Say, Cut, Map

by Ken Baumann

“Say, Cut, Map stakes out a literary terrain that so far has no name. Its constantly shifting cartography is made up of severed hands, premature burials, hospital wards, and fragile families. This novel of compounding mysteries redraws itself from sentence to sentence, while still relentlessly propelling the reader through its pages. Ken Baumann has constructed a dazzling mirage that pulses with real emotion.” —Jeff Jackson

140 pages, ebook

First published December 13, 2013

About the author

Ken Baumann is a writer who lives in New Mexico.

Reviews

[Jeff Jackson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Say, Cut, Map stakes out a literary terrain that so far has no name. Its constantly shifting cartography is made up of severed hands, premature burials, hospital wards, and fragile families. This novel of compounding mysteries redraws itself from sentence to sentence, while still relentlessly propelling the reader through its pages. Ken Baumann has constructed a dazzling mirage that pulses with real emotion. It's a book I look forward to re-reading over the years.

[Jamie Grefe · Rating 5 out of 5]

A cutting against narrative. A gelatinous disconnection. A story as told as if opening up a body and writing within the folds of what falls out, what is left behind---language and skin. And voice dropping to speak in bursts, calculated and mystifying.

[J.A. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Like Solip, this novella challenges us in terms of narrative, but it is totally worth the fight. This might even be Baumann's best, especially given the syntactical brevity he uses within a complex narrative structure. Congrats to Blue Square Press for publishing another firecracker of a book and Baumann for writing as he writes, without hesitation.

[Jeremy Maddux · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'll give this three stars because it's over.

I can tolerate and even love stream of consciousness writing under the right circumstances. I enjoy the biographical slant on Kerouac's spontaneous prose, and Burroughs' feverish sci-fi noirotica. But the only thing this text has going for it is its lyrical flow. Unfortunately, that's not enough for me. Sometimes, authors will play the cop out game by saying that, if you didn't understand their book, then you're just not intelligent enough to get it. But if that's possible, then it's also possible the author wasn't intelligent enough to efficiently communicate what was going on in his head. That is not the case. I have read Ken Baumann speaking in straight, linear fashion as recently as his book about the Japanese video game Earthbound, for Boss Fight Books. And I enjoyed the hell out of that one. I even enjoyed his previous empty prose marathon, Solip. More than this one, actually.

Just once, I would like to see Ken Baumann write something that told an actual linear, coherent story that I know he has in him. But this? People won't remember this, I'm sorry to say. It will only serve to bookend people's favorite book lists filled with The Human War, What Purpose Did I Serve In Your Life and Scorch Atlas.

[Brooks Sterritt · Rating 5 out of 5]

"A pile of mulch overtaken by a pile of ivy. The look before he drank his juice..."

[Ken Baumann · Rating 5 out of 5]

When I reread Say, Cut, Map, I'm not disappointed.

[Sofia · Rating 1 out of 5]

Looking forward to A Task; this just didn't work for me, no matter how I tried to read it.