Tarpaulin Sky Press, 2007 Click here to order by check or money order, or buy online: Nylund, the Sarcographer is a baroque noir. Its eponymous protagonist is a loner who tries to comprehend everything from the outside, like a sarcophagus, and with analogously ornate results. The method by which the book was written, and by which Nylund experiences the world, is thus called sarcography. Sarcography is like negative capability on steroids; this ultra-susceptibility entangles Nylund in both a murder plot and a plot regarding his missing sister, Daisy. As the murder plot places Nylund in increasing physical danger, his sensuous memories become more present than the present itself.
"If Vladimir Nabokov wanted to seduce Nancy Drew, he'd read her Nylund one dark afternoon over teacups of whiskey. Welcome to fiction's new femme fatale, Joyelle McSweeney." "If Wallace Stevens had written a novel it might have come close to Joyelle McSweeney’s Nylund, the Sarcographer. But any imagined effort of Mr. Stevens would pale next to Nylund’s journey through the butterflied joinery of syntax, the jerry-rigged joy of this tour de joist. And you thought you knew your own language. This book hands it back to you on a platter and includes the instructional manual for its further use." About Joyelle McSweeney Joyelle McSweeney is the author of The Red Bird and The Commandrine and Other Poems, both from Fence. She is a co-founder and co-editor of Action Books and Action, Yes, a press and web quarterly for international writing and hybrid forms. She writes regular reviews for Rain Taxi, The Constant Critic, and other venues and teaches in the MFA Program at Notre Dame. Her next book will be the science fiction novel Flet, forthcoming from Fence in late 2007. Reviews of Nylund, the Sarcographer * A Small Press Distribution Fiction Bestseller for 3 months "Flights of campy-cum-lyrical post-Ashberyan prose. . . . Language dissolves into stream-of-consanguinity post-surrealism and then resolves into a plot again. . . . recommended." "Nylund, the Sarcographer is like interesting on steroids. Caution: if you are looking for a typical, straight forward, good old fashioned yarn, you’d do best to look elsewhere; but if you want to experience something fresh, daring, creepy, and significant, this is the one for you. . . . Other than the incomparable Ben Marcus, I’m not sure anyone in contemporary letters can compete with the voracity of ingenuity, complexity, and beauty of McSweeney’s usage. Each sentence is carefully crafted to upend your expectations in such a way as to make you giddy with anticipation. Call me strange, but I seriously felt a rush of adrenaline from the sheer excitement over what might come next. Seriously, I did. I’m not kidding." "McSweeney does not marry poetic and prosaic language – rather, she brings them together in a collision of semi-fabulist writing. [She] has not only created a unique concept – that of sarcography – she has illustrated it memorably with a masterful redefinition of what constitutes prose, and created a character who is the very embodiment of writing, reminding us of how flexible the narrative form can be." Excerpts
Readings & events April 10, 2008, San Marcos, CA Joyelle McSweeney March 3, 2008, Iowa City, IA Joyelle McSweeney and Johannes Göransson January 31, 2008: Brooklyn, NY AWP OFF-SITE READING: Lily Brown, Adam Clay, Julie Doxsee, Graham Foust, Melanie Hubbard, Rauan Klassnik, Joyelle McSweeney, Cindy Savett, Zachary Schomburg, Morgan Lucas Schuldt, Eleni Sikelianos, Jon Thompson, Joshua Marie Wilkinson, Max Winter & CD Wright Hosted by Black Ocean, Cannibal Books, Free Verse Editions, Kitchen Press, Octopus, Tarpaulin Sky Press, & Typo 7 -11 PM @
East Coast Aliens Studios December 12, 2007: New York, NY
Joyelle McSweeney with Daphne Beal and Porochista Khakpour. October 13, 2007: Cincinnati, OH
Joyelle McSweeney with Johannes Goransson, Noah Eli Gordon, and Joshua Marie Wilkinson October 12, 2007: Oxford, OH
Joyelle McSweeney with Johannes Goransson, Noah Eli Gordon, and Joshua Marie Wilkinson October 5, 2007: Ft. Wayne, IN
Joyelle McSweeney with Johannes Goransson, Noah Eli Gordon, and Joshua Marie Wilkinson September 8, 2007: Lincoln, NE Joyelle McSweeney, Johannes Goransson, John Gallaher
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