Friday, December 2, 2011

AND THE STREET SCREAMED BLUE MURDER!

Being an American who has never been to Europe, I have a vague, completely uneducated view of what Paris is actually like. When someone says Paris, I think of, oh I don't know... the Eiffel Tower and croissants, soft accordian music (or is that Italy?), people who hate Americans. And that dude from the World Cup who head-butted someone.

You know, meaningless bullshit.

Anyway, Jason Michel's Paris is far from conventional. And And the Street Screamed Blue Murder!, as you may have guessed from the title, is no conventional book.

Michel drops us into the middle of the mythical yet all too real Rue De La Mort--where "drunken Sicilian fighters spill out into the streets brandishing daggers in bloody hands as they elegantly defend their mother's honor," where "Black dogs roam the streets in feral gangs shitting where and when they like," and "Screams are greetings."

Then in walks Alfie Lime. An average chap and muckraking journalist for the Gutter Press. This is the kind of newspaper that anyone whose ever worked for a newspaper would murder their dog to work for. It's an old-school, brass knuckles kind of joint where the editor chain smokes and berates his reporters into excellence.

But to back track here a second, Lime doesn't really walk into the picture so much as wake up next to a dead hooker. After freaking out, Lime launches into investigative reporter mode. It's just that his investigation is a biazzro, surreal quest through the underbelly of the city, which eventually leads him to that pan-dimensional hitman and unofficial mayor of Nowhere Town, Vincent Blake.

This a rip-roaring, thoroughly original novella that smashes genres, conventions, and anything else in its way. Go get it now at Amazon US or UK.

5 comments:

  1. Got me all fired up, Chris. On the list it goes!

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  2. I've got to read this, Jason is a fine writer and a ma with profound insights. Chris you'd love Europe, Henry James said we go to Europe to become Americanised, referring to the cultural exile that is useful.

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  4. Chris, I am humbled by your kindness ...

    AJ, let me know what you think?

    Richard, as always, thanks ...

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  5. It's brilliant. In this JM combines all the stuff he's done before and scores goal after goal. A J & Richard, I'm pretty damned sure you'll both go for it.

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