Brian Alan Ellis's Blog, page 27
July 31, 2014
"The Problem with Helen" by Brian Alan Ellis
Gravel literary journal
#tbt My story, “The Problem with Helen,” from Gravel: A Literary Journal, summer 2013. (Art by Jake Troyli)
July 27, 2014
CCLaP: Book Review: "King Shit," by Brian Alan Ellis
“King Shit is about two men’s journey during a particularly eventful bar crawl, but it also says a lot about class and culture in America. It is a finely wrought gobbet of sputum lobbed at the American middle class proprieties.” - Chicago Center for Literature and Photography
July 20, 2014
Coping with some light laundromat reading c/o Civil Coping...
Coping with some light laundromat reading c/o Civil Coping Mechanisms.
July 14, 2014
When it comes to flash fiction (those brief, punchy, not-quite-prose-poems) Vaughan is an upper-level video game boss
Addicts & Basements by Robert Vaughan
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
While waiting for clothes to dry in a dingy, low-maintenance laundromat—leaning beside an out-of-service soda machine was a discolored Fisher-Price Playset (in case anyone wanted to conveniently scare/scar the hell out of their kids)—I tore into Addicts & Basements, Robert Vaughan’s slim collection of brisk, tightly-constructed miracles of human endurance both humorous and sad (often beautiful), as coin machines, some entirely gutted, struggled haphazardly against insurmountable odds:
A man is mailed his ex’s pubic hair; a lonely waitress perusing personal ads becomes smitten by Bondage Man; a father kidnaps two siblings who may or may not be his kids; and a husband surfs porn sites while wearing his medicated wife’s panties.
Vaughan’s talent in handling the plights of characters many would write off as pathetic grotesques is masterful, and he does it with love and sincerity….
Read the rest of my review at HTMLGIANT!
View all my reviews
July 11, 2014
Addicts & Basements by Robert Vaughan | HTMLGIANT
I recently did laundry while reading the new Robert Vaughan book, which is scary-good, and then wrote about it for HTMLGIANT.
July 3, 2014
Today and this weekend only, you can download King Shit,...
Today and this weekend only, you can download King Shit, “the Great American Novelette” written by Brian Alan Ellis and illustrated by Waylon Thornton, for only 99 cents on Amazon.com!
A Chihuahua-toting Mexican dressed as Santa Claus. A cross-dressing bartender. A drunk, philosophizing “Classy” Fred Blassie look-alike. Two rockabilly-greaser junkies. A bow-legged burlesque dancer and her angry dwarf lover. A man in a smelly lavender suit who rides a mobile jukebox. A quarreling, beer-spitting couple. No, this isn’t The Breakfast Club. This is a not-so-glorious night in the life of Elvis McAllister: factory worker, storyteller, Graceland enthusiast, and overall hornball. Join him and his knife-wielding sidekick, Ralph, as they bar-crawl the “Sick-Sad” avenues and alleyways of questionable hopes and dashed dreams.
"In his fictitious word of questionable morals and erroneous decisions, Brian Alan Ellis brings to life a grit-induced walk on the wild side, where people act with primal instinct and less with reason. His characters are degenerate, over the top and indulgent." - The Round Up
"Brian Alan Ellis doesn’t have much hope for the human race." - The Next Best Book Blog
July 2, 2014
July 1, 2014
'The Bones of Us' by J. Bradley and Adam Scott Mazer | Brian Alan Ellis
The Bones of Us is a heartbreak manual written by poet-man J. Bradley and illustrated by playwright/artist Adam Scott Mazer. Through striking words and images, it tells the all-too-common story of a failed marriage seen through the wine-fogged eyes of a broken boy named Paul.
Labor Day weekend, the failed winery long gone but you are a bottle with a message: goodbye. I try getting the kitchen sink bachelor party drunk. You spit yourself out the door. Two days later, your parents talk you back onto the ledge of your wedding ring.
When Paul shows his ex the bullet he’s made out of his wedding band, she passively tells him she likes the direction his art is going. Zinger! He retaliates by calling her a “knife show sheathed in Victoria’s Secret.”
June 25, 2014
Do What Bud Smith Says
“Really dug the raw edge bizarro factor of this collection of short stories. It was right up my alley. Recently a friend came over and stole the book from my apartment and I ordered another copy of it. Hope that tells you that I enjoyed it enough.”
—Bud Smith, author of Tollbooth and Everything Neon
Seriously, you should listen to Bud Smith. I’m pretty sure he knows what he’s talking about.
Get The Mustache He’s Always Wanted but Could Never Grow, as well as all of Bud Smith’s killer books on Amazon.com.
Note: Photo is not of Bud Smith. It’s my pal, Gary. Bud Smith is very handsome, though, and pictures of him should definitely be studied and appreciated in a similar manner as his incredible work is.
