Notes from Alabama's very own, Livingston Press.
An update from longtime publisher, author, and AWC member Joe Taylor—with a reminder that supporting Alabama presses matters more than ever. And buying directly from the Press or ordering it using Bookshop helps support local indie bookstores at well.
Now to pass the mic to Joe …..
Is Livingston Press having a Summer of Love? Has its director undergone an LSD flashback and reverted to his hippie days? Is California getting ready to drop into the ocean? OR, is there some lurking, dark, deep-state reason that the Press is publishing FOUR works of fiction set in California this fall?
Only you can decide the truth. But it is true, for all four are set in California—and three take place in San Francisco! You decide . . . but don’t tell anyone else the secret you learn.
Publication for all four comes in November, delayed because of That Of Which We Shall Not Speak. Available through the usual places, but cheapest on our lovely website.
1) Jon Boilard, Junk City, stories and poems. 222 pages. ISBN 978-1-60489-261-1 $19.95.
Set in San Francisco, the stories and poems in JUNK CITY are linked by characters and the characters are linked by addiction in one form or another. A hard-drinking mail carrier struggling to find deeper meaning when he comes across a suicide on his route. A seasoned city cop trying to make it to retirement before he ends up viral on YouTube. A teenage runaway selling his body for dope. An aging stripper named Eskimo convinced she can turn over a new leaf by getting her poetry chapbook published (and whose poems link the stories). A cross-dressing accountant running a Ponzi scheme on his clients. And a legend of the local street fighting scene whose life is spiraling out of control in a swirl of brown booze and pain pills. Each character lives in a shadowy down-and-out world, where only occasional slivers of light break through their fog. Not for a faint-hearted reader.
2) Ken Janjigian, A Cerebral Offer, novel. 336 pages. ISBN 978-1-60489-258-1 $21.95
Harry Gnostopolos is frantically trying to keep his beloved indie theater afloat while his frustrated girlfriend implores him to let it go along with his other neuroses. Harry’s fate suddenly changes with the arrival of an old bohemian friend and an exotic woman who tempt him with a chance to save the theater and his life. All he has to do is join a subversive cabal of thieves, who have planned a heist that will rewrite history. A bang up ending lies in store for the reader. If you’re a Beat poet fan, this novel is a must.
3) Irving Warner, Student in the Underworld, novel. 250 pages. ISBN 978-1-60489-267-3 $19.95
The setting of Student in the Underworld takes place fifty years ago—in the 1960’s, mostly in San Francisco’s historic Butcher Town. It’s ironic, however, that Student is not about the anti-war/flower child movement; nor is it a work set in academia, although both do appear in the novel’s background. At that time there was far more going on in the city of St. Francis than the media-dominated vision of the Haight-Ashbury/student protest scene. And that much more happens via the framework of the Butcher’s Town Writers’ Guild. The main character, Student, has just left the Vietnam wartime Navy as an officer to find he must deal with anachronistic characters steeped in political causes thirty years gone—from the Great Depression and Wobblie days. But he too must fight his own anachronistic dreamscape of pre-fab homes, starched blouses, and—above all—name-brand normalcy. Student takes a bumpy ride through all this as he comes to terms with modern femininity in the persons of three women. A whimsical tone intermixes with poignancy to carry the reader along Student’s journey.
4) Al Kline, Journey through a Land of Minor Annoyances, How I came to Embrace Being an Insignificant Speck of Dust on a Meaningless Trip through an Apathetic Universe trade paper ISBN 978-1-60489-264-2 $21.95
Even though the “Journey” is a spiritual one toward death, this is the lightest of the four books. A talking dog, loads of movie and pop tune trivia, ghosts. Whoopee! —After being diagnosed with a cerebral cancer and given three months to live, 20-year-old misfit CHAZ CHASE decides a road trip will help him find the meaning of life—and maybe apologize to certain people for being a jerk along the way. He adopts a dog as a traveling companion, but questions his sanity when MAX suddenly talks, claiming to be the canine reincarnation of a famous Hollywood director. Chaz meets many folk along his journey, some bordering on hallucinogenic in the actions they perform, the wisdom they proclaim. And then comes CLITTY, a pistol-packing femme fatale dreaming of Hollywood stardom. In the most important piece of the meaning-of-life puzzle, Chaz falls in love. Together he and Clitty drive to Salton Sea where Max directs the final scene of Chaz's brief but quirky life.
There you have it. Livingston’s Summer—er, Fall of Love!