Douglas Payne If You Have Ghosts (2019)
Here's another coming of age narrative - as I'm sure some idiot will eventually call it - from Amphetamine Sulphate - very much its own thing, but likely to strike chords with anyone who enjoyed their books from Meg McCarville or Josh Peterson; so we're dealing with childhood, memory, emerging sexuality, and often in terms of the details most writers tend to excise, the parts which don't fit. Despite any reputations which may still be lingering, I'd say Philip Best is right to harbour a certain ambivalence regarding the transgressive tag. If You Have Ghosts isn't the Waltons, and Hollywood would leave out all the elements which make the story what it is, but this is only outsider when you consider that most of us are outsiders by some definition, at least anyone worth talking to. We all have ghosts.
This one had me hooked from the first page, upon which I read.
Here's another coming of age narrative - as I'm sure some idiot will eventually call it - from Amphetamine Sulphate - very much its own thing, but likely to strike chords with anyone who enjoyed their books from Meg McCarville or Josh Peterson; so we're dealing with childhood, memory, emerging sexuality, and often in terms of the details most writers tend to excise, the parts which don't fit. Despite any reputations which may still be lingering, I'd say Philip Best is right to harbour a certain ambivalence regarding the transgressive tag. If You Have Ghosts isn't the Waltons, and Hollywood would leave out all the elements which make the story what it is, but this is only outsider when you consider that most of us are outsiders by some definition, at least anyone worth talking to. We all have ghosts.
This one had me hooked from the first page, upon which I read.
Aside from Barney and his space exploration, I loved a Sesame Street video where Big Bird and Snuffleupagus are in ancient Egypt. Big Bird dies and he is judged by Osiris in preparation for the afterlife, his heart weighed against one of his own plucked feathers.
As with the best of the imprint, Ghosts keeps hold of its sense of humour without feeling the need to crack jokes and renders emotion without resorting to sentiment, limiting itself to just the stuff you need. Weirdly, and it may be due simply to the amber tint of south-west geography, Payne's writing reminds me of Ray Bradbury of all people, except where Dandelion Wine all but chokes on its own syrup, this one is clear, uncongested, and rich in flavour. It may even be the most powerful, convincing and confident piece of writing that Amphetamine Sulphate have published since the New Juche books.
I know literature is supposedly a dying art, but it doesn't much look like it from here.
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