[book review]
“WATCH OUT!” A novel by Joseph Suglia; Elf Press, OUT OCT. ‘06
Review by Kent Manthie
Jonathan Barrows is an individual; not an “everyman” or the “average Joe”, no, Barrows is a unique singularity. He is also in love with himself. Literally. He keeps snapshots of his naked self around, at the ready for a joy-fest; he has a blow-up doll that has been custom made; built to his own measurements, proportions, specifications, an inflatable Gotterdammerung. Jonathan Barrows’s narcissism is so complete that everyone else in the world – in his world – is boring and boorish; he takes much delight in colorfully and quite humorously, though unintentionally on his part, rejecting them who dare approach his space and try to penetrate his world. Both men and women alike feel his specialness and want to be with him, want to be his friend, his lover, his buddy, his pal, his own, smothered pairing. Ugh.
So goes “Watch Out!”, the latest novel from Joseph Suglia, whose previous two novels: “Holderlin and Blanchot on Self-Sacrifice” and “Years of Rage”, are on my list of books to read soon. “Watch Out!” is a brand new book; in fact it’s not even out yet! Look for it in about a month or so, in October. Hopefully you’ll take my advice and FIND THIS BOOK! It is a page-turner; an eye-opening, fantastic trip. I simply couldn’t put it down, I just had to keep on reading; I had to see what would happen next. That’s the thing that makes you keep on and on – you just HAVE to find out what’s next.
This is a funny book! It was alternately a hilarious, screaming riot and a grotesque, ultra-violent catharsis, but all very stylishly done. Like I said – it is a FUNNY, FUNNY book. I laughed out loud so much – more so than anything I can think of, except Bukowski.
Joseph Suglia is an academic-cum-novelist, having received a PhD in comparative literature studies which, indeed, brings much to the table when writing a novel; he looks like David Bowie, if Bowie were short & stocky and Italian-American. He currently lives in Chicago and is hopefully hard at work on the next book that will blow our minds; the proverbial “Great American Novel”. You can find him at MySpace too, although I don’t know the exact route to get to him. I’m sure you can Google him or go to the publisher’s website, linked at the bottom. He has no cult following at the moment but I’m sure that one will follow after the release of “Watch Out!” this fall.
If you are a fan of the late, great William S. Burroughs or the aforementioned Bukowski, you will be right at home in Joseph Suglia’s world; a world of hallucinatory reveries, strange synchronicities and the most graphic sadistic, masochistic and sadomasochistic lunacies this side of “The Western Lands”. But there is also the most hilarious, self-centered, self-loving (literally) portrayal of a character in the persona of Jonathan Barrows. I instantly connected with Barrows’s misanthropy, nihilism., caustic wit, his use of cool, original-sounding metaphors and most of all the intense solipsism. It is a wonderfully and bleakly humorous or humorously bleak tale of one man who is swallowed up by a world he never made; a cold, cruel, stupid orbit of retards that is a microcosm of America. I won’t give the ending away, but if you are as nauseated by pop culture as Suglia seems to be and as I am, you’ll not be unhappy with it (‘X’=Britney Spears, OK?). You’ll be thinking that there is justice possible in this world, even if it is only a fantasy! Publisher’s (Elf Press) website: http://www.flf.org –KM.