James Champagne's Blog - Posts Tagged "pulp-fin-de-siècle"
New Novel Finished
Yesterday I finished work on my third novel, PULP FIN-DE-SIÈCLE. For those keeping track of such things, it’s literally been almost nine years since I finished the first draft of my second novel HARLEM SMOKE (on Jan. 20, 2016); of course, in that span of time, I did do a few other books. This new one began life as a short story/novella that I wrote back in 2019 (back then, it was called THE POISONED CITY). Over the last five years, I kept adding bits and pieces to it on a periodic basis, and it kept expanding and getting longer and longer, eventually more than doubling its original size. Finally, last year I decided to just start thinking of it as a short novel. At over 40,000 words, it’s slightly shorter than, say, something like THE GREAT GATSBY. But I think every author should have at least one short novel in their bibliography: Camus had THE STRANGER, Orwell had ANIMAL FARM, Steinbeck had THE PEARL and OF MICE AND MEN, Conrad had HEART OF DARKNESS, and so on. But I should stress that I view it not as a novella, but as either a short novel or just a plain novel period!
The project can be (tongue-in-cheek) described as MONSIEUR DE PHOCAS meets THE CANTERBURY TALES, and is kind of a tribute to all of the 19th-century French Decadent authors I’ve been reading and enjoying over the last 20 years or so (in particular, Jean Lorrain, J.-K. Huysmans, and Leon Bloy). It’s set over a period of 24 hours on an April day in Paris in 1893, and is divided into seven 10-15 page sections, each of which revolve around a stock character from the books and stories of that era: a Priest, a Symbolist Artist, a Dandy, an Actress, a Prostitute, a Diabolist/Occultist, and a Decadent Novelist . . . but all of the characters drift in and out of each other’s sections/stories, hence why I somewhat jokingly gave the book the current title it has. Of course, even though it’s something of a mosaic novel, the true main character of the book is Paris itself, with its churches and cafés, its opera houses and artist studios, and so on and so forth.
The project can be (tongue-in-cheek) described as MONSIEUR DE PHOCAS meets THE CANTERBURY TALES, and is kind of a tribute to all of the 19th-century French Decadent authors I’ve been reading and enjoying over the last 20 years or so (in particular, Jean Lorrain, J.-K. Huysmans, and Leon Bloy). It’s set over a period of 24 hours on an April day in Paris in 1893, and is divided into seven 10-15 page sections, each of which revolve around a stock character from the books and stories of that era: a Priest, a Symbolist Artist, a Dandy, an Actress, a Prostitute, a Diabolist/Occultist, and a Decadent Novelist . . . but all of the characters drift in and out of each other’s sections/stories, hence why I somewhat jokingly gave the book the current title it has. Of course, even though it’s something of a mosaic novel, the true main character of the book is Paris itself, with its churches and cafés, its opera houses and artist studios, and so on and so forth.
Out Now: PULP FIN DE SIÈCLE (new novel)
So here's one of the mystery projects I've very vaguely hinted at over the last few months: the powers that be behind Snuggly Books and Occult Press have today announced the launch of a new imprint, Purple Bearded Uncle, and they've selected my short novel, PULP FIN DE SIÈCLE, as one of their two launch titles (the other being RUINATION IN BLOOM by Charles Schneider).
"Over the course of 24 hours, on a Spring day in Paris in 1893, seven archetypal figures of the “Yellow Nineties”—a priest, a Symbolist, a dandy, an actress, a whore, a diabolist, and a Decadent—drift into and out of each other’s lives, sometimes taking center stage, other times assuming bit parts. The resulting narrative mosaic created by these seven interwoven tales can thus be described as both the summation and the reflection of late 19th-century Parisian Decadentism re-mannered as a Neo-Decadent novel."
Written on-and-off over a long period (from 2019 to this year), this is the book I've sometimes in the past tongue-in-cheek referred to as being like MONSIEUR DE PHOCAS meets THE CANTERBURY TALES. It's target audience would be either people who are really into the writers of the 19th-century French Decadence, or those who might be curious about what that milieu was all about, in that I hope my book is a reasonable facsimile of the tropes and styles of the writers of that era (warts and all), while at the same time also being a reflection of my own aesthetics and interests.
Designed by Brendan Connell (and featuring sumptuous cover art by Aaron Lange), this is quite a fancy item: this hardcover edition is "thread-stitched and lithographically printed in Italy on rough-textured 140 g/m Italian paper, with 120 g/m Terra Rossa endpapers (made from 10% cotton fibres, virgin fibres and recycled fibres)." The cover, meanwhile, is "printed on white Fedrigoni Imitlin, with a similarly illustrated dustjacket printed on a 180 g/m clay-colored version of the same paper as the endpapers." Do we have a dustjacket? Yes, we have a dustjacket!
This edition is limited to 75 copies, so get it while it lasts!
https://purplebeardeduncle.com/pulp-f...
"Over the course of 24 hours, on a Spring day in Paris in 1893, seven archetypal figures of the “Yellow Nineties”—a priest, a Symbolist, a dandy, an actress, a whore, a diabolist, and a Decadent—drift into and out of each other’s lives, sometimes taking center stage, other times assuming bit parts. The resulting narrative mosaic created by these seven interwoven tales can thus be described as both the summation and the reflection of late 19th-century Parisian Decadentism re-mannered as a Neo-Decadent novel."
Written on-and-off over a long period (from 2019 to this year), this is the book I've sometimes in the past tongue-in-cheek referred to as being like MONSIEUR DE PHOCAS meets THE CANTERBURY TALES. It's target audience would be either people who are really into the writers of the 19th-century French Decadence, or those who might be curious about what that milieu was all about, in that I hope my book is a reasonable facsimile of the tropes and styles of the writers of that era (warts and all), while at the same time also being a reflection of my own aesthetics and interests.
Designed by Brendan Connell (and featuring sumptuous cover art by Aaron Lange), this is quite a fancy item: this hardcover edition is "thread-stitched and lithographically printed in Italy on rough-textured 140 g/m Italian paper, with 120 g/m Terra Rossa endpapers (made from 10% cotton fibres, virgin fibres and recycled fibres)." The cover, meanwhile, is "printed on white Fedrigoni Imitlin, with a similarly illustrated dustjacket printed on a 180 g/m clay-colored version of the same paper as the endpapers." Do we have a dustjacket? Yes, we have a dustjacket!
This edition is limited to 75 copies, so get it while it lasts!
https://purplebeardeduncle.com/pulp-f...
