Very pleased with this review from the Chicago Tribune -

In the Light of You

By Nathan Singer

Bleak House, $24.95

This visceral coming-of-age tale about 16-year-old lost boy Mikal Fanon is, on the surface, a straightforward and unapologetically brutal novel about the destruction that indoctrinated hate sows. But “In the Light of You” is one of those rare novels that works on numerous levels, and in addition to succeeding as a cautionary tale about intolerance and discrimination, it’s also a chilling exploration into the psyche of those involved in America’s racist underground, as well as an acerbic commentary on the overall depraved state of the planet’s (allegedly) most advanced species. (An example of Singer’s theory of devolution comes when he describes Klan members with “prehensile tails.”)

While the themes of racism versus multiculturalism pervade this story of a neglected white kid’s journey from living in a predominantly black neighborhood to joining a neo-Nazi group of thugs as a matter of survival, it’s the intriguing concept of the societal significance of those extraordinary individuals who generate their own cults of personality—like Mikal’s mentor Richard Lovecraft, the charismatic leader of the Fifth Reich—that is the story’s true driving force:

“There’s a select few people who give off a great, shining light. The rest of us can only bask, or burn, blistering, blinded, trying to dance in it . . . but at the end of the day, we’re all just giant moths compelled by the light.”

Blending the gratuitous violence of “A Clockwork Orange” and rhetoric of Adolf Hitler’s “Mein Kampf” with a surreal sense of naivete à la “The Catcher in the Rye,” Singer brilliantly utilizes contradictions to intensify thematic points in this savage and darkly poetic tale (like Mikal’s falling in love with a beautiful black activist). Ultimately, though, under all the shaved heads and swastika-tattooed flesh, “In the Light of You” is a story of redemption and the hope that it’s never too late to change: a person, a group, a community, or a civilization.
By Paul Goat Allen
July 19, 2008

BTW, for those in the Cincinnati area I will be reading from/signing/discussing/defending (whatever this situation calls for) In The Light of You at Joseph Beth Books Rookwood Pavilion this Tues. July 22 at 7:00pm. Hope to see you there.

You just can’t make this shit up.

I know I slag off religion quite a bit, Catholicism especially since I know it the best, but this cat seems genuine to me. Rock on, brotha!

Jesse Helms died yesterday. ENJOY!

(I haven’t said anything about George Carlin’s passing yet. I’m still too sad.)

Nathan Singer and New York Times best selling author John Connolly will be at the Muskego public library on Tuesday, June 24 at 7 pm. Also appearing will be Jeffery Deaver.

It’s going to be a lot of fun and we hope to see you there.

. . . and she [Lanier] is lying.

. . . when The Wizard walks by.

The Wizard himself wrote a very interesting and thoughtful analysis of In The Light of You. Please do check it out. Word of warning, there are a number of observations about the end of the book (some might call them “spoilers,” but hell, it ain’t a mystery novel), so you might want to save it until after you’ve read the book. In any case it’s a fascinating take on the book, and I hope you all check it out. Be sure to peep the rest of the blog too. Great stuff.

Badass master of redneck-noir JD Rhoades raps with Bleak House head honco Ben LeRoy over at The Future is Bleak. Be sure to check out his novels, particularly Safe and Sound. This shit will put hair on your chest.

Tasha Alexander likely needs no introduction, but in any case the latest novel in her Lady Emily Ashton series A Fatal Waltz is out now and looks to be the most exciting one yet. Tasha’s star is rising fast, check her out, damn it! She also talked to Ben recently. Check it out.

You wouldn’t think it to look at her, but Kristy Kiernan’s work has been described as “unremittingly grim.” Whomever it was that said that was a jackass, though, because what Kristy’s writing actually is is lyrical and honest (and some cats just can’t handle that). Get hip to her new one Matters of Faith as well as her first, Catching Genius. Dusty’s review says it all.

To be continued . . .

fricative

Performance Gallery

A vocal gymnasium of pure sound.

SHOW DESCRIPTION
Experience the spoken word liberated from linear bondage in this series of sound poems; some historical, some original. fricative is not entirely music but more than noise; a performance piece transforming actors into a onomatopoetic orchestra. Performance Gallery, a group known for its forays into unexpected places, contributes their original compositions to a sonic stew that includes the dadaist-era Ur Sonata, by Kurt Schwitters. “Grimm glimm gnimm bimbimm.”

ARTIST/COMPANY BIOGRAPHY
The creators of past Fringe pieces such as girlfight (2007) and godsplay: (2006), Performance Gallery is proud to be the only Cincinnati-based theatre company to perform in all five years of the Cincinnati Fringe Festival. An ensemble company founded in 2002, they perform on no set schedule and pop up in unexpected places. While their home is the Columbia Performance Center, over the past two years they have performed in an empty storefront, a church sanctuary and the Aronoff Center for the Arts. They were the first recipients of the competitive Theatre Forward grant for their world premiere of Gilgamesh in Uruk: G.I in Iraq and have a Cincinnati following of people who seek out alternative, challenging and sometimes indescribable theatre.

PREVIOUS FRINGES
Performance Gallery has performed in every CincyFringe, but has not ventured elsewhere. Previous Fringe shows include girlfight, godsplay:, Woyzecked and Left for Dead or The Killer Whispers and Prays, Images of a Beating Heart.

‘AND THE FRINGIEST PART IS …’
It has the potential to make people marvel and wonder at the awesome potential of the human creature or possibly yank all their hair out and run screaming from the theatre.

SCPA BLACK BOX

School for the Creative and Performing Arts
1310 Sycamore Street

Fri, May 30 @ 7:30 PM
Sat, May 31 @ 9:00 PM
Wed, June 4 @ 7:00 PM
Fri, June 6 @ 7:00 PM
Sat, June 7 @ 8:00 PM
Running time: 45 min.

*

fricative (SCPA Black Box, opens 7:30 p.m Friday.) You probably never thought about liberating spoken words from linear bondage, but that’s what Performance Gallery’s show does. More than noise but not quite music, fricative is a performance piece that shapes eight performers into an orchestra, a “vocal gymnasium of pure sound.” Says Brian Andrews-Griffin: “As far as avant-garde work, it rides that rail. There’s no plot, no characters. It’s like going to the symphony. It’s all nonsense but with a cohesiveness. You laugh, it enhances your mood.” Performance Gallery is one of the Fringe’s most innovative annual contributors. (Rick Pender)

*

I guarantee this show is like nothing you’ve ever seen/heard before. Hope to see y’all there!

rawkete rinzekete,

From City Beat’s 2008 Hot Issue. Dig–

*
Hot Novelist: Nathan Singer
Cincinnati-based writer Nathan Singer’s latest novel opens with an observation: “It’s hard to know how to feel when your best friend blows out a man’s stomach with a shotgun.” A visceral punch to the gut, In the Light of You grabs you from the get-go via expressive, lacerating prose and a brisk narrative engine drunk on its own unique rhythm. Like Singer’s previous trips to America’s dark underbelly, A Prayer for Dawn and Chasing the Wolf, this new effort is driven by subversive angst and a desperate need to explore the nature of identity and so-called freedom in a world handcuffed by conformity. And while some might call In the Light of You the coming-of-age tale of a disillusioned young man on the brink of oblivion, I have a feeling Singer would simply call it a story of survival. Bleak House Books will publish In the Light of You on June 15. www.bleakhousebooks.com
(Jason Gargano)
*

Me, Kanye West, and Kenny Rogers’s beard, together at last.

BTW, the paperback of In The Light of You appears to be available now. Just thought you might like to know.

OK, I gotta come up with some (7? 8?) more random facts as per Mark’s instructions. Uh . . .Lessee . . .

1. When I was twelve or so I was (politely) asked to no longer attend teen Sunday school when I showed up wearing a Danzig shirt and an upside-down cross in my ear. It was one of the happiest days of my life.

2. Whenever I get into the car with my two-year-old boy he insists I put on either Ozzy/Sabbath or the Black Keys (depending upon his mood that day) and that I, “Make it loud.” If on the rare occasion that I want to listen to something else (like, say, the news) he will complain bitterly THE ENTIRE RIDE until I do so. At least he has good taste.

3. My new book In The Light of You comes out at the end of next month. Mark your calendars.
Here’s a piece of the review from Publisher’s Weekly–
Late in this raw, blistering coming-of-age novel set in an unnamed Ohio city, Mikal Fanon observes that most 16- to 17-year-olds try lots of roles, discard most and move on, but “I happened to have worn a costume with consequences.” The “costume” that the rootless teen tries on is a violently right-wing group, the Fifth Reich, led by the charismatic Richard Lovecraft. Singer evokes with rare passion the tumultuous confusions and conflicts as teens seek to work out their racial and sexual identities. [R]eaders will find Mikal’s erratic passage through a rough adolescence both vivid and compelling.

4. I just got home from a spoken word show with a bunch of other great local writers/performance artists. Kinda small crowd, but we got a good response. There’s a lotta goddamn talent here in ol’ Censornati.

5. Umm . . .I mentioned the Morgan Freeman thing last time, right? Pretty sure I did.

6. Many moons ago I smoked a bit of what was probably Angel Dust (although I’m not certain) and literally lost my room mate for a couple of months. Lost as in “Where the fuck is he?” lost. Thinking about it now, I should have been way more worried/concerned than I was. I should have at least notified his parents.

7. It was the summer of ‘99, I was alone strolling around a small, rural village on the coast of Ireland around 3:30am and found myself inexplicably in the middle of a cemetery. I’m not sure to this day how one finds himself in the middle of a cemetery without noticing how one got there, but there you have it. Yes, I was a bit drunk, thank you.

8. The first time I went to LA (packing, I shit you not, nothing but a paper grocery bag filled with demo tapes) I was barely in town 2 hours when a crew of LA cops pulled guns on me. I ended up spending the day on the set of Star Trek Deep Space Nine, a tv show I’ve never seen even once (the camera guys were very cool). I ended up having to bribe a Delta employee to get home. LA is a plateful of hog balls.

Now I gotta tag somebody. OK . . . Jen.