The Abyss of Human Illusion (12 page)
Read The Abyss of Human Illusion Online
Authors: Gilbert Sorrentino,Christopher Sorrentino
…
performed fellatio …
No dream: the man wore a filthy Deere cap.
…
New York was of no help
… It didn’t even
look
as if it could be of help, unlike L.A., which seemed to explode with optimism and gold in the streets.
… pull-out Carlyle couch …
This may well have been a Carlyle copy.
…
Svengali
… A lot has been written about Svengali, but few are prepared to believe that he ran a Kosher dairy restaurant in Minsk.
…
What did St. Louis look like? …
He imagined a different city each time he thought of the place.
…
strange and alien St. Louis …
Well … maybe, but pedestrian.
Some of these commentaries may not be wholly reliable.
GILBERT SORRENTINO
(1929–2006) is the author of more than thirty books, including the classic
Mulligan Stew
and two novels that were finalists for the
PEN
/Faulkner Award:
Little Casino
and
Aberration of Starlight.
A luminary of American literature, he was a boyhood friend of Hubert Selby, Jr., a confidant of William Carlos Williams, and the recipient of a Lannan Literary Lifetime Achievement Award. Once an editor at Grove Press, Sorrentino taught at Stanford University for many years before returning to his native Brooklyn.
OTHER COFFEE HOUSE PRESS BOOKS BY GILBERT SORRENTINO
A STRANGE COMMONPLACE
ISBN 978-1-56689-182-0 | $14.95 | NOVEL
Borrowing its title from a William Carlos Williams poem,
A Strange Commonplace
lays bare the secrets and dreams of characters whose lives are intertwined by coincidence and necessity, possessions and experience.
LUNAR FOLLIES
ISBN 978-1-56689-169-1 | $14 | STORIES
Lunar Follies
takes readers on a deliciously absurd voyage through 53 imaginary gallery, museum, and performance art exhibitions in a satirical guidebook perfect for art lovers and the artistically challenged alike.
THE MOON IN ITS FLIGHT
ISBN 978-1-56689-152-3 | $16 | STORIES
Bearing his trademark balance between exquisitely detailed narration, ground-breaking form, and sharp insight into modern life, Gilbert Sorrentino’s definitive collection of stories spans 35 years of his writing career and contains previously unpublished work and stories that first appeared in
Harper’s, Esquire,
and
The Best American Short Stories.
LITTLE CASINO
ISBN 978-1-56689-126-4 | $14.95 | NOVEL
In this superb novel composed of fragments of memory, Gilbert Sorrentino captures the unconventional nuances of a conventional world amidst the grit of golden-era Brooklyn. In episodes affectingly textured with penetrating detail, Sorrentino ferrets out the gristle and beauty found in the voices of the scrappy immigrant boys, hard drinking men, and poor, sexy, magenta-lipped women who inhabit the novel.
COLOPHON
The Abyss of Human Illusion
was designed at Coffee House Press, in the historic
Grain Belt Brewery’s Bottling House near downtown Minneapolis.
The text is set in Caslon.
FUNDER ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Coffee House Press receives major operating support from the Bush Foundation, the McKnight Foundation, from Target, and from the Minnesota State Arts Board, through an appropriation by the Minnesota State Legislature and from the National Endowment for the Arts. We have received project support from the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency; the Jerome Foundation; and the National Poetry Series. Coffee House also receives support from: three anonymous donors; Abraham Associates; the Elmer L. and Eleanor J. Andersen Foundation; Allan Appel; Around Town Literary Media Guides; Bill Berkson; the James L. and Nancy J. Bildner Foundation; the Patrick and Aimee Butler Family Foundation; the Buuck Family Foundation; Dorsey & Whitney, llP; Fredrikson & Byron, P.A.; Jennifer Haugh; Anselm Hollo and Jane Dalrymple-Hollo; Jeffrey Hom; Stephen and Isabel Keating; Robert and Margaret Kinney; the Kenneth Koch Literary Estate; Allan & Cinda Kornblum; Seymour Kornblum and Gerry Lauter; the Lenfestey Family Foundation; Ethan J. Litman; Mary McDermid; Rebecca Rand; Debby Reynolds; Schwegman, Lundberg, Woessner, P.A.; Charles Steffey and Suzannah Martin; John Sjoberg; Jeffrey Sugerman; Stu Wilson and Mel Barker; the Archie D. & Bertha H. Walker Foundation; the Woessner Freeman Family Foundation in memory of David Hilton; and many other generous individual donors.
To you and our many readers across the country,
we send our thanks for your continuing support.
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