Ark

by Jesse Miller, Timm Tayshun (Editor)

Imagine the son of Cinderella and Noah. That's Alabaster Ash, professional window washer and amateur foot fetishist, thrall to his three physically fit, brutally aggressive stepsisters. After polishing foot after foot of glass in the gingerbread city of Candyland and cleaning up after the “wicked stairmasters,” he haunts the bars and streets looking for love and appreciation -or a really nice pair of feet.Like it or not, Alabaster finds himself reliving and reimagining his parents' lives as he roams from bar to bar, from thrill ride to stunt show in the linguistic funland that is Ark.

232 pages, Paperback

First published February 28, 2014

Reviews

[Karissa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Viewing the world through Alabaster Ash's eyes is like entering a realm that is parallel to our own. There are hints of familiarity that seep through from time to time(The Red Sox), but the time on these pages is spent mostly in the foreign waters of the mind of Alabaster. It is quite the journey.

[Janeth · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked to see invented words that I couldn´t find in the dictionary but for the context I could understand, it is a book where you can see jumps in the plot, sometimes you find a description of nasty and weird things and a second later the story uses a softer vocabulary, also It has a dramatic entonation and I liked the way how the author gives examples about the vocabulary that He uses. It´s a book that always wakes your feelings, you can expect surprises with this book for that reason I recommend to you. It´s easy to read and you are always expecting more.

[Almas Shamim · Rating 1 out of 5]

Recently read the Ark by Jesse Miller which I received via the Common Deer Press. Unfortunately, I did not enjoy the book much. I am not a very big fan of books that are too....ornate with words. Such books are not thought provoking and not emotion-stirring, they just take up time and energy in even understanding what the author is trying to say. It may be a great literary piece (I don't know!), maybe a piece of art... but we are not all compelled to like every piece of art in the world. I am sure Ark would make more sense to someone to is used to reading this kind of prose. Sorry, but, I give it just one star! :(

[Lynda Stevens · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ark reads in the form of a surreal stream of consciousness, as the window-cleanimg narrator tells of his adventures with his workmates and three hefty sisters.

As such, the language is ornate, with make-up expressions, in a world where even train tracks become sexualised in the Alabaster's heated imagination maltreatmentcouched in indirect terms of phrase. Is he really hung on a coat hanger? Is he really sent away with a flea in his ear after providing his sister with the winning lottery numbers, not to be shared with him?

Alcoholism figures, in what seems to be a shabby demi-monde on which the narrator appears to vomit a lot, do that the good window cleaner appears to lead a somewhat hapless, sad and sordid life.

There is no doubt the writer is a wordsmith of some skill, no doubt too, to be entertaining to those who enjoy writers who play with words on this way. This was less my cup of tea however: it might be yours if you pine a possible successor to works of a more Joycean persuasion.