Addicts & Basements

by Robert Vaughan

Drawing its energy from society's underbelly--the dim corner booths of bars, the stalls of public bathrooms, the thickets of unkempt parks--Vaughan's book is part prose poem, part fractured sonnet, part Whitmanian love-cry.

- Dorianne Laux

Robert Vaughan's poems are peopled with painfully human characters, depicted with unnerving authenticity and irreverent compassion.

- Ellen Bass

Genres: Short Stories, Poetry

142 pages, Paperback

First published December 4, 2013

About the author

Robert Vaughan's writing can be found in over 650 online and print journals and he's an ten-time Pushcart Prize nominee. He was twice a finalist for the Gertrude Stein Award for Fiction (2013, 2014). His piece, "A Box," was selected for Best Small Fictions 2016 (Queen's Ferry Press). And, "Six Glimpses of the Uncouth" was selected for Best Small Fictions 2019. He has taught writing retreats at Synergia Ranch, N.M., Mabel Dodge Luhan House, Ojai Retreat Center, CA., Cedar Valley, WI, The Clearing, and Devonfield Inn, MA. His sixth book is ASKEW (Cowboy Jamboree, 2022). He is the Editor-in-Chief of Bending Genres Journal. He offers online monthly weekend workshops and has an ongoing roundtable. And check out our two Bending Genres Retreats in 2026. Also, GET BENT anthology: www.bendinggenres.com.

KIRKUS REVIEW of FUNHOUSE: https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-re...

KIRKUS REVIEW of ADDICTS & BASEMENTS: https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-re...

Addicts & Basements (Civil Coping Mechanisms): http://www.amazon.com/Addicts-Basemen...

Diptychs + Triptychs+ Lipsticks + Dipshits (Deadly Chaps): http://www.createspace.com/4557487 and (http://www.amazon.com/Diptychs-Tripty...)

Microtones (Cervena Barva Press): http://www.thelostbookshelf.com.
MICROTONES review at PANK:

DIPTYCHS + TRIPTYCHS review:

Mark Kerstetter/ The Mockingbird Sings:
http://markkerstetter.com/2014/01/29/...

Reviews

[Janie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Word sketches etched over scar tissue, reflected in mirrors of memory and regret. Beautiful and raw; this author finds his muse beneath the heart's faltering habits. Still, it beats.

[Rodney · Rating 4 out of 5]

Oddly beautiful. Touches of irony and nostalgia in sordid settings, all told in a distinctive voice. This is a book I will keep close to me for a long time.
Favorites:
The Femur
Cowboys and Indians
Crossing Himself
Virgin Mary Toting a Winchester
Hummingbirds
Nine Shutters of Snow
The Farrow Heart
Chubby Chaser
Flip of A Coin
Lost and Erasable Parts of Us
A Wonderful Life

[Bud Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

Addicts and Basements, a marvelous full length collection of poems as flash fiction or flash fiction as poems is a batch of psychically sharp writing that is at once awash in shadow, beguiling, unusual, mysterious and revelatory. Vaughan unspools verse in mass quantity, stacking each passage on a previous gemlike passage, all the while leading the reader farther away from familiar touchstones and deeper into the infinite reward of the strange, out of the ordinary, even at times super natural. Hypnotic. Maze-like. Bio-luminescent. Utterly crushing. Transformative.

[Michael Seidlinger · Rating 5 out of 5]

We are vulnerable, seeking a far off space where we can find comfort in the tiny little creatures feasting on our psyches. The world we live in has, maybe, a handful of these spaces but that's why we have books. In books, we find place to hide on every single page.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

Vaughan has such an ear for tone, for flow. I think of people at 2am just drunk enough to whisper the urgent gossip to another that was never supposed to have been spoken. Vaughan constantly manages to surprise, as well as make me laugh...and often other things. These pieces all have masterful voice and zing home with an impressive amount of power.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm not the most familiar with micros, but Vaughn seems to pioneer his own version of the form, if not his own form in this book. I've heard describe this as a mix of micro fiction and poetry, but I don't think it is that clear. The word "Stories" on the cover is really the best description, as each definitely conveys a full story via what seems like traces suggesting one. To me, it almost seems like Vaughn applies poetic techniques to micro fiction writing, resulting in something that is challenging to define but gratifying to read. It may not take a long time to sit down and read this book, but that one sitting is by no means the end of a reader's engagement.

[Cheryl Anne Gardner · Rating 5 out of 5]

Strange, surreal, psycho-centric, and deeply impactful. One could say all these things about Robert Vaughan's flash fiction, but it would only be skimming the surface. While the themes are everyday relatable, the slanted view is anything but ordinary, so I can only describe this collection as The Poetry of Suicide a la Salvadore Dali. The obvious is never taken for granted, and the vague connections offer clarity if you are willing to bend straight lines. In short, this collection is a true indulgence for those who like to wander the dreamscape.

[Bud Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

Echoes all over the place, resounding in on itself. An addictive, meditative read, often jarring and way huge thought provoking. Often, I felt like the 'narrators' where characters from Blue Velvet. Dennis Hopper and his tank of gas. A piece of ear found in a field. Loved the tone, pace and sharpness of this book. I'll be reading this yearly alongside Jesus' Son, does it's own thing, but reminded me of what my favorite pieces of literature made me feel the first time I discovered them. Small press perfection.

[Matt Lewis · Rating 4 out of 5]

A solid collection of free-form poetry & flash fiction, filled with dark humor and strange mystery. Most of the time, Vaughn leaves us with only an inkling of the story, and the rest is filled in again and again by our anxious imagination. From the utter fantasy to gritty realism, Vaughn shows us clips of his worldview and covers a lot of ground. I'm looking forward to a full-length work by him, which will probably take us to some pretty strange, but eerily familiar, places.

[Phillip · Rating 4 out of 5]

These are some interesting experimental flash fiction stories. My favorite aspect of this collection is the linguistic play, when Vaughan uses puns, absurd comparisons, and word association to build unique and provocative images.

What I find less appealing are the stories that sound like they're written about a very specific personal situation, where we as general readers don't get enough context to understand who the characters are or why they're doing what they're doing.

[Kathy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Robert Vaughan is one of the most innovative writers around. It's almost as if he's created a hybrid genre all his own. Reading his work makes me want to go and write something of my own. I love writers who do that. What is that? I think it's just in how they wake you right up with the fearlessness and beauty of their prose. Yeah, that's it. A great, great collection.

[Kathy · Rating 5 out of 5]

With singular vision and the perfect, skewed geometry of his prose, Robert Vaughan gifts his readers with fiction that reads like the best possible mash-up of David Lynch and Wes Anderson. A smart, profound, risk-taker of a collection not to be missed.

[Helene Cardona · Rating 5 out of 5]

The stories Robert Vaughan wrote in this chapbook are delightful, funny and heartbreaking, “life affirming, desirous, and melodic.” I recommend this beautifully written and surprising collection. As soon as you open the cover, “the never heard song begins to play.”

[Meg Tuite · Rating 5 out of 5]

Vaughan is always brilliant and multi-layered! This collection is one that inspires and is not to be read once, but to be read over and over. Vaughan never ceases to amaze me! Get a copy! LOVE!

[Brian Alan Ellis · Rating 5 out of 5]

While waiting for clothes to dry in a dingy, low-maintenance laundromat—leaning beside an out-of-service soda machine was a discolored Fisher-Price Playset (in case anyone wanted to conveniently scare/scar the hell out of their kids)—I tore into Addicts & Basements, Robert Vaughan’s slim collection of brisk, tightly-constructed miracles of human endurance both humorous and sad (often beautiful), as coin machines, some entirely gutted, struggled haphazardly against insurmountable odds:

A man is mailed his ex’s pubic hair; a lonely waitress perusing personal ads becomes smitten by Bondage Man; a father kidnaps two siblings who may or may not be his kids; and a husband surfs porn sites while wearing his medicated wife’s panties.

Vaughan’s talent in handling the plights of characters many would write off as pathetic grotesques is masterful, and he does it with love and sincerity:

He decided to give it a whirl in the toilets of Grand Central Station. He stopped by Wigs and Plus on 14th Street where the owner, Sunny, would sell him a cheap piece “for his mother.” Then he’d prop himself in the furthest stall from the door every Sunday morning. Wig in place. Like a parishioner. Or a TV evangelist. Or a congressman.

When it comes to flash fiction (those brief, punchy, not-quite-prose-poems) Vaughan is an upper-level video game boss. “Gauze, A Medical Dressing, A Scrim,” with its impeccable comedic timing, might be one of the best I’ve ever read. “Neighbors,” about two suspicious pet owners, isn’t too shabby either:

He likes her smile, imagines seeing those guinea pigs ripped into shreds. He untangles the leash. “C’mon, boys.” He imagines what she looks like covered in whipped cream. Even her heels. They keep laughing.

“On the Wings of a Dove” turns the nightmare juice up to 11 with Vaughan’s haunting tribute to Matthew Wayne Shepard, a young man tortured and killed by homophobes in Wyoming:

his coma was so quiet,
one of the killers would
later say, you could almost
hear ice rattling down the canyon

In crazy-good snapshots like “What Some Boys Do” and “There’s No Place Like Home,” Vaughan voices the concerns of children growing up in whack-ass situations (rickety Fisher-Price Tragi-sets not withstanding):

And Dad, if you can call him that, he’s still screwing Tonda, our pastor’s daughter. She’s only a year older than my oldest sister. That’s gross. And then there’s my brother. He won’t leave me alone. Some nights I sleep on the garage roof just to get away from him. Even the dog is constantly horny, humping the closest leg around. So embarrassing.

Sexual discovery, especially through imprisonment and abuse, is a common theme throughout Vaughan’s work:

I was tied-up in a harmless game
of cowboys and Indians,
I discovered it was the only
way for me to
feel aroused. No, to
feel anything.

He goes for broke, even when shit gets creepy:

I made sure it was the same Santa as last year. Yup. The one who smelled like Crown Royal, like my Daddy used to. And I made sure I was the last one to sit on Santa’s lap. Well after the elves had all been released for the day. After Santa blew me on the present wrapping table, and wiped up.

The laundromat was mercifully closing. Addicts & Basements was finished and tucked under my arm as I went to fetch the clothes I’d hoped were dry (they weren’t). The owner rolled in a mechanized mannequin, some bizarre promotional monstrosity used to attract/scare off business, dressed in Keds and a purple wig. There was a car battery strapped to it legs. The wig was slightly askew. I couldn’t think of a better book than Addicts & Basements to have with me at that moment—amongst those pitiful machines, this deranged wonderland, that mannequin. Only Vaughan could make any damn sense of it.

Review originally published @ HTMLGIANT

[Michael Maxwell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Diptychs +Triptychs + Lipsticks + Dipshits

Stories/ Robert Vaughan 2013

Published by Deadly Chaps ~ Joseph A. W. Quintella, Publisher

Robert Vaughan is a busy man with a lot on his mind, and an incredibly prolific writer. I don’t know how or when he even finds time to sleep. Author of hundreds of published stories and poems, Diptychs +Triptychs + Lipsticks + Dipshits is his second release in 2013, with more on the way. Don’t take your eye off the ball or you’re likely to miss the next pitch altogether. This chap book contains many of his best known pieces and is a little like a greatest hits album, in all the best possible ways. Notable pieces include “10,000 Dollar Pyramid” which was a finalist in the Micro Fiction awards 2012, “Ten Notes To The Guy Studying Jujitsu,”finalist for the Gertrude Stein Award 2013 and “Gauze, a Medical Dressing, a Scrim” 2nd Place in the Flash Fiction Chronicles String-Of-10 Contest 2013. It also contains some of my personal favorites which include “Seven Shades of James”, “Going to Reseda On The 405” and “Mother/Father/Clown.”

Diptychs +Triptychs + Lipsticks + Dipshits is a marvelously crafted collection with moving parts that work beautifully together. At times deep and dark, then light, playful and mischievous; the pieces are written in beautiful prose that moves the reader through surprising and unexpected journeys. Robert Vaughan’s work is characterized by his playful use of alliteration and eye winking references to icons, titles and phrases in the lexicon of popular culture. His capricious imagery and surprising, cleverly placed internal rhymes create pieces that are at once rambunctious, mischievous and somehow, gently subversive.

Diptychs +Triptychs + Lipsticks + Dipshits is crafted from lush poetic prose. On one hand some pieces are abstract, cryptic and disturbing; while on the other hand, others are humorous and totally straight forward, without any artifice, tricks or distractions that might dull the edge or detract from their power. Vaughan’s stories are often poignant, tender and compassionate without being too sweetly sentimental. In almost every case, any one of the segments of a diptych or triptych could easily serve as the foundation for its own expanded story.

Hats off to publisher Joseph A. W. Quintella for a beautifully designed and produced book. It’s a wonderful chap book and a piece of visual art in and of itself. Diptychs +Triptychs + Lipsticks + Dipshits is an enduring body of work. Woven from gorgeous, rich, lyrical language and imagery, it’s right up there with the very best. Available from the publisher, http://www.deadlychaps.com and from Amazon. It’s also listed on Goodreads. If you are not yet familiar with the writing of Robert Vaughan, then this is the perfect place to start.

[Melanie Page · Rating 4 out of 5]

"I slit the sheet, the sheet I slit, and on the slitted sheet I sit."

I feel similarly about the title of Robert Vaughan's newest chapbook. Once upon a time my husband and I giggled because he couldn't read the title properly. Don't be fooled, though: the title isn't rhyming for "cute" sake, it really is selling content.

Itty bitty stories (prose poems, flash fiction, what have you) are divided into (mostly) two (diptychs) or three (triptychs) sections. The pieces are broken up and have titles to reflect that, with names such as "Two Faces" or "3 C's" or "Mother/Father/Clown" or "Lawyers, Guns, & Money."

Some of the pieces had lines that read more like prose poetry, such as a question posed in "Three for Carol"--

The dance has hands that reach into us like hunger. Where did you go after we burst against each other?

The lines' poetic quality comes through in the imagery of hands and bursting, a quality I remember in his collection Microtones.

Other pieces have lines that are just fine as prose poetry, but I can see that the opportunity for line breaks might have been there. Still, Vaughan chooses to use prose poetry to tell a brief story, and one about bocce ball narrates but still surprises by creating breaks with commas--

This was before my father died dancing, on the end of a rope.

If you associate dancing with joy, like I do, they you will be just as surprised as I was when I made my pause with the comma and came to the hanged father. Yikes!

There were places where the comma use threw me off, and I wished the piece had been written with line breaks. One place that I re-read many times was in "Planes, Trains and Automobiles"--

We come, like soldiers in the camps, barbed-wire barrier. Or I do. Either you or me.

Since the piece is formatted like a story, my brain was prepared for the links that make a story go from A to B; however, the further into this piece I went, the more the lines got shorter and like poetry without line breaks, and so my brain started tripping on its shoelaces.

Vaughan also captures humor (often using dipshits) in a collection that takes on a love and lust. One dipshit leaves a relationship and "signs" it with his personal stench--

The weekend before you moved out, you farted in my sister's elevator and other people got on and you said my name and fanned the air. I pretended it was funny. By then you farted so many times I honestly thought it was me.

There is a broken heart that lingers under this collection, but one that tries to rise. Images of flying and wishing and hoping run throughout the collection and made my heart a little happy and a little hopeful.

[Ryan Werner · Rating 3 out of 5]

A book of lives almost started and lives almost lost. In Addicts & Basements, the book's three sections manifest into larger versions of themselves: Addicts shows how we're all slaves to something, & is the in-between parts of us for better or worse, and Basements moves to the literal, unifying theme of basements, the underneath of what goes around and comes around.

I get a bit lost with the extreme brevity to the poems and stories, and while some feel complete, others seem like mere beginnings or middles. I'm definitely interested to see what Vaughan can do when spinning a yarn.

Where Vaughan hooks me is in his attachment to the absurd through wonderment. In "The Femur" when the man can't part with his grandfather's femur. In "Hummingbirds" where he asks "when am I perfect, and will you be looking the other way?"

Also, the book starts off with a preamble containing Morrissey lyrics. I couldn't not be a fan.

[Trevor · Rating 5 out of 5]

All 30 stories in this chapbook from Deadly Chaps stayed with me long after reading them all in one sitting. It's a great follow-up to Vaughan's first collection, Microtones. These stories are haunting, melodic, prose and poetry combined as forte; Vaughan's writing lies someplace between the two genres and the combined form of his pieces are outstanding. Some of my personal favorites are "Ten Notes to the Guy Studying Jujitsu," "Seven Shades of James," and the last story, "Gauze, A Medical Dressing, A Scrim," which won a prize in the Flash Fiction Chronicles 2013 contest. Plus, how can you not love the title of the collection? Get this book now!

[Erin · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is the people that were once in our lives that make us who we are. We carry them with us when they aren't here anymore. And that's the secret: they never really leave. I wasn't prepared to ache so much when I read this collection. To be perfectly honest, I haven't been able to read more than a couple of pieces in one sitting. It took me a few weeks, this slim, slim book. Seven Shades of James and Elements of K. My God, the words cut like paper. So surgically precise that I didn't feel the blood until I was wiping tears from my eyes in silence, at once seeing and missing everyone I have every lost.

[Michael Maxwell · Rating 5 out of 5]

The work of a prolific writer and artist in full bloom and full voice. His previous books, Microtones and Diptychs (et al) worked up a fully stoked head of steam that lead up perfectly to this collection of odd and unusual, yet beautifully lyrical and compelling stories. Watch for more from Robert Vaughan, because, in many ways, he's just getting started.

[Robb Todd]

Robert Vaughn wants the reader to care about the moment. This moment right now, this eternal moment, that most people let slip by. And he made me care. He isolates incidents to great effect and forced my eyes through his to see what he sees and feel what he feels, which is all I ever want from a book. Thank you thank you thank you.

[Sheldon Compton · Rating 5 out of 5]

I slowed down while reading this fine offering. I like when a book makes you do that, slow down and taste it, smell it, turn each word over in your mind. Robert has his finger on the pulse of how people can spin off one to another. He caught all that pain and hope and the joy of it nicely in these poems and flashes. Great command, wonderful structure and control. This one is a fine jewel.

[Robert Vaughan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This chapbook is all about those quirky stories told in chunks- two halves, or three sections, like ABC or 123. And not as simple as do-re-mi. No, not for the light-hearted. Still, plenty of laughs among the darker pathos. I do so hope you enjoy it!

[Mike Moulton · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic read, full of twists and surprises you couldn't possibly see coming. Highly recommended.

[Jr Price · Rating 5 out of 5]

Plumbing the depths of human emotion and never skimping, Vaughan really delivers in this collection. I want to read it over and over.

[Mike Moulton · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic and innovative. Every piece surprised me. I highly recommend this book!

[Ben · Rating 5 out of 5]

So much life lived.

More - http://bentanzer.blogspot.com/2015/05...

[Joseph Spuckler · Rating 5 out of 5]

Addicts & Basements by Robert Vaughan is a collection of free verse poetry. Vaughan is the former fiction editor at “Thunderclap!” and currently is the senior flash fiction editor at JMWW as well as the poetry and fiction editor at Lost in Thought Magazine. His work has appeared in numerous print and online journals. Vaughan was a finalist in the 2012 Micro-fiction Awards and a finalist in the 2013 Gertrude Stein Award.

Poetry is something fairly new to me. My start was with my history background and World War I poetry. I have since started taking poetry collection in for review and ran the gamut of themes and poets. From the traditional, to open verse, to truly experimental, and poets from pastoral, to inner city, to LGBT poetry have all become part of my reading. For contemporary poetry I prefer that gritty, Selby-esqe, rough, punk rock type of writing. When I received the request for Addicts & Basements, I accepted it because it looked to fit my preferences. The title, a play on words, reminded me of the Neil Young song The Needle and the Damage done. Addicts & Basements did have the grittiness I expected and shockingly sometimes went much deeper than socially acceptable grit, but nothing deeper than real life.

“The Black Sea” seems to set that tone but with grace and style. I had a feeling that this collection would be something I would like when the introduction featured three quotes one from William S. Burroughs, one from Virginia Woolf, and one from Morrissey — whom I know as the guy who sings Meat is Murder. My kind of people. Some poems have a very dark underside to happy family life like “Vaporous” others seem all out creepy, like “A Wonderful Life.” “On the Wings of a Dove” is a touching tribute to Matthew Wayne Shepard. Other poems relate to real life. We all know someone like the speaker in “Pool Hall.” “The Basement” relates to the fear I experienced of my own basement as a child. It was not a dead cat that did it to me, rather it was Dark Shadows. The feeling, however, is still the same.

The voice speaking the poems seemed to change throughout the book. There is a voice speaking as a father, one as a boy who knits a pink scarf for his grandmother, a young woman, and at times the reader is left to determine the gender or orientation of the speaker. This may be a bit confusing for those who associate the writer as the speaker. The writer, however, is an artist not a gender, or as Patti Smith put it: When I’m writing a poem or drawing, I am not female; I’m an artist. Perhaps, it is one step farther than that as Smith also says: “All gender is a drag.”

Intermixed in the collection are two poems that held a personal meaning with me. “Wheels” is fifteen lines about going back to his Schwinn. “The Patio” is about witnessing a cyclist getting hit by a car. In a split second the customers enjoying margaritas and queso and suddenly experience a bicycle getting mangled and a cyclist going through a car’s windshield.

Addicts & Basements is that real life poetry. It does not apologize for its contents. It reports from various angles, on various themes, from various witnesses to produce a real look at the world and the relationships of its inhabitants. Addicts & Basements pushes the reader out of his or her comfort zone. It leaders the reader through the underbelly of society very much in the same way Virgil lead Dante. A truly outstanding collection of cutting edge poetry.

Joseph Spuckler gives Addicts & Basements 5 Stars

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