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Topic: "The Singing Fish" by Peter Markus (Read 2,129 times)

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"The Singing Fish" by Peter Markus
« Thread Started on Jan 31, 2006, 2:41pm »

One of the perks of being a small press publisher is that I can swap off copies of Delphine's book for other small press adventures. This was one of the books I was really interested in checking out.

I first read Peter Markus in college. One of my teachers had these photocopied stories by this guy, and all the stories, at least as I remember them lo all these many years later, had this lyrical quality about them, riffing on the word "whiskey". For some reason the pieces always stuck with me.

A buncha years later, I stumbled into the Thieves Jargon gig, and while cruising the other sites looking for writers to recruit, I came across Peter Markus again. He was writing all these crazy stories about these brothers living next to this muddy river in a muddy town. Peter was gracious enough to submit one of his stories for a still pretty much unknown literary journal. See "Muddy Hands" here:

http://www.thievesjargon.com/content/workview.php?work=62

And now the fellow has a book out. In many ways, these stories come from the same mind-set as Delphine's work. Most of the stories are told in one paragraph. The book, like Delphine's, is a collection of the best stories selected from a cycle of hundreds. Both collections are strewn with violence. But Peter is working to create a different effect.

While Delphine kicks you in the nuts over and over with the raunch of the hooker's life, Peter puts a spell over you. Images (mud, fish, river, brother, Boy, Girl, fish, water) are repeated, like mantra, like underwater lyrics, and the effect is quite soothing. These fish sing you to sleep, and then when the author nails you to the telephone pole, you don't feel it and you don't bleed.

Check out the story Peter ran in the Jargon, and if that does the trick for you, take a journey over the Calamari Press web site and look into ordering the book.

http://www.calamaripress.com/the_singing_fish.htm

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rickyrialto
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Re: "The Singing Fish" by Peter Markus
« Reply #1 on Feb 2, 2006, 8:49pm »

i've read some of that guy's work, it reminds me a lot of calvin and hobbes, just dirtier and more violent. the spirit of rampant imaginations is pretty much the same though.

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pitfighter
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Re: "The Singing Fish" by Peter Markus
« Reply #2 on Feb 21, 2006, 6:01pm »

I think it would make a beautiful urban opera, with sets made of mud and rusty nails, and all of the roles played by earnest young novices on mushrooms.

And no R. Kelly.

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