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Xanadu, Pennsylvania
Welcome to Xanadu, PA. In this town, Olivia Newton-John reigns, her music videos appear on every TV, fist fights are common, some children kill while others make trouble, hearts are broken, and drugs and alcohol are household items. This was once a thriving small town. I don't know what went wrong. But one thing's for You can't escape her out here.
107 pages, Kindle Edition
Published August 1, 2026
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
August 26, 2026
There is a very clear Harmony Korine influence on Alex Osman's work, and this will undoubtedly draw parallels to GUMMO (I've drawn some, myself) but there is a profoundly sincere heart that is beating at the center of Xanadu, Pennsylvania, and it pumps a much more vibrant, magical type of blood. While the kids of Xanadu, PA (much like the kids of Xenia, OH) are also partial to activities like huffing glue and killing cats and doing impressions of Roy Orbison, there is an unreality imbued in the air that casts a fantastic light on these scenes.
September 2, 2026
I’ve realized recently, that over the past year I’ve been unconsciously trying to form some kind of a mental map, as relates to towns showcased in fiction. On the surface that sounds like a pointless endeavor. Fiction prose are choked with such places. That’s not exactly what I am referring to, for that would indeed, in my opinion be a colossal endeavor and waste of my time. Instead what I am moving towards is shaping some kind of a hauntological road map.
Hauntology, as first presented by french philosopher Jaccque Derrida, refers to the concept of relics of past iterations of society and culture that linger in the present. In his article “What Is Hauntology?” published in FILM QUARTERLY (Fall 2012), British Theorist Mark Fisher said the following:
What haunts the digital cul-de-sacs of the twenty-first
century is not so much the past as all the lost futures that
the twentieth century taught us to anticipate. The futures
that have been lost were more than a matter of musical
style. More broadly, and more troublingly, the disappear-
ance of the future meant the deterioration of a whole mode
of social imagination: the capacity to conceive of a world
radically different from the one in which we currently live.
(Mark Fisher, What is Hauntology? Film Quarterly,vol.66, no.1, pg.16)
While he was specifically writing about electronic music and the visual mediums of television and film, I found Fisher’s expansion from Derrida’s initial term to by sync with this mental geography of the locations, represented in the works of independent authors. The small towns, the relics and derelicts that retain presence and weight. The assumed move to make them all be from works of explicit horror fiction would be a grave error. Works like Alex Osman’s Xanadu, Pennsylvania, are a prime example of what would be passed over, in such a situation. Yet another reason categorizing books by genre can be helpful in some cases, but if relied on too heavily it becomes a weakness, blinding you to what’s waiting in prose works that exist beyond such confines.
Xanadu, Pennsylvania seems to occupy that very space that both Fisher and Derrida are referring to. The dark thoughts and raw emotions of a multi-generational collection of refugees who are doomed to inhabit a place built up from the detritus of what was. A fading echo of a community that is eating itself alive. This doesn’t feel like you’re reading a novel. Instead it’s like you’re pouring over a collection of videotapes and film transcripts. It’s engrossing, you find yourself trying to build a complete picture of this place, of Xanadu, with a film negative of Olivia Newton John burned into the background. The manifested avatar of this place. The totem for Xanadu Pennsylvania’s own twisted Hauntology.
That hauntological road map, those dots my mind is working to connect. Throughout the reading of Osmon’s book I found myself uncovering points of connection, pathways to Kayli Scholz’s YeeHaw Junction. To be clear, Xanadu is completely separate and original work in its own right. This seemed to be purely a case of synchronicity. Both Osman and Scholz have written books about places and people that have become nothing more than the detritus on the side of the road, passed by and ignored society by the masses. Scholz’s book zeroes seems more intimate at times and has grisly quality of a nightmare. Osman’s Xanadu draws a wider circle, zeroing on the collective masses of a place and the bleak webbing running between everyone present. There was a intimate aspect to everything that made one feel like you were peering into private matters. But, now that you see it all, you’re part of it. You too are in Xanadu.
Grab a copy of Alex Osman’s Xanadu, Pennsylvania here:
https://filthyloot.com/product/xanadu...
Grab a copy of Kayli Scholz’s Yeehaw Junction here:
https://www.moonstruck-books.com/shop...
Hauntology, as first presented by french philosopher Jaccque Derrida, refers to the concept of relics of past iterations of society and culture that linger in the present. In his article “What Is Hauntology?” published in FILM QUARTERLY (Fall 2012), British Theorist Mark Fisher said the following:
What haunts the digital cul-de-sacs of the twenty-first
century is not so much the past as all the lost futures that
the twentieth century taught us to anticipate. The futures
that have been lost were more than a matter of musical
style. More broadly, and more troublingly, the disappear-
ance of the future meant the deterioration of a whole mode
of social imagination: the capacity to conceive of a world
radically different from the one in which we currently live.
(Mark Fisher, What is Hauntology? Film Quarterly,vol.66, no.1, pg.16)
While he was specifically writing about electronic music and the visual mediums of television and film, I found Fisher’s expansion from Derrida’s initial term to by sync with this mental geography of the locations, represented in the works of independent authors. The small towns, the relics and derelicts that retain presence and weight. The assumed move to make them all be from works of explicit horror fiction would be a grave error. Works like Alex Osman’s Xanadu, Pennsylvania, are a prime example of what would be passed over, in such a situation. Yet another reason categorizing books by genre can be helpful in some cases, but if relied on too heavily it becomes a weakness, blinding you to what’s waiting in prose works that exist beyond such confines.
Xanadu, Pennsylvania seems to occupy that very space that both Fisher and Derrida are referring to. The dark thoughts and raw emotions of a multi-generational collection of refugees who are doomed to inhabit a place built up from the detritus of what was. A fading echo of a community that is eating itself alive. This doesn’t feel like you’re reading a novel. Instead it’s like you’re pouring over a collection of videotapes and film transcripts. It’s engrossing, you find yourself trying to build a complete picture of this place, of Xanadu, with a film negative of Olivia Newton John burned into the background. The manifested avatar of this place. The totem for Xanadu Pennsylvania’s own twisted Hauntology.
That hauntological road map, those dots my mind is working to connect. Throughout the reading of Osmon’s book I found myself uncovering points of connection, pathways to Kayli Scholz’s YeeHaw Junction. To be clear, Xanadu is completely separate and original work in its own right. This seemed to be purely a case of synchronicity. Both Osman and Scholz have written books about places and people that have become nothing more than the detritus on the side of the road, passed by and ignored society by the masses. Scholz’s book zeroes seems more intimate at times and has grisly quality of a nightmare. Osman’s Xanadu draws a wider circle, zeroing on the collective masses of a place and the bleak webbing running between everyone present. There was a intimate aspect to everything that made one feel like you were peering into private matters. But, now that you see it all, you’re part of it. You too are in Xanadu.
Grab a copy of Alex Osman’s Xanadu, Pennsylvania here:
https://filthyloot.com/product/xanadu...
Grab a copy of Kayli Scholz’s Yeehaw Junction here:
https://www.moonstruck-books.com/shop...
August 21, 2026
Really liked the form of the novel and the vignette style unified the concept of a town in stifling decline effectively. The dreary totality of a place that provides solely death for nourishment is well articulated through exploring how that fatalism quickly infects the youth of Xanadu. This was clearly written by someone who knows what it’s like to have to decide to leave all that behind and has none of that fake horror detachment of the current Brett Easton Ellis worshipping crew of hipsters trying to write about the decay in America. Well crafted little novel and I am excited to see more from the author.
October 10, 2026
Unhinged and beautiful. A train wreck you can’t look away from. I loved it.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews