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Super Cell Anemia
Rare book
244 pages, Paperback
First published January 9, 2008
1 person is currently reading
66 people want to read
About the author
Duncan B. Barlow
6 books33 followersBefore writing, duncan b. barlow was a touring musician who played with Endpoint, By The Grace of God, Guilt, the aasee lake, The Lull Account, Good Riddance, and many more. His interviews about music and subculture have been published in academic texts, books, and magazines such as: Straight Edge: Clean-Living Youth, Hardcore Punk, and Social Change on Rutgers University Press, and We Owe You Nothing: Punk Planet Collected Interviews on Akashic., and Burning Fight on Revelation Records. He has one published novel (Super Cell Anemia) and two books forthcoming (Of Flesh and Fur on the Cupboard, 2016 and The City, Awake on Stalking Horse, 2017). His work has appeared in The Denver Quarterly, The Collagist, Banango Street, Calamari Press, The Apeiron Review, Meat for Tea, and Masque and Spectacle. He teaches creative writing and publishing at The University of South Dakota, where he is publisher at Astrophil Press and the managing editor at South Dakota Review. He has also edited for Tarpaulin Sky, The Bombay Gin, among others.
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
March 29, 2008
Super Cell Anemia is the best new novel I've read so far this year. It shows the influence of a couple of Barlow's mentors (Brian Evenson and Laird Hunt), but the author clearly has his own take on things -- the world he creates seems both foreign and tangible, the characters totally convincing despite the strange scenarios they're placed in. Pay attention to this guy.
March 27, 2009
Super Cell Anemia
By duncan b. barlow
Afterbirth books
226 pages.
This is a debut novel, but I’ve been following the work of Duncan Barlow the artist for many years. My senior year of high school I would travel all over the Midwest to watch him play guitar in the legendary Louisville hardcore band Endpoint. On the surface Endpoint was just another hardcore act but their emotional shows and genre bending records played with convention. Barlow himself has said it seems like another lifetime. Duncan also played in bands such as the Lull Account, Step Down, By the Grace of God, Dbiddle and my favorite Guilt.
The most important thing for those of you unfamiliar with Duncan’s musical work is that it was always powerful, original and deeply creative. So the when the news came that one of my favorite presses was set to release barlow’s first novel I was excited. The novel Super Cell Anemia proves in the medium of prose that Duncan Barlow is an artist that values creative expression.
SCA is about Giles a germ-a-phobe who is so electrified that he relies on an experimental treatment (involving biting copper) to deal with his rare illness. Giles has moved to Cincinnati to continue this treatment and be close to his doctor. As you read the book you begin to wonder how much you can trust the journal entries that often competes with the present tense narrative.
There are two great strengths to this book. The first is the subtle nature of Barlow’s take on the absurd. I enjoy the over the top whacky-ness of some Bizarro authors like Bradley Sands (also an afterbirth author) and D.Harlan Wilson Especially but this book has different take. Like a slow burn gothic horror novel the moments of the absurd are peppered brilliantly through the first hundred pages. From there the strangeness of the book expands like lungs sucking in a deep breath.
The second strength is the structure. Giles neighbors get stranger, his doctor goes off on convincing pseudo scientific monologues and most unsettling is the half man calico cat Giles knows is stalking him.
This is an unsettling debut in all the right ways. Effectively organized through journal entries, narratives from shifting perspectives, and chapters focused on the various rooms and neighbors in Giles building are an inventive touch that relates to the character nicely. My favorite was room 104 where Giles obsesses over the sound of his neighbors late night pisses.
Super Cell Anemia is a doozy of a character based Bizzaro novel. Excellently written and everything I hoped for when I started it. Duncan Barlow has transcended my perceptions of him as an artist. He is a great novelist who happens to also be a pretty good musician. If you like a strange read this book needs to be on your TBR pile.
By duncan b. barlow
Afterbirth books
226 pages.
This is a debut novel, but I’ve been following the work of Duncan Barlow the artist for many years. My senior year of high school I would travel all over the Midwest to watch him play guitar in the legendary Louisville hardcore band Endpoint. On the surface Endpoint was just another hardcore act but their emotional shows and genre bending records played with convention. Barlow himself has said it seems like another lifetime. Duncan also played in bands such as the Lull Account, Step Down, By the Grace of God, Dbiddle and my favorite Guilt.
The most important thing for those of you unfamiliar with Duncan’s musical work is that it was always powerful, original and deeply creative. So the when the news came that one of my favorite presses was set to release barlow’s first novel I was excited. The novel Super Cell Anemia proves in the medium of prose that Duncan Barlow is an artist that values creative expression.
SCA is about Giles a germ-a-phobe who is so electrified that he relies on an experimental treatment (involving biting copper) to deal with his rare illness. Giles has moved to Cincinnati to continue this treatment and be close to his doctor. As you read the book you begin to wonder how much you can trust the journal entries that often competes with the present tense narrative.
There are two great strengths to this book. The first is the subtle nature of Barlow’s take on the absurd. I enjoy the over the top whacky-ness of some Bizarro authors like Bradley Sands (also an afterbirth author) and D.Harlan Wilson Especially but this book has different take. Like a slow burn gothic horror novel the moments of the absurd are peppered brilliantly through the first hundred pages. From there the strangeness of the book expands like lungs sucking in a deep breath.
The second strength is the structure. Giles neighbors get stranger, his doctor goes off on convincing pseudo scientific monologues and most unsettling is the half man calico cat Giles knows is stalking him.
This is an unsettling debut in all the right ways. Effectively organized through journal entries, narratives from shifting perspectives, and chapters focused on the various rooms and neighbors in Giles building are an inventive touch that relates to the character nicely. My favorite was room 104 where Giles obsesses over the sound of his neighbors late night pisses.
Super Cell Anemia is a doozy of a character based Bizzaro novel. Excellently written and everything I hoped for when I started it. Duncan Barlow has transcended my perceptions of him as an artist. He is a great novelist who happens to also be a pretty good musician. If you like a strange read this book needs to be on your TBR pile.
January 17, 2009
It served as my guidebook to northern Thialand:
http://5cense.com/Siam/3_Thaixtures.htm
Gilles is the electrically charged (literally), obsessive-compulsive, germophobe hero/anti-hero. He periodically needs to chomp on copper strips to diffuse excess charge that builds up in his body. This strange condition provides a certain tension to the book—when you're reading for a while and he hasn't discharged, you almost feel yourself charging with him, in need of release. In a paranoid and hyper-aware state, Gilles navigates through a world of bizarre characters including a calico-cat man, a strangely sympathetic landlord and his confidante Dr. Moore who strives to understand Gilles' ailments, though he appears to have ulterior motives of his own, to use Gilles as his guinea pig. And there's his love interest, Charlie, through which Duncan exposes the strangeness of human dating (when you stop to think about it) by breaking "contact" down to a molecular, germ-obsessed level.
http://5cense.com/Siam/3_Thaixtures.htm
Gilles is the electrically charged (literally), obsessive-compulsive, germophobe hero/anti-hero. He periodically needs to chomp on copper strips to diffuse excess charge that builds up in his body. This strange condition provides a certain tension to the book—when you're reading for a while and he hasn't discharged, you almost feel yourself charging with him, in need of release. In a paranoid and hyper-aware state, Gilles navigates through a world of bizarre characters including a calico-cat man, a strangely sympathetic landlord and his confidante Dr. Moore who strives to understand Gilles' ailments, though he appears to have ulterior motives of his own, to use Gilles as his guinea pig. And there's his love interest, Charlie, through which Duncan exposes the strangeness of human dating (when you stop to think about it) by breaking "contact" down to a molecular, germ-obsessed level.
March 12, 2017
Fantastic. Strange. Brave. Disconcerting. And above all (for me): Haunting. Duncan b. Barlow's SUPER CELL ANEMIA is a portal into an alternate reality of Cincinnati, one filled with the nefarious Calicoman, the peculiar and ever precarious Dr. Moore, Charlie the part-time sex store worker, part-time hypnotic dancer, and Gilles, our protagonist, the germaphobe, anxiety-ridden man who shoots electricity from his body. If Gilles' problems were not enough, he finds himself wrestling with reality itself and desperately trying to find the threads of truth that connect the people around him.
It's hard to classify this book. It's filed under BIZARRO but that may not encapsulate all of it: SUPER CELL ANEMIA is what happens when the Twilight Zone meets SlaughterHouse Five. And for those of you wondering, Duncan masterfully blends them together in a compelling tale that left me wanting more long after the final page.
It's hard to classify this book. It's filed under BIZARRO but that may not encapsulate all of it: SUPER CELL ANEMIA is what happens when the Twilight Zone meets SlaughterHouse Five. And for those of you wondering, Duncan masterfully blends them together in a compelling tale that left me wanting more long after the final page.
July 2, 2009
About a dude named Gilles that is afflicted by electrical storms within his body. He is also pursuing a relationship with a beautiful dancer--Charlie--while being watched by a voyeuristic half-cat/half-man. Tight writing, shifts in perspective, and smart vernacular.
May 21, 2008
WOW! This book was really great. I was impressed by the characters and all the intricate details. It sure does take you on a wild ride of the mind, heart, and soul.
August 22, 2009
Please read my review of this one here: http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-83...
September 8, 2016
Mysterious energy powers, a cat-man, and secret chambers beneath Cincinnati. Very nice.
February 10, 2009
oh duncan. he wrote this! what an accomplishment... i hold this book near and dear to me...for many reasons. if i were to attempt to write a "real" review, i'd embarrass myself.
April 21, 2012
Creepy and engaging. The question is: when will David Lynch buy the rights?
August 19, 2009
What the fuck, man.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews