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The Octopus on My Head by
Jim Nisbet; cloth-state, $35. (signed)
The quarter-morocco state is sold out (it consisted
of 104 copies, $250., signed and lettered by the author, slipcased), but
you might be able to find one on ABE or addall.com; or contact me and
I may possibly be able to steer you to a rare book dealer who might have
one in stock.
The latest from Jim Nisbet once again both blows the mind
with black-humored social commentary on the follies of human kind en
masse, reflected "en micro" by the four main characters
of this very fine novel (and I use the term "novel" here in
both of its most common senses; i.e., as a description of a literary form,
and also as an item the like of which no reader will have ever encountered
before; in which opinion I am bourne out by Bill Ott(the publisher of
Booklist)'s comment, in his starred review of The Octopus on
My Head in the Nov. 15, 2007 issue of Booklist— the
official journal of the American Library Association—in which he
opines that all of Nisbet's novels are "the literary equivalent
of road trips, and a good road trip follows no map. You may be exhausted
when you get to the end of the road, but you're damn glad you didn't stay
home." In fact, The Octopus on My Head is particularly close
to my own heart, as one of its main concerns is just exactly what is
the "value" of music (and by extension, any artistic form) as
a way of life, since I have "seriously" played flamenco guitar
for 38 years now, but have never had to try to rely on my playing for
financial sustenance, as, in a different guitaristic genre, not quite
as esoteric and obscure as flamenco, Curly Watkins, the protagonist of
The Octopus, must needs succeed in doing, if he is to survive any
longer, psychologically as well as physically, in this life we've all
been thrust into, kicking and screaming, and not very often making beautiful
melodies. So, what does Curly do to help himself sort out this conundrum?
Why, he seeks out a better musician than himself, to see how
he, one Ivy Pruitt, is getting on in these days of increasing woe
for those who would rather put their time into an artistic discipline,
even if they know they'll never be superb (or, for that matter, even close
to the best) at or in it, than lead a life devoted to one of the many
ways in which one can waste one's time trying to acquire what modern society,
in almost every country on earth, considers "wealth:" to wit,
cold hard geetus, and that alone. It's something many of us struggle with
every day of our lives, and it makes The Octopus an "important"
book, in a way that most novels, written strictly to entertain, are not;
but it's also a hell of an "entertainment" at the same time,
and can be read strictly as such, if the reader has already made up his/her
mind regarding the "art" vs. "putting food on the table"
problem. Here's the totality of Bill Ott's starred review of The Octopus
from Booklist, mentioned above, and in my opinion, Bill is, as
per usual, exactly right on the money when it comes to the value of reading
Jim Nisbet's work, if one happens to be a thinking person who wants more
than the rehashing of a tired and true crime novel plot—although,
as Bill says. . . .
"Nisbet's latest starts out singing a common
crime-fiction refrain (regular guy tries to do a buddy a favor and winds
up wagging the tail of a very angry dog) but quickly changes keys and
zooms off into uncharted territory at a pace that would leave Charlie
Parker gasping for breath. In fact, the regular guy, struggling guitarist
Curly Watkins, isn't all that regular (check out the octopus tattoo on
his head), and his buddy, jazz drummer Ivy Pruitt, doesn't need a break
so much as he needs to chase the dragon found in a gently cooked heroin
tarball. But Curly has problems of his own (his career has sunk to playing
coffee shops), and when Ivy's dealer, the inimitable Lavinia, proposes
that she and Curly simply deliver a message to a certain guy, well, what's
the harm? Plenty, as Curly quickly discovers when they stumble on a dead
body and then, making their escape, stop for more heroin and get a guy
with a shotgun instead. It goes on like this for 100 pages or so, and
just when we're adjusting to the tempo and settling in to enjoy the hysterical
banter among these three stoned musketeers (imagine Elmore Leonard on
speed), Nisbet pulls the rug from under our legs and switches the focus
to a serial killer as creepily straight as Curly and company are endearingly
bent. Sure, Nisbet breaks all the rules, but that's really the whole point.
His novels are the literary equivalent of road trips, and a good road
trip follows no map. You may be exhausted when you get to the end of the
road, but you're damn sure glad you didn't stay home."
Frankly, no intelligent person should miss this
book, but, because I don't have the resources of Little, Brown or Random
House or Knopf, many probably will, and that makes me sad, to tell you
the truth, because my function as a small publisher is primarily to bring
to the attention of an intelligent reader the books that the large New
York publishing houses won't publish, because they feel there's
too small an audience for them to make their accustomed (or, for that
matter, any) profit on them, even though, with their marketing
expertise and money to back up same, they could probably sell just about
anything, if they wanted to: but they don't want to sell authors
like Jim Nisbet, Kent Harrington, Kent Anderson, Rick DeMarinis, Gary
Cook, Bob Truluck, and many of the other, still-living authors that I
publish, let alone publish a series like the Complete Short Fiction
of Cornell Woolrich, even though there are several thousands of potential
readers and collectors of such a series, at least. Oh well, that's
the way it is, and it ain't ever gonna be any different, when it comes
to prophets (and, yes, profits, too!) in their own country(s). . . .
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