Thomas Moore's Blog
June 11, 2020
ALONE - out now.
My third novel, Alone, is available now from Amphetamine Sulphate.
For more information or to order:
https://amphetaminesulphate.bigcartel...
For more information or to order:
https://amphetaminesulphate.bigcartel...
January 21, 2018
When People Die - February 23rd 2018
My new book of poems, When People Die, will be published by Kiddiepunk on February 23rd 2018.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3...
In his first book of poems in four years, “When People Die” finds Thomas Moore sharpening his distinctive voice to present a piercing collection of damaged and hyperemotional texts. Structured into three distinct sections, the reader is able to see the shape of the poems change as the form is pulled, tightened and then released into new shapes, with sex, death, paranoia and confusion warped into increasingly sparse and fragile sculptures.
http://kiddiepunk.com/when_people_die...
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3...
In his first book of poems in four years, “When People Die” finds Thomas Moore sharpening his distinctive voice to present a piercing collection of damaged and hyperemotional texts. Structured into three distinct sections, the reader is able to see the shape of the poems change as the form is pulled, tightened and then released into new shapes, with sex, death, paranoia and confusion warped into increasingly sparse and fragile sculptures.
http://kiddiepunk.com/when_people_die...
October 25, 2016
Reviews for In Their Arms so far ...
Reviews
Minor Literature[s]: In Their Arms by Thomas Moore — Joe Rollins
Thomas Moore’s second novel, In Their Arms (Rebel Satori Press, 2016), begins with a proposition: ‘the world is full of warmth…’ Offered not as a trite observation but as an outstretched hand to a figure on a precipice, this notion becomes a vital mantra for the reader plunged into Moore’s world. ‘Remember,’ Moore seems to beg of his reader, ‘the world is full of warmth,’ no matter how cold it might appear. And Moore’s world is certainly cold. In Their Arms maps a nightmare geography, a terrible and glittering sprawl of fantasy and abuse. And yet some warmth does still persist in the back streets of Moore’s creation: a faint animus of meaning that haunts the urban and digital spaces of this slim novel. Moore flirts with the abject, yet never allows his novel to degrade into pure nihilism. Instead, In Their Arms is a rare thing: a novel at once unafraid to confront the darkest recesses of the human condition, and yet unwilling to allow the light to be snuffed out completely.
Guided by an unnamed narrator, In Their Arms weaves through a series of endlessly mutating spaces: gay club ‘darkrooms’ playing host to predatory sexual encounters, online message boards populated by bug-chasers and submissives, cruising bars and cruising apps that orchestrate the sexual fantasies of anonymous men, web pages of the damaged and disaffected. Moore’s narrator relays these sights in the affectless tone of the chemically dependent and chronically bored, yawning his way through tales of work, parties, orgies, and death. The milieu reads like a jacked-in Burroughs, the narrator an escapee from Ellis’ L.A. haze … It is at once tender and transgressive, delicate and grotesque, abject and sublime.
Read the full piece @ Minor Literature[s]: https://minorliteratures.com/2016/09/...
*
Filthy Dreams: You Make Me ____: 21st Century Cruising And Nihilism In Thomas Moore’s ‘In Their Arms’ by Emily Colucci
In 1977, Richard Hell appeared on the cover of his seminal album Blank Generation with the words “You Make Me______.” scrawled on his bony chest. While the term blank generation certainly resonated with the post-Vietnam, bankrupt New York of the 1970s, they had nothing on the blankness of our digitally obsessed 21st century. In fact, it feels almost prophetic.
“The journey home is a blank. I’m so blurry that the world and my interactions with it are too opaque for either component to illuminate the other enough to form anything approaching sense,” opens Thomas Moore’s second novel In Their Arms, which was recently published by Rebel Satori Press. The experimental fictional novel narrates the alienation, detachment and aloofness of our contemporary era despite the buffet of bodies available on online hook-up sites, gay bars and cruising apps. Even though, in 2016, there are many ways to be queer, Moore’s novel essentially shows that we are possibly even more alone.
And despite this seething isolation that runs through the book with characters glued to their smartphones and computers, In Their Arms is a genuine page-turner, which I read (quite ironically) on my iPhone in a little over a day.
In Their Arms follows an arts writing protagonist, who–like the rest of the characters that flow in and out of the book–is unnamed. Without a set identity, Moore already cements the narrator’s disconnection from the rest of the world, as well as the readers. You can never quite get a grasp of the narrator or his intentions, with the exception of some very relatable moments for fellow art critics (I’ve always wanted to write a review of a show I never went to).
Similarly, certain chapters are peppered with references to “you” (“I walk into the show that I’m supposed to review, with a black eye where you punched me last night” (57).) but there’s not a clear sense that this “you” is the same every time. It may be an ever-revolving set of hook-ups.
Like the vagueness of the novel’s characters, the plot of In Their Arms twists and turns through a series of darkened bars, various apartments, parties, openings, backrooms and obsessive skimming through Tumblr, Twitter and forums linked to an event called Cum Worship. “I feel like a ghost,” describes the narrator, “Like if I were to take my feet off the floor, I could just float or the wind would push me through the streets and cars could pass through while I was flinching for notion” (34). This sense of floating almost perfectly describes the plot–nothing particularly notable happens. Instead, there’s a strangely relatable sense of meandering through spaces–both physical and online.
Whether IRL or online, the spaces inhabited by the protagonist are hazy and indefinite, rendering the entire novel dreamlike and right on the border between memory and reality. As Moore writes, “It could be memories from anywhere” (3).
A moment mid-way through the book acts as a sly key to the ambiguousness of the plot in comparison to its emotional resonance. Writing a review, the narrator explains, “I talk about the artist using paintings as a queer space in which meaning and facts and specifics are bent out of shape and displaced by a dream-logic where things make emotional sense as opposed to a narrative sense” (84-85). This is precisely what Moore does through the novel–a nod and a wink to readers who may be wondering what the hell is happening throughout the text.
Read the full piece @ Filthy Dreams: https://filthydreams.wordpress.com/20...
*
Beach Sloth: In Their Arms by Thomas Moore
Thomas Moore’s presents voyeurism as a way of life in the eerie glow of “In Their Arms”. Featuring a main character who looks at the lives of others online, those he quite seems to dislike, the story unfolds of one who prefers observation to participation. Everything involving the rest of the world feels weary as he hooks up with the same old he saw online a few months ago, reading the comments of everybody who opts to share online. Most, if not all, of the time he reads the sort of things that sort of startle and shake him to his very core.
Even with the beginning the character wakes up with a great tiredness. Nothing feels real. All feels memorized nearly. Friendships are there, he is cared about, but returning that care appears to be a bit of a struggle for him. His career seems perfectly suited for him as well as he judges the artistic output of others. Judging from his internal monologue that forms the crux of the book, the art he could create would be rather beautiful. Much of the time he’s confused, wondering how people interact successfully with each other. This is why he makes up stories, tragic ones, of non-existent previous loves, working out every possible detail. While he tells these stories he notes how others project their hopes onto his work of fiction …With a night vibe and a deep look inside the inner workings of emotional states and introspection, Thomas Moore’s “In Their Arms” is darkly beautiful work.
Read the full piece @ Beach Sloth: http://www.beachsloth.com/in-their-ar...
*
Cultured Vultures: In Their Arms by Thomas Moore, by Ben Arzate
In Their Arms is an excellent exploration of disconnection from life and loneliness among others … Moore’s prose is simple but evokes powerful imagery of loneliness and sex … I highly recommend picking this up when it's out.
Read the full piece @ Cultured Vultures: http://culturedvultures.com/book-revi...
Minor Literature[s]: In Their Arms by Thomas Moore — Joe Rollins
Thomas Moore’s second novel, In Their Arms (Rebel Satori Press, 2016), begins with a proposition: ‘the world is full of warmth…’ Offered not as a trite observation but as an outstretched hand to a figure on a precipice, this notion becomes a vital mantra for the reader plunged into Moore’s world. ‘Remember,’ Moore seems to beg of his reader, ‘the world is full of warmth,’ no matter how cold it might appear. And Moore’s world is certainly cold. In Their Arms maps a nightmare geography, a terrible and glittering sprawl of fantasy and abuse. And yet some warmth does still persist in the back streets of Moore’s creation: a faint animus of meaning that haunts the urban and digital spaces of this slim novel. Moore flirts with the abject, yet never allows his novel to degrade into pure nihilism. Instead, In Their Arms is a rare thing: a novel at once unafraid to confront the darkest recesses of the human condition, and yet unwilling to allow the light to be snuffed out completely.
Guided by an unnamed narrator, In Their Arms weaves through a series of endlessly mutating spaces: gay club ‘darkrooms’ playing host to predatory sexual encounters, online message boards populated by bug-chasers and submissives, cruising bars and cruising apps that orchestrate the sexual fantasies of anonymous men, web pages of the damaged and disaffected. Moore’s narrator relays these sights in the affectless tone of the chemically dependent and chronically bored, yawning his way through tales of work, parties, orgies, and death. The milieu reads like a jacked-in Burroughs, the narrator an escapee from Ellis’ L.A. haze … It is at once tender and transgressive, delicate and grotesque, abject and sublime.
Read the full piece @ Minor Literature[s]: https://minorliteratures.com/2016/09/...
*
Filthy Dreams: You Make Me ____: 21st Century Cruising And Nihilism In Thomas Moore’s ‘In Their Arms’ by Emily Colucci
In 1977, Richard Hell appeared on the cover of his seminal album Blank Generation with the words “You Make Me______.” scrawled on his bony chest. While the term blank generation certainly resonated with the post-Vietnam, bankrupt New York of the 1970s, they had nothing on the blankness of our digitally obsessed 21st century. In fact, it feels almost prophetic.
“The journey home is a blank. I’m so blurry that the world and my interactions with it are too opaque for either component to illuminate the other enough to form anything approaching sense,” opens Thomas Moore’s second novel In Their Arms, which was recently published by Rebel Satori Press. The experimental fictional novel narrates the alienation, detachment and aloofness of our contemporary era despite the buffet of bodies available on online hook-up sites, gay bars and cruising apps. Even though, in 2016, there are many ways to be queer, Moore’s novel essentially shows that we are possibly even more alone.
And despite this seething isolation that runs through the book with characters glued to their smartphones and computers, In Their Arms is a genuine page-turner, which I read (quite ironically) on my iPhone in a little over a day.
In Their Arms follows an arts writing protagonist, who–like the rest of the characters that flow in and out of the book–is unnamed. Without a set identity, Moore already cements the narrator’s disconnection from the rest of the world, as well as the readers. You can never quite get a grasp of the narrator or his intentions, with the exception of some very relatable moments for fellow art critics (I’ve always wanted to write a review of a show I never went to).
Similarly, certain chapters are peppered with references to “you” (“I walk into the show that I’m supposed to review, with a black eye where you punched me last night” (57).) but there’s not a clear sense that this “you” is the same every time. It may be an ever-revolving set of hook-ups.
Like the vagueness of the novel’s characters, the plot of In Their Arms twists and turns through a series of darkened bars, various apartments, parties, openings, backrooms and obsessive skimming through Tumblr, Twitter and forums linked to an event called Cum Worship. “I feel like a ghost,” describes the narrator, “Like if I were to take my feet off the floor, I could just float or the wind would push me through the streets and cars could pass through while I was flinching for notion” (34). This sense of floating almost perfectly describes the plot–nothing particularly notable happens. Instead, there’s a strangely relatable sense of meandering through spaces–both physical and online.
Whether IRL or online, the spaces inhabited by the protagonist are hazy and indefinite, rendering the entire novel dreamlike and right on the border between memory and reality. As Moore writes, “It could be memories from anywhere” (3).
A moment mid-way through the book acts as a sly key to the ambiguousness of the plot in comparison to its emotional resonance. Writing a review, the narrator explains, “I talk about the artist using paintings as a queer space in which meaning and facts and specifics are bent out of shape and displaced by a dream-logic where things make emotional sense as opposed to a narrative sense” (84-85). This is precisely what Moore does through the novel–a nod and a wink to readers who may be wondering what the hell is happening throughout the text.
Read the full piece @ Filthy Dreams: https://filthydreams.wordpress.com/20...
*
Beach Sloth: In Their Arms by Thomas Moore
Thomas Moore’s presents voyeurism as a way of life in the eerie glow of “In Their Arms”. Featuring a main character who looks at the lives of others online, those he quite seems to dislike, the story unfolds of one who prefers observation to participation. Everything involving the rest of the world feels weary as he hooks up with the same old he saw online a few months ago, reading the comments of everybody who opts to share online. Most, if not all, of the time he reads the sort of things that sort of startle and shake him to his very core.
Even with the beginning the character wakes up with a great tiredness. Nothing feels real. All feels memorized nearly. Friendships are there, he is cared about, but returning that care appears to be a bit of a struggle for him. His career seems perfectly suited for him as well as he judges the artistic output of others. Judging from his internal monologue that forms the crux of the book, the art he could create would be rather beautiful. Much of the time he’s confused, wondering how people interact successfully with each other. This is why he makes up stories, tragic ones, of non-existent previous loves, working out every possible detail. While he tells these stories he notes how others project their hopes onto his work of fiction …With a night vibe and a deep look inside the inner workings of emotional states and introspection, Thomas Moore’s “In Their Arms” is darkly beautiful work.
Read the full piece @ Beach Sloth: http://www.beachsloth.com/in-their-ar...
*
Cultured Vultures: In Their Arms by Thomas Moore, by Ben Arzate
In Their Arms is an excellent exploration of disconnection from life and loneliness among others … Moore’s prose is simple but evokes powerful imagery of loneliness and sex … I highly recommend picking this up when it's out.
Read the full piece @ Cultured Vultures: http://culturedvultures.com/book-revi...
September 18, 2016
IN THEIR ARMS - OUT OCTOBER 11th 2016
My second novel, In Their Arms, will be released on October 11th 2016, by Rebel Satori Press. Here is some recent press and reviews:
In Bed With Thomas Moore, at Queen Mobs Tea House: http://queenmobs.com/2016/09/in-bed-w...
In Their Arms reviewed at Minor Literatures: https://minorliteratures.com/2016/09/...
In Their Arms reviewed at Cultured Vultures: http://culturedvultures.com/book-revi...
An excerpt from In Their Arms at Berfrois: http://www.berfrois.com/2016/09/in-th...
In Bed With Thomas Moore, at Queen Mobs Tea House: http://queenmobs.com/2016/09/in-bed-w...
In Their Arms reviewed at Minor Literatures: https://minorliteratures.com/2016/09/...
In Their Arms reviewed at Cultured Vultures: http://culturedvultures.com/book-revi...
An excerpt from In Their Arms at Berfrois: http://www.berfrois.com/2016/09/in-th...
February 14, 2016
New novel - Summer 2016
My new novel, IN THEIR ARMS, will be published by Rebel Satori this coming summer.
January 19, 2015
Skeleton Costumes review
Full Stop magazine just posted an amazing review of my most recent book, Skeleton Costumes: http://www.full-stop.net/2015/01/19/r...
June 29, 2014
New book, SKELETON COSTUMES, coming August 2014.
Happy to announce that my new book of poems, Skeleton Costumes, will be available August 1st 2014, via Kiddiepunk Press, Paris.
From the Kiddiepunk website:
Comprised of 151, 3-line poems, "Skeleton Costumes", the new book by Thomas Moore, sees the writer's work stripped down to its most raw and effecting form yet. Skinned of any extraneous flesh, the simplicity of the pieces bely their emotional impact and visceral depth. The short stabs and sharp explosions of verse accumulate to create an unconventional and, at times, harrowing narrative. "Skeleton Costumes" investigates fear, lust and an abandonment of moral codes with a terrifying force.
AVAILABLE AUGUST 1st 2014
For more information: www.kiddiepunk.com
From the Kiddiepunk website:
Comprised of 151, 3-line poems, "Skeleton Costumes", the new book by Thomas Moore, sees the writer's work stripped down to its most raw and effecting form yet. Skinned of any extraneous flesh, the simplicity of the pieces bely their emotional impact and visceral depth. The short stabs and sharp explosions of verse accumulate to create an unconventional and, at times, harrowing narrative. "Skeleton Costumes" investigates fear, lust and an abandonment of moral codes with a terrifying force.
AVAILABLE AUGUST 1st 2014
For more information: www.kiddiepunk.com
