right box to fit it all in. I made a list of fifteen bugs, wrote rhyming eulogies from the points of view of mournful kids who'd lost pet bugs, and my mom used Japanese brushes to create portraits of the bugs. I made a book, put it all in a kit, and now I've sold a couple hundred of the things to people as close as my family and as far away as England. People love them. Boyfriends buy them for girlfriends, aunts for nephews, wives for husbands, and for birthdays, Christmas, Valentine's Day, whatever. I should promote and market the kits more, take out ads, etc., but I don't. Maybe someday.
9. Okay, please relate your one- and five-year plans.
DB: This year is going to be pretty busy with the promotion of books I've already written, like Terminally Curious, American Mutt Barks in the Yard (the Émigré book), my novel Johnny Red coming out from Word Riot Press in June, and American Home Life (now with an agent). While I work hard on production and promotion, I am not satisfied by it. I need to write.
There are those who complain that writers write too much, and there are those who complain that writers are lazy and should work harder. I write because I have to, I can't help it, and I don't think at all about whether I'm writing too much or too little because it could be the tenth book that's the good one and so I've got to get through the first nine to get there, right? I'm not a lucky writer, I won't ever strike gold, I just work hard because that's what I do.
So I'm also working on a series of minibooks of maxims and aphorisms about American culture (a uniquely inspired and odd project that I can't stop doing, and so maybe it'll die or maybe it'll be great, I can't tell), and I'm waiting for the next subject for a novel to hit me on the head. That's it. In five years? I just want to be alive.
