Já está comigo a minha cópia do livro Unger House Radicals de Chris Kelso, e com ilustrações de Shane Swank. A edição está a cargo da Crowded Quarantine.
É uma excelente edição. A leitura deve ser sumarenta.
MY REVIEW…
Who says Chris Kelso don’t throw wild parties?
unger house radicals
First: It’s complicated to describe how good this book is without sounding sociopath.
Second: I don’t do synopses.
Third: Unger House is a character per se; that has memories – “I am always the reluctant accomplice.” – and this is really shocking. See no evil hear no evil, bullshit!
Chris Kelso is an author able to offer without any complex a gripping, disturbing and claustrophobic story. He doesn’t need special effects to make things work. Many can feel that his writing is too cruel, but it is this characteristic that gives us a constant appetite, and thus he does carving in the flesh and bones of the pages.
Under House Radicals is able to maintain the thrill equation until the last moment and beyond. It’s not an easy book, to be certain! Unger House Radicals doesn’t have morality concerns… perhaps, or maybe not, because it feels really scary.
In Chris kelso’s book we dont’ have a bang, bang lay down you are dead (make-believe, no!); we do have suffering, chills; yes dude, and now it’s too late… too late: numbness is the feeling for the win.
One of those books that crucifies the mind: insane, bizarre and so fucking crazy! Yes, I’m addicted to Chris Kelso books.
https://portaviii.barcelos.info/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/13411783.jpg600800porta VIIIhttps://portaviii.barcelos.info/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/logo-portaviii.pngporta VIII2016-06-09 15:26:012020-11-26 10:35:23unger house radicals by chris kelso
Chris Kelso is a spectacle to move the mind, soul, and heart. The books that I’ve read are filled with power.
His words are in many ways a bridge of hope to insanity.
And I’ve only read so far two books – shame on me.
Some words about the book “Schadenfreude”…
After reading so many books most of them do not provide any surprise.
Of course now I demand from a book much more than I required a few years ago. And it was spectacular that “Schadenfreude” by Chris Kelso has astonished me positively. It is a book that don’t leave me indifferent – one great good thing!
I’ve also read the anthology “Caledonia Dreamin’ – Strange Fiction of Scottish Descent” edited by Hal Duncan and Chris Kelso.
1. Do you have a specific writing style?
I think I’ve developed a certain ‘style’. It started with me at 18 trying to replicate my favourite prose stylists, writers with really unique and individual voices – like Burroughs, Acker, PKD and Hubert Selby Jr. There is some fix-up, some spare Carver-esque writing and some longwinded stuff. Usually the poetry of the piece will take precedence, I’ll likely revel in words more than plot or actual character expansion.
The more I read, and wrote, the more the narrative and its structure started to amalgamate all those influences and became something (maybe) unique itself.
the dissolving zinc theatre
2. What books have most influenced your life most?
There are so many. Paul Auster’s ‘New York Trilogy’, Alasdair Gray’s ‘Lanark’…anything from PKD, Simak, Solzhenitsyn, Acker or Plath. Seriously, too much stuff!
3. If you had to choose, which writer would you consider a mentor?
This is a good question. I suppose at university I had Stewart Home and Rodge Glass to bounce a few ideas off of and get useful feedback. Since then, I suppose people like Hal Duncan, Anna Tambour, Gio Clairval and Vincenzo Bilof have really taken me under their wing. Seb Doubinsky and Matt Bialer are always on hand to help me out and keep me on the right track too. I’m grateful to them all.
4. What are your current projects?
So many! I have a book ‘The Folger Variation’ due out through Leaky Boot Press’s ‘Weirdo Magnet’ imprint. It’s a much more traditional science fiction fare. Then it’s my horror/crime novel that Adam Millard is putting out. I’m really excited about that one because it’s such a deviation for me. It’s still bleak as fuck, but more accessibly bleak….
5. How much research do you do?
Hardly any. The majority of my fiction takes place in a 4th dimensional universe where humans work as slaves in mining enclaves all day. I might research a piece of machinery that I’m elaborating on, but very little else. It’s all up here (points to temple)
the folger variation
6. Do you write full-time or part-time?
Very much part-time. By day I work in a school library, which is actually very enjoyable. I love the school and it’s pretty satisfying. I think even if I could afford to write full-time I wouldn’t. I’m drying up a bit these days. I write a lot less than I used to. Maybe I’ve said everything I had to say?
7. Where do your ideas come from?
My own desperate misery. These days I’m much happier and positive – which might explain why I can’t write anything of note anymore!
https://portaviii.barcelos.info/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/9878n.jpg596800porta VIIIhttps://portaviii.barcelos.info/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/logo-portaviii.pngporta VIII2016-02-03 18:54:492021-01-15 11:50:24a random interview to chris kelso
Glaikit, mockit, droukit, drouthy, couthy, scunner, thrawn – the Scots language is rich with words too gallus not to glory in, dialect terms that deserve better than to be boxed away as precious oddities. Here we’ve collected some of the strangest writers of Scottish descent to bring these terms to life – that’s Scottish by heritage or residence, adoption or initiation…
Eibonvale Press
An anthology is only a good anthology if the stories that comprise it are balanced. If the quality of each story is more alternate than the electric charge, that anthology loses its value. And to achieve a uniform quality depends on both the writers / stories chosen as the theme that unites them. “Caledonia Dreamin’ – Strange Fiction of Scottish Descent“, edited by Hal Duncan and Chris Kelso, has a very interesting and challenging premise (“Our aim here has been to mine the language for its wealth, tasking writers to draw out of it whatever gem of a word caught their eye and to build a story around it in celebration, to stake a place for these words in the wider culture, beyond their usual confines.” page 11), but which may prove to be complicated to attain such uniformity.
After reading so many books most of them do not provide any surprise.
Of course now I demand from a book much more than I required a few years ago. And it was spectacular that “Schadenfreude” by Chris Kelso has astonished me positively. It is a book that don’t leave me indifferent – one great good thing!
“Books are well written or badly written. That is all.” – “Schadenfreude” by Chris Kelso is well written, period.
And why it continues on my bedside table to be re-read from time to time? As Kafka said “I think we ought to read only the kind of books that wound and stab us. If the book we are reading doesn’t wake us up with a blow on the head, what are we reading it for? …” – that’s why!
