Confidences / Baseline

by Ivan Cheng

Confidences / Baseline plays with the vampire novel like a dollhouse. Charac­ters who variously believe in the power of theatre and performance become entangled with grief, desire, and the un­known. What does a rehearsal come to mean when a vampire lives forever?

Baseline is the first in a series of books that fetishise nightclubs for their inaccessibility. Deluded realities antici­pate the transformative sensuality of penetration. In his second novel, artist Ivan Cheng maintains his fixation on structures for audiences between public and private.

Designed by Sabo Day
Book cover by Özgür Kar
Back cover photography by Nikola Lamburov

176 pages, Paperback

First published April 28, 2021

Reviews

[Lukas · Rating 2 out of 5]

I feel like books with an average of 2 stars glorify Hitler so no, this isn’t a two star book.
Ivan Cheng explores some interesting ideas that tingle, but doesn’t expand them. Parts of the book read as fan fiction which is ‘cool’ but also vacuous.
The topic of gay vampires obviously sounds awesome but as much as my expectations were raised by that, they were also betrayed for nothing ever happens and lots of the philosophical content that is explored results in blurbs I can’t make myself feel interested in.
We read this aloud to each other with a friend, and towards the end we literally read it so fast because we wanted it to end already.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

A bit of a confusing entry, but once I understood the structure I was quite swept up.

[Felipe · Rating 1 out of 5]

shit artist.