Train to Pokipse

by Rami Shamir

A portrait of a millennial young man in the pre-Occupy Wall Street America of bank bailouts and apathy. Marinated in cocaine and sexual failure, awkward, painful, with occasional moments of high comedic relief, TRAIN TO POKIPSE has proven itself to be frighteningly accurate in its socio-political predictions. During this election year mad-house, it's easy to find yourself wondering how we fell this far. TRAIN TO POKIPSE, written beautifully and structured in an intricate metaphor, captures the moment in time when the wheels started falling off the American dream.

Genres: Fiction

197 pages, Paperback

First published February 16, 2012

About the author

Rami Shamir is the author of TRAIN TO POKIPSE, the novel that's been called "a Catcher in the Rye for the new century." Bookending a literary canon of twentieth century masters that includes Samuel Beckett, Henry Miller, Kathy Acker, and William S. Burroughs, Shamir—the final author of legendary publisher Barney Rosset—was recently illuminated as "the last disciple of the Grove Press Empire" in a Hopes and Fears Magazine feature. Well-known as an activist with Occupy Wall Street, his work has appeared in Adbusters, Evergreen Review, and The Brooklyn Rail. He has been written about or interviewed in the Huffington Post, PRINT Magazine, Detroit Metro Times, the Brooklyn Rail, and Blotterature.

Introducing TRAIN TO POKIPSE's second edition, Occupy Wall Street co-creator Micah White asserts TRAIN TO POKIPSE as the the millennial generation's foremost literary work: "The novel you are about to read is a timeless chronicle of the psychological origins—the collective mood and affect—that catalyzed Occupy Wall Street... TRAIN TO POKIPSE deftly captures the essence of what compelled the millennial generation of cognitariat youth, over-educated and burdened with student debt, to suddenly throw aside ironic nihilism and rise up in an earnest spiritual insurrection."

Following a successful Kickstarter campaign, TRAIN TO POKIPSE's new limited-edition is now available: http://bit.ly/pokipse7

As well as POKIPSE's premiere Kindle edition: http://bit.ly/ttp-kindle

And a .99¢ EPUB on IBOOKS: http://bit.ly/ttpibooks

Reviews

[Fabian · Rating 5 out of 5]

A visceral trek--sensitive & raw; lyrical & radical--into the mindset of a new voice, a modern oracle whose novel is less about the Occupy Wall St. Movement than the general collective disenchantment that decidedly marks 99% of our millenials. And Gen Xers. & I assume it goes on down the line like that (til, dare I say, the "greatest generation"? Whoa).

The novel's purpose is this: to gain the Burroughsian heights (that's Will S., not Augusten of course) of a slice-clear generation crystallization, AKA the GAN*, though it may be passe to call it this in 2016. These millennial existences yearn to matter. & obvi I can wholly relate.

Its no accident that Shamir mentions "Less Than Zero" in his own exemplary novel. (This one is a better debut, frankly...) This is this generation's Less Than Zero. Both have NYC for its constantly namedropping backdrop, and above all a point of view arriving from a rare, lofty, but ultimately delicate position, a whole generation is revealed at its full disglamour. Oh, and it never hurts to include incendiary gay sex scenes in it, ever.

Find this. & read it!

* "Great American Novel"

[Richard Derus · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rating: 3.75* of five

Rejoice, literary netizens, for the future of fiction is in safe hands! Millennial Rami Shamir shows his mettle in this non-linear tale of obsession, shallow emotion, and the horrifying cost of emotional abuse. My review is on my blog, Expendable Mudge Muses Aloud. As always, I'll post the review here in a few weeks, if you're too lazy or stubborn to click a link. But hey! You'd never have to click that pesky link if you join my blog! Reviews directly sent, no further effort, into your inbox. Just a thought.

[Laura Zurowski · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm sure some people would quickly slap a label of "queer fiction" on Train to Pokipse, and I think that makes them a wee-bit lazy and non-confrontational. I really don't understand why we need such classifications. Is it a warning for those with delicate sensibilities signifying a book is one where the central characters are homosexual and discussion occurs about homosexuality? So, for you delicate flowers out there, here's my warning. This is a book with male characters who are gay and who have gay sex. If that's a concern, there are plenty of other books to read.

Pokipse is a love story about passion gone terribly wrong. It's about the never-ending spiral of obsession created by the rush of lust and love, addiction to pain, rage from lack of control, the numbness of deteriorating self-worth, and the deliciously false promise of relief drugs, alcohol, and random sex with strangers brings. You could switch names and genders and this would be the story of a woman suffering through the loss of her female lover, it could be the story of a man suffering through the loss of a girlfriend, it could be the all too often told tale of a woman suffering through the loss of a boyfriend. Shamir's story is universal. Brooklyn, Seattle, Boston, New York City, Austin, San Francisco, Detroit, Los Angeles, Manchester. The location and period of time is of little consequence. If you've been heartbroken beyond belief and the salve of choice was 101 bad decisions, you've been on the train to Pokipse. It's raw and it's so very real.

"That theme... is... fear!: the fear to look at man's other self, man's darker self, his deeper self. The self that knows no bounds because it is moved by one force only, the force of hunger." (p.133)

Pokipse bares the dark, burning hunger that lies in all of us. You can dance with it, feed it, fuck it, and then hopefully bury it and recover. The things inside of you that hunger doesn't kill will be strong enough to survive anything that follows.

[Jack Doroshow · Rating 5 out of 5]

An extraordinary debut novel. Full of coke, spit, and semen. TRAIN TO POKIPSE is an intimate look at a young gay man's life in motion. Flush in its descriptions; vividly drawn down to the smallest details, it's a great read and not to be missed.

[Dean · Rating 4 out of 5]

I met the author of this book, Rami Shamir while working at the Broadway Book Mall in Denver, CO. He was on a road trip around the country promoting his book. I was immediately impressed with the young man. He insisted on leaving me with an inscribed copy of the book. I promised him I'd read it and let him know what I thought.
While I'm an older guy and can't relate much to the angst of his lifestyle or generation, I can still appreciate the overall story of heartbreak, bad decisions, relationships with friends, tragedy and on and on. Rami did a fine job of relaying his message via graffiti on the page. A unique and very cool writing style.
At times the writing may have been a bit too bipolar but that did add to the the feel of the book in some ways.
This young man needs to keep cranking them out. If he's starting out this well, just imagine how he'll be with more experience.

[Kate · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rami Shamir has been compared to J.D. Salinger, by the late and great editor, Barney Rosset, of Grove Press, and I can attest to this perceptive comparison. Like Salinger, Shamir has succeeded in throwing the covers off the raw experience of his generation: the X Generation, the Next Generation, the Y Generation, "Generation Nothing,"... my generation. This book is written in an inwardly raw and lonesomely gritty style that sheds light on the utter disappointment, hardness, and bone-chilling grief so many of us have experienced. Our parents were sold a dream, of which we have mourned the loss. Rami Shamir is not scared to share his true grime, and this makes him a brilliant revolutionary in the age of social media and high-gloss denial. This is an incredible work written by a true artist of his time; the pages will fly.

[Brandon Will · Rating 5 out of 5]

What makes this so great is what also makes it so difficult, which in my opinion makes it all the greater. Shamir doesn't soften how ugly it is feeling completely lost and empty and overwhelmed. This book wants you to feel feelings you'd maybe rather not feel. In this book a lot of times you don't know where you're going, and it can be frustrating--but this doesn't feel like it's an unintended effect. He's capturing how being hopeless and suffering from depression, when not romanticized, are just really grindingly unpleasant. He writes it in a way that's both personal and universal, searching and processing, and coming to something pretty profound. So yeah, it's a painful book to read, because it acknowledges pains that need to be acknowledged that aren't enough. So it's a great book to read, and I hope it's read more.

[Lauren Sapala · Rating 5 out of 5]

Train to Pokipse is the best work of transgressive fiction I’ve read in the past five years, period. Shamir’s style combines the sinister aplomb of Dennis Cooper with the bleak paranoia of Bret Easton Ellis in his Less Than Zero days. Shamir gives voice to every one of us who has battled tooth-and-nail with addiction, suffered a broken heart delivered more like a knife in the guts, and stared down the long black barrel of what it means to seriously contemplate suicide. Train to Pokipse forced me into a corner and gave me no choice but to look at the brutality and cold indifference that lies at the bottom of all human darkness, and then it showed me that the thing I was looking into was really a mirror.

Devastating. Annihilating. And so very, very beautiful. A truly groundbreaking young voice in transgressive literature.

[Kevin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Train To Pokipse is the best example of the contemporary workings of the expressionistic mind. The poetic language - obsessive description - emotional attachment/detachment of the narrator captures the sparking synapses of life on the edge. If you only read five books this year (good for you) make this two of them - it deserves a second read.

[Alex Ward · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'll just give it 4 stars for now, but I definitely want to sit on this before I write a review, especially since this is the fastest I've ever read a novel, even if it is a pretty short one.

[Melissa Levine · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was asked by the author to review this story for a free copy.

Let me start by saying that I wasn’t sure about this one. This story was something completely different from my usual reading material. On that note, “Train to Pokipse” was beautifully written. There were certain lines throughout that had me thinking the author would make a good poet. The story, although I don’t think story is the right word, came across as being more of diary/journal entries all put together, hence it had a skipping from one point in time to the next feel. I think because of this I had a harder time following the main character. He’d interact with another character, go clubbing, do drugs, have sex then move on, repeat. I found this made the story kind of boring. I made it about halfway through before I felt like I was struggling to continue to the end. I understood before I started reading that the author included lots of inner/hidden meanings to different aspects of the story, sadly, I’m usually clueless at finding them or realizing one thing means something else. So while this was an interesting/different read for me, I feel like it was a little over my head.

There was an aspect of “American Psycho” is this story as well. Not sure if the author would think that as a positive or negative though. I wrote a paper on the Patrick Bateman character coming from a psychological perspective; it was a lot of fun. The whole appearing to be one thing based on your outside appearance (ex: I’m smiling because so-and-so is smiling back at me) but be thinking something completely different (ex: I’m smiling while I’m thinking of ripping your face off…), is what had me thinking of “American Psycho,” not to mention all the yuppie and club references.

I really liked the "Introduction." I've never seen that in a story or prior to a story beginning. All I can say is that there were a lot of big words used throughout it, haha, so it really got my brain working.

There were certain lines that would throw me, just because of the odd phrasing or word order. For example, “She catches herself and puts on again the face of a loving mother…” I probably would have written it as: ‘She catches herself and again puts on the face of a loving mother.’ Another example: “…but everything is formless that isn’t not those two eyes.” I would have gotten rid of the ‘not,’ with it there isn’t a smooth flow to the words. The first (present tense) to third (past tense) and back to first-person POVs, it was really written well.

One area in which I can say that I wasn’t a fan of was the fact there were so many different characters, but there was nothing to them, they were one dimensional.

Favorite line: “Sometimes, I guess, the only thing the passing of the years provides us with is a new place to be unhappy; a new reminder of how much the dreaming child in us has died.” Let me just state for the record: my inner child is alive and well!

Questons/Comments:

Why was ‘ok’ written as ‘oK’ (Lowercase ‘o’ with an uppercase ‘K’)?

I’m currently taking copyediting classes to, obviously, become a copyeditor. On that note, I couldn’t help but notice the overuse of the colon throughout the story. There were times when it was used where it shouldn’t have been. Note: semicolons are only used when it joins two parts of a sentence together, they’re related, and if the semicolon is taken away, the two parts can easily be left as two sentences.

Longest sentence I’ve ever seen:

“You just rode on the notes of my yelling and the balls hitting the ass and your lungs gasping and the nineteen-year-old cock rising from your hips going in and out of my nineteen-year old ass pushing back and forth and those hidden silent tones as your eyes started down into mine and mine stared up back into yours and I could see a hazy outline of other things like the ceiling light behind your head and the curves and lines of the rest of the room but everything is formless that isn’t not those two eyes because I’m fully there riding it with you, riding all the notes of our love.” WOW! Only one comma used in all that too."

His pubic hair is hanging out of his low riding pants? Would anyone find that attractive?

I had no clue what any of this was:
“MADR, SerF, WAKE UP AND SMELL THE MISERY, Avenue U, CHiP.MOD, DAES, PAX, MUTZ, Kings Highway, neST, SOneR, BaaL, Bay Parkway, CHEF, Kn, MADR, CHiP.MOD, TUSK 05, 20 Avenue, ..IN MEMORY.OF.CRAZ.. THE ACID 36 MOB.., BRUZ, ZU, WH.SCEE, MADR, MUTZ, SeZR, DUNE, Fort Hamilton Parkway,...”???

“‘Good neighbors make fences, where are there cows?’” Mending Wall. I actually just read that in my Lit class last week. Great poem.

The professor’s name is Elisabeth Griff-Vance, so why did one of the students later refer to her as “Professor Van Necker?”

[Justin · Rating 5 out of 5]

There's plenty of nastiness in POKIPSE. But, it's the free-falling pace and dreamy nostalgia that really charms you. I was reminded of Phillip Roth and Saul Bellow and their cutting views on American culture and the tragic and devastating vignettes that fill their novels. I do believe that in TRAIN TO POKIPSE, Shamir has set great and critical themes about the individual and American culture into motion.

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rami Shamir is everything you want in a writer; brilliant in the details and deeply empathic, with a concise, lyrical prose style.

[Crystal Helcel]

In my teens, I lived a similar way. In my 20s, reading about sex, drugs, booze, and sordid nighttime escapades was of great interest to me. Having been there and come out on the other side, the artistic take on such a lifestyle was appealing. Now, in my 30s all I see is my own former: self-degrading, emptiness, loneliness, sadness, unsatisfiable yearning to escape.
I found myself remembering how infatuated I was with Henry Miller, walking the streets of Paris wanting to feel his spirit, make it a part of me. If I would have read this ten years ago, I would have been in love, but I am no longer there. The genre has lost it's appeal.

[Richard · Rating 3 out of 5]

Preface: I was given a copy of this book so I could give it a review.

I'm at a point in my life now where I'm forced to confront the fact that maybe, just maybe, things aren't intended for me. Maybe I'm too old, too rational, too whatever and some things I just won't get.

Train to Pokipse is one of these things. To be clear, I know many people with whom this novel will strike a clear, harmonic chord. It has hints of Ellis, splashes of Palahniuk, and even strikes a couple of notes that remind me of John Green.

This particular book isn't for me. The characters are fleshed out well and it has a refreshing amount of diversity in players. I think that once this book gets some traction among its intended audience, Rami Shamir is going to pick up and go places.

[Jose-rodrigo Hernandez]

i'm reading this right now! A Bildungsroman set in Gay clubs and a liberal arts college on the Hudson. I can't remember if this is stated, but I think it's supposed to be a private school because the beginning is about his boyfriend who is rich and how the narrator has to hide his poverty, though I get the impression that the narrator lives in Port Jefferson, Suffolk County NY which is not really so poor. Why doesn't anyone ever write books about coming of age at a State College?

[Brenda Schneider · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting, I won this book through Goodreads.

[Jennifer Rutherford · Rating 4 out of 5]

A raw and compelling read. This book is gritty poetry all the way from start to finish.