Books published by CLASH BOOKS

A Darkly Humorous Collection of Cartoons Rejected by The New YorkerIt’s become a thing on my bucket list to have one of my cartoons in The New Yorker before I die.Now I have to admit that so far death is winning, but I’m going to keep trying. 

Consisting of fifty barn poems, 50 Barn Poems is an evocative yet accessible sketch of that old barn that haunts the back of your brain. Vague memories of road trips, skateboarding, the ocean, and ping-pong are all reconstructed in the shape of a barn and set on fire. We're not even sure they're poems. Maybe they are just: BARN. Go ahead, take off your shoes and drive off a cliff. The barn awaits.

Nostalgia can be severely corrosive. This is what thirty-six-year old Josh will come to find out as he wakes up in his childhood bedroom with no recollection of how he got there. As he ventures out into the world, he's dumbfounded to discover that he is ensconced in a city of memory with people from his past: teachers, camp counselors, beloved sitcom stars, and they relish Josh's presence, celebrating everything he does. He is in a personalized paradise.In reality, Josh is in a coma. Intercut between his story, Steph, his younger sister, quarrels with their parents in a hospital room over what is to be done with her vegetative brother. Their various conversations manifest physically in his coma. The longer Josh is submerged, the more peril his brain is in as neurons die off. The familiar faces that once brought comfort will be replaced with ghoulish masks. He'll learn this place has malevolent intentions as it threatens to devour his soul.PRAISE FOR COMAVILLE"After reading Comaville I am now Kevin Bigley's biggest fan. This debut novel is the type of thing all of us writers hope to accomplish. Something full of feeling and relatability that even the author couldn't have foreseen at the time of writing it. Come for irony, stay for the hopefulness that lies ahead..." Mallory Smart, Maudlin House"Nostalgia, in this book, is a literal nightmare - and a potentially lethal one. Bigley accomplishes the difficult task of balancing the unreal and the mundane, and taking his characters to extraordinary circumstances in worlds both realistic and strange. It's an impressive and ambitious debut." Tobias Carroll, Vol. 1 Brooklyn "Comaville is the debut novel of TV, film, and voice actor Kevin Bigley and it's a strong one...Bigley keeps the story moving at an engrossing pace." Cultured Vultures

I'm From Nowhere follows Claire as she mourns the sudden death of her husband. She has no child, no job, no agency. She confronts a dying planet and an emerging sense of self. She puts herself in the hands of men-some of her oldest friends-who may have come to save her, a contemporary Penelope with a raft of suitors and unspent erotic capital. Is it possible for a woman to reclaim her life and set its terms without succumbing to suicide or submission?At once intimate and sprawling, this book is an examination of the stories we are told-and the stories we tell ourselves-about identity, permanence, and meaning in our beautiful, hostile world."A beautiful treatise on grief and everything that comes after-the uncertain friendships, the numbness, the regret, and, eventually, the newer, different life. For everyone that's ever grappled with an ending, only to discover something new and beautiful about themselves, this is a touching debut that evokes elements of both Leonard Cohen's The Favorite Game and Max Porter's Grief is the Thing with Feathers."Jennifer McCartney, New York Times bestselling author of AFLOAT"Lindsay Lerman's "I'm From Nowhere" rages with the quiet intensity of a lake concealing an inferno. I can't help but feel this book took a piece of me with it. Insinuated itself into me, and lingered like an echo in an empty space."Autumn Christian, author of GIRL LIKE A BOMB"Devastating insight into feminine consciousness unbound."Charlene Elsby, author of HEXIS

Arsenal/Sin Documentos is a documentary poetics project that examines the criminalization of Latin American bodies through U.S. policy. It consists of a series of linked documentary poems composed of appropriated language from U.S. government documents, such as: the Immigration and Nationality Act; the U.S. patent for Taser hand-held stun guns; materials from the Office of English Language Programs designed to instruct immigrants on assimilation into U.S. culture; and the U.S. Customs and Border Protection's Use of Force Policy, Guidelines and Procedures Handbook.

Sightseeing is a tale of lust and art set in Paris, France. Intrigue haunts the prose where hilarity and evil arise in a twist of collaboration. Minus any personal background, a woman and a man explore one another while regarding masterpieces of fine art and the historic sites of Paris.Sightseeing, stealthily and meticulously explores Paris and art in a tale that delves into questions of personal choice and identity with a knowing immediacy that has us questioning our own perceptions and views of art and storytelling.Ed Meek, author of Luck, What We Love and Spy Pond A mystery woman lures a willing stranger into a fantasy world where time is fluid, and art informs life. With its noir intrigue reminiscent of French new age cinema and its masterful prose, this remarkable novella will keep you guessing.Alexis Rhome Fancher, author of Enter Here and Junkie WifeOnofrey's prose has a mannered veneer that is made strange, made fascinating by how exacting and mysterious it is. Fans of Kazuo Ishiguro, or Dead Ringers-era David Cronenberg, here's a book for you.Alex Higley, author of Old Open

Set between Kwafindoda, where the nature is alive and ghosts exist even before someone is dead, and South Africa's gritty urban townships, Jah Hills explores the conflict between life and death, folklore and philosophy, the extraordinary and everyday so as to write the Unlanguaged World of today. A breathless journey, at once fevered, visionary and breathtakingly alive, it invites the reader to find wilderness and brutality in the banal, the beautiful in the bizarre and to seek answers, not in the sum, but in the derangement of its many seething parts.

In the novel-in-fragments, BURN FORTUNE, 16-year-old June is a corn-detasseling flag twirler who lives in a small conservative town in the early 90s Midwest. Her family is dysfunctional but her boyfriend-known only as "My Boyfriend"-has a family who is emotionally and physically abusive. Looking for alternatives to the lives of the women who surround her, June becomes obsessed with the actress Jean Seberg (best known for her starring role in Jean-Luc Godard's Breathless) as well as Joan of Arc. After being raped by an acquaintance, June withdraws and begins to live mostly through Seberg's films. Offered these lives as alternatives to her own, June is left to wonder: Can anyone truly transcend their circumstances, or does having a dream mean death-literally and metaphorically?PRAISE FOR BURN FORTUNE"A scorching anthem of what it means to be a young girl in a small town-the dreams that save us and the realities that pull us under. Alive with longing and the desire to break free. -Mona Awad, Author of Bunny (Viking) and 13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl (Penguin) I'm in awe of how Brandi Homan's Burn Fortune embodies the Midwest's unfurled earth and stretched skies. There's a recurring image of detasseling corn, which is what the book does: everything connected by silky strands unraveling until we get to the core, a new image of grit and possibility. And Homan gracefully gives us the space to participate in the making of that new image. Thank you for the grit, the hope. -Steven Dunn, Author of Potted Meat and water & power (Tarpaulin Sky)

"Trash Panda is probably the least pretentious poetry book I've ever read. I think it should be taught in prestigious universities and that everyone should wear a panda head while reading it. This book is a self-aware disaster. 5/5 stars."B. Diehl, author of Zeller's Alley & Ballpoint Penitentiary"Leza Cantoral's Trash Panda is the literary equivalent of a clove cigarette being stubbed out on the arm of a sad-angry goth girl who is listening to Depeche Mode on a Sony Discman while waiting for her way-older nu-metal boyfriend (or girlfriend) to come pick her up from the mall. It spits in my mouth, smears blood all over my naked chest, and then caves my skull in with its combat boots. Trash Panda basically makes me feel right at fucking home. A broken home, sure. But home, nonetheless."Brian Alan Ellis, author of Sad Laughter"Leza Cantoral is the reincarnation of Marilyn Monroe, sitting on a tree in Barcelona, consorting with it. Trash Panda manages to break the hearts of its readers while also making them laugh. With witty modern quips like, 'FB is my tarot deck' and 'youtube ads are speaking to me,' we are eased into the text before lines like 'When your life falls apart, you see what you're made of' tear us apart. When you settle in to read Trash Panda, have a blanket or teddy bear with you. Maybe a sheet of acid, too."Shy Watson, author of Cheap Yellow

As much an art book as a poetry book, Joel Amat Güell's artwork and haikus come together in a beautiful and inventive haiku art book.  Joel Amat Güellhas haikus and lots of artin this pretty book

Author and host of Secular by Nature, Andrew J. Rausch, interviews the who's who of atheist voices. This electric mix of conversations includes scientists, wrestlers, ex-evangelical authors, academics, sex advice columnists, life in prison inmates, ex-Christian rock musicians, Black Panthers, poets, and publishers. These are the stories of people from all walks of life who became Godless Heathens and found truth in atheism.Interviews include: Seth Andrews, Autumn Christian, Jim Cornette, Matt Dillahunty, Keith Lowell Jensen, Joe Lansdale, Caseyrenée Lopez, Shannon Low, Dave Mckean, PZ Myers, Pete O'Neal, Jen Peeples, George Perdikis, Aron Ra, Jozef K. Richards, Chris Roy, Dan Savage, Greydon Square, AT Taylor, and Mandisa Thomas

Over the last ten years, Australian artist Matthew Revert has gained a cult fanbase in various artistic fields including graphic design, writing, & music. Try Not to Think Bad Thoughts collects over 150 pieces of absurdist collage, watercolor, and ink, imbued with humor, horror, sex, heart, and surreal love.

Reporters and sociologists occasionally make headlines by going "undercover" in the working class economy, taking low-paying jobs and "trying to survive." The results are almost always (unintentionally) laughable. Kaleita doesn't need to go undercover to report from the front lines, though. She's been living there her entire life. There's a raw authenticity to her voice. Her writing is unpretentious yet inventive, riddled with a healthy dose of black humor...If I were her manager, I would fire her on the spot after reading this book. Not because she's a lawsuit waiting to happen-she might be-but because This Book Is Brought To You By My Student Loans makes it clear the job she's most qualified for is being a writer. - Andrew Shaffer, author of Hope Never Dies: An Obama Biden Mystery

In the woods behind their Delaware suburb, Bennet, Toshi, and Jay decide to build a sex fort as a lure for girls. This summer, before they start tenth grade, they'll lose their virginities. But things go awry, and Jay's anger, fueled by his involvement with a white supremacist group, throws the friends into turmoil. When Bennet and Jay take desperate measures to escape their problems, they encounter unhappily divorced men, Florida swamp monsters, and bizarre strangers, until all their worst decisions begin to implode the world around them.

Lune's mother cannot stop crying after all the hospitals shut down. She cries and cries and finally she is exiled to the cenote, where her tears endlessly fill the giant sink hole. She becomes a big tourist attraction. People come from miles to see Marcrina cry into the cenote? part prisoner, part carnival attraction, part saint, Marcrina's story is one of heartbreak, love, and endurance. This is the story of Lune, of Marcrina, of Lune's son Nico, and of a strange place called Cenote City, where the world of magic and the dead entwines with daily life in enchanting and unsettling ways.

Nightmares in Ecstasy is a collection of thirteen stories of surreal body horror. Within its pages, the line between eroticism and terror, desire and death, is blurred. Damaged souls hurtle, as if in a dream, toward mutilation, transformation and fates worse than death. It is literary hardcore fiction for fans of David Cronenberg, Junji Ito, and Clive Barker.“Surreal, grotesque, erotic. Brendan Vidito is a unique and disturbing new voice.”-Wrath James White, author of If You Died Tomorrow I Would Eat Your Corpse "Brendan Vidito is the bastard son of Clive Barker and his fresh take on body horror will f**k you up."-Jack Bantry, creator of Splatterpunk Zine & author of The Lucky Ones Died First "Vidito's words squirt shocking psychosexual bug juice into your brain's most private parts."-John Skipp, author of The Light at the End

From the creator of Carnivàle and writer/executive producer of Blacklist, comes a poetry collection from a cult icon. Daniel Knauf brings the darkness and surrealism fans have grown to love, but brings a vulnerability and intimacy that makes each poem memorable and enjoyable. It is noir with heart and a coda for the soul. Darkness and light vying for dominance in poems that go from personal and confessional to rambunctiously fantastical. A heady dive into the abyss of love and other monsters. Daniel Knauf is a true storyteller. “Written as a soul song for longing, Knauf’s collection is both a dream and an awakening.”-Stephanie M. Wytovich, Bram Stoker award-winning author of Brothel. “In Daniel Knauf’s two-part composition of poetry, the first passage is a kaleidoscope of the landlocked in endless roles, trying to believe in true love/magic while submerged in self-destruction & redemption. The coda is more than curious, it’s an adrenaline rush, a noir dance of the impossible, delivered straight-up in a splintered glass.”—Linda D. Addison, award-winning author of “How to Recognize a Demon Has Become Your Friend” and HWA Lifetime Achievement Award winner. Knauf’s poetry is cinematic, creating vast landscapes and scenes, on bridges, between land and sky. The multitude of characters create a rich, nonlinear story that mimics our memories, and our moments, and intertwines various worlds and moods, from all-consuming love, loneliness, superheroes, mythology, texting, technology, and Dante. Knauf is both direct and strangely surreal.”-Joanna C. Valente, author of Marys of the Sea, Sexting Ghosts, and the editor of A Shadow Map: Writing by Survivors of Sexual Assault

We've been hearing forever that Punk is Dead. And zombie stories are even deader. ZOMBIE PUNKS FUCK OFF is here to show that is bullshit. This antho is loaded with 14 stories of gnawing teeth, shredded entrails, rotting masses, punk as fuck fury, post-punk weirdness, and beautiful decay. Within these pages are a touring Christian Punk band run afoul of a horde of living dead, a group of zombie-infected anarcho-punks staging a revolution in London, Hank William's far-distant great-grandson struggling against the restraints of universal fame, and guitars that gently eat."This is my dream book, I can't believe it exists!"--Jeff Burk, author of Shatnerquake and The Very Ineffective Haunted House

After reading this book please bring this tome back to your local library. Seriously! This is an extremely important book and if you do not bring this book back, you risk letting out a chaos magick spell that will destroy the world, as beasts bring destruction to life itself. That includes bunnies. Do you really want to face killer bunnies, and don't think Charlize Theron will save you. She won¿t! So read this extremely important horror book and then bring it back, and also don¿t look at Internet porn at your local library, it¿s rude and attracts succubi!Sincerely,CLASH Books Librarian

"Diene's talent for the primal scene of horror is resplendent with his ability to offer sparse, violent prose that unexpectedly captures the ugliness, disgustingness, brutality of violence that makes us horror readers cringe at scenes by masters like Richard Matheson, Stephen King, or Clive Barker…He moves between dream/vision and reality to tell stories that meditate heavily on the changes wrought in different African nations by the forces of globalization and neoliberalism."-World Literature Today Fistulas There's a village that lies in the shade of a giant tree. Humanitarian Dr. Salio discovers that the children living there need assistance and to be studied, but is there any cure for when tradition and horror are one and the same?The Whores, The Dealer and The Diamond The most beautiful things are found in the darkest of places, just as hope is found in the darkest of moments. Sometimes darkness overcomes them all.Popobawa You can find everything in Zanzibar. It grows on the side of the road, shinning white baobabs, pineapples, nutmeg, and the essence of Chanel N°5. And demons.Black and Gold A mischievous spirit walks the beaches of Dakar at twilight. Sometimes for good, oftentimes not. Sometimes to protect his people, but sometimes protection is its own prison.