Not just another Cop buddy book: HAIRSPRAY AND LIGHTER, by J. JUPES, from ORPHAN PAPER

“What made Eckerly and I compatible? We weren’t nice people, for one, both cowards, emotional abuser types riddled with guilt. We had lost anything meaningful by the time we reached thirty. We formed our own whiner’s club. Two members. We descended, street level. Dragged people down stairs. Dropped them out windows. All of it made me sick, paradoxically. Half the time neither of us could remember doing it. We drank. We did what was expected. At some point, we looked at each other and nodded. Then stopped.

I wore a dress, worked undercover. That gave me an edge. Years later Powski told me the edge was just in my head. In my head? Yes, he said, you have no edge. This is a delusion. Eckerly was a little raging elephant. Wasn’t brave. Stupid. He would do the opposite of what his fear told him to do and do it without consulting me. Why would you do that? Everybody is crouched down behind the banister. There are bullets. Why would you stand up? Why would you go in that room?

He’d go in. I’d go in after him. The reason I’d follow Eckerly was I knew he had bad luck in every other area of his life except when he entered a room where everybody was packing. I don’t know why that was. I knew it was safe to follow him. Powski agreed. Yes, Powski said, it’s safe, OK to follow. The first time Powski said that, I asked him just what kind of psychiatrist are you,? He said, I’m your psychiatrist. Do you want me dead, Powski? He said, Yes, I might want you dead. Powski wouldn’t joke about something like that. This is why I trust him. He doesn’t let me figure things out for myself. He tells me what to do. This saves time. That’s why Powski is my psychiatrist. You see, I’ve changed the subject. I was supposed to be talking about Eckerly.

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A.F. Knott

A. F. Knott has worked as a surveyor in the offshore oil fields, handicapped thoroughbred horseraces, worked as a cyclotron engineer, a doctor and a collage artist before settling down to write full time.   

Marcel Duchamp Switched to Chess - But Wait: Before that, this Eccentric Baroness Sent Him a Toilet For Which He Later Became Quite Famous. . .

Marcel Duchamp Switched to Chess  - But Wait: Before that, this Eccentric Baroness Sent Him a Toilet For Which He Later Became Quite Famous. . .

Marcel Duchamp's impact in the genesis of modern conceptual art was revolutionary. For one, he produced the famous Nude Descending a Staircase: 

Then he gave up painting in order to play chess full time.

The idea of Duchamp playing chess in lieu of making art was fascinating and puzzling. 

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Then, one hundred years later . . . D. B. Tompsett

Then, one hundred years later . . . D. B. Tompsett

One hundred years later, D. B. Tompsett is playing tennis with his net down on the Idaho plain; the only poet I know who can animate a desert outhouse, give her a paramour and communicate that pathos. Dan understands the temperament of a desert, for one. His job is agriculture and plant life. All the while, he moves in and out of reveries, a working man's surrealist: A cricket couple are hunted by dogs in a cornfield; the dogs grow bored of the chase; butterfly wings turned to toast; their bodies, small sausages; and he asks, already knowing the answer, which way do pumpkins really point? 

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Defining Artists

Defining Artists

Hekate has taken to the streets and spoken to several artists with regard to their life, work and the world in which they live. These individuals are all unique and their work ethic exemplary; when support for what they do is not assured. They define their own art as well as the relentless spirit of art through that commitment and tenacity. Their world is interactive out of necessity and they represent a form of communication within the New York community bringing their own neighborhoods and homelands into the conversation.

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The Dolphin Show and an Orangutan

The Dolphin Show and an Orangutan

The aquarium of 1968 packed them in, before the city had become, as the infamous headline suggested, “ungovernable.” They’d insert a probe into the electric eel’s tank, there’d be a zzt-zzt and what sounded like faint thunder claps over a little loudspeaker. We’d all watch the needle of the galvanometer slowly creep up, eventually hovering around 900. The crowd would take one step back.

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The October Revolution

The October Revolution

The era spoke to originality and passion and cooperation within the industry. All that happened and was acknowledged not just by the writers but by the musicians themselves. Kenyatta attributed it to a "spirituality," which in a few short years,  had all but evaporated: "There was solidarity there. It was a good movement, a lot of beautiful people, but the musicians have changed. Times have changed and the situation has changed. Living conditions for the people who are playing that way are very hard, so it never stays the same."

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HAIRSPRAY AND LIGHTER: LOWER EAST SIDE NOIR COMING SOON FROM ORPHAN PAPER

Dawn yielded, flooding west over Houston like blood backtracking into the grey dope filling that morning’s syringe. Trap Boy stood, frozen, arm raised, mouth open, a prehistoric peat man until the blue and white Volare made its turn onto B and everything began to move; him cawing No-Joke, No-Joke, No-Joke, other mad hatters joining in, all trolling the east side between 2nd and 3rd. Patrol car windows were rolled down, two blueberries slumped in their seats, staring ahead, listening to brand names, Cash, Chinatown, Poison, echo through gutted space. Something was happening that wouldn’t happen again; the air was torn, and no one had a clue what had just spilled out the gash, the city, a rat’s whisker away from shattering.

The RMP cut across the next intersection; a few feet over on 4th, bucket hats, hoodies, Adidas, all lining up behind the jagged hole sledge hammered through a bombed-up cinder block wall; framed inside, the head of AJ, fourteen, price tag drooping off the side of a Knick’s cap. AJ handed the man in a wheel chair the glassine envelope, line nudged forward. Next block, a torn tan polyester suit pushed his way out two cracked glass double doors reflecting the RMP’s skewed white stripe, frosted red bulb over the frame making it for after-hours. The suit spun, plastered, already falling, fell, flat on his face; the officers catching salsa pop before the doors pulled shut. Then a sloppy fist fight, nothing serious; beyond that, three souls tilted, hands brushing faces, the smell of coffee and fresh bagels blowing through the car before making a right onto 14th; and slowing in front of the sooty walk-up, sandwiched between two other sooty walk ups, driver lighting his last Chesterfield of the shift.

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A.F. Knott

A. F. Knott has worked as a surveyor in the offshore oil fields, handicapped thoroughbred horseraces, worked as a cyclotron engineer, a doctor and a collage artist before settling down to write full time.   

Hekate Gold Classic Series

Hekate hopes to shortly publish the first volume of its Gold Classic Series. Pending permision from the translator's estate, we are thrilled to offer Nikolai Gogol's The Overcoat paired with Fyodor Dostoyevsky's The Double, both translated from the Russian by Constance Garnett.

Our idea is to offer thoughtful and overlooked books from the past to a modern reader. Annotated and re-introduced by Hekate, we offer these at the lowest price we can manage. The idea is enabling access to brilliant writing.

We are looking for translators with interests in specific authors or works.

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A.F. Knott

A. F. Knott has worked as a surveyor in the offshore oil fields, handicapped thoroughbred horseraces, worked as a cyclotron engineer, a doctor and a collage artist before settling down to write full time.   

The Plot Thickens. Or does it?

The Plot Thickens. Or does it?

Regarding the handling of plot and by extension, the appropriate use of outlines, the variation and adamancy among authors seem to be as varied as the recent hard-headed debates concerning the scope of the American government. When contention arises, and lines in the sand are drawn someone needs to ask, “what is the real issue here?” as well as, “do I understand you correctly?”

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Book Release - Ramonst

Hidden in the Mountains of East Tennessee, eleven-year-old Rodney goes about the business of being a boy during the summer of 1970. In the playground of his grandmother’s overgrown garden, he bears silent witness to the relentless cruelty of a teenage psychopath.

Rodney’s narrative of his family, flung between terror and innocence, is set in a small community carved from legacies of poverty, coal mining and religion.

 

Ramonst is the second novel from author A.F. Knott.

Available to buy in paperback, epub, epub3, and Kindle.

Click here to read the first three chapters

For non-UK orders on the paperback - Amazon is the cheaper option. Click here to buy.