From Jamie Grefe, author of Domo ArigaDIE!!! (Rooster Republic Press), The Mondo Vixen Massacre (Eraserhead Press), and the man responsible for the official novelizations of Tim Heidecker and Gregg Turkington’s Adult Swim series Decker: Classified and Decker: Port of Call: Hawaii, comes a double-novella nightmare of fevered desire gone mad, trans-dimensional horror, and brain-smearing sensationalism.
In Static, a bewildered man stumbles through a hellish desert-mansion orgy in search of the woman he loves only to find a deranged complexity of fleshy doom, seedy motel rooms full of secrets, and the struggle to overcome the priestly fingers of fate’s sadism.
Orgone mesmerizes readers into the psychomagical world of a post-apocalyptic performance artist who takes vengeance on a spiritual assassin who may have murdered his wife, but when his vengeance awakens a mythical beast, the giant corpse of his dead wife, and Dr. Wilhelm Reich himself, he must harness the power of orgone energy to obliterate the trauma of his past.
With original illustrations by Luke Spooner, this is a literary experience not to be missed.
Grefe is the author of THE MONDO VIXEN MASSACRE (Eraserhead Press), CANNIBAL FATALES (Dynatox Ministries), and MUTAGON II (Dynatox Ministries). Short stories, non-fiction, and poetry have been published in such venues as Birkensnake, elimae, New Dead Families, The Bacon Review, Sein und Werden, Counterexample Poetics, Pulp Metal Magazine, LIES/ISLE, Untoward Magazine and Gone Lawn.
Besides writing, Grefe has performed noise/experimental music alongside such acts as Runzelstirn and Gurgelstock, Magical Power Mako, Yan Jun, and Violent Onsen Geisha.
Static/Orzone is a diptych of modern art. These two stories are told in a highly graphic and meticulously worded style. Neither story is for the faint of heart, but for those who persevere, the results are stunning. In Static, a man searches for the woman he desires during a vividly described orgy of pleasure and pain. Scenery shifts dizzyingly between the mansion where the party is being hosted to a sordid motel room and then to the office building where the main characters meet. The novelette is a nightmarish blending of images and actions that are psychosexual in nature. Love and attraction are objectified, questioned, and are left to wander the recesses of the reader's mind. Much of the content remained with me for days.
Orzone is a different beast. The world has been decimated and recreated. Motley survivors take hope from a shaman, who attempts to harness the power of orgone to strengthen their resolve. A portrait is painted of a world based on spirituality, primal rage, physical transformation, and, ultimately, love. The author's writing is ferocious and reshapes each page into a new dimension of color, shade and image. The experiences of the shaman are intertwined with those of his wife, his enemy, and his colleague. The result is an electric and powerful tale that is as visual as it is visceral. I was moved, impressed and entranced by this story. I would highly recommend this book to anyone with a bold and adventurous mind.
The first tale is “Static,” a quest to be reunited with the love of your life in three disorienting settings. The debauchery of the orgy is described in a way that is otherworldly. The prose is remarkably fluid for being so dreamlike. My first reaction was, “Is this the same Grefe?” I was impressed to say the least.
The last piece “Orgone” pits two shaman who can channel the esoteric force first suggested by William Reich (who also makes an appearance) against each other in a bizarre world nearly too rich for words. Through it all, Grefe pulls off the surreality effortlessly. In both novellas text is used like brush strokes painting vividly rich scenes. A mindblowing book that I am still recovering from, my brain tainted and spellbound.
We've all read, and in some cases written, reviews where the reviewer calls the language lyrical, and in most cases it's easy to see that it's at least partly used to fluff the word count without any real substance or meaning. But in the case of Static and Orgone, it's the absolute truth, and that's not to say that it's like poetry. It is by every definition of the word a fictive work of pure poesy. Bizarro Pulp Press editor Vincenzo Bilof called Grefe's work "image-language, heavy and rhythmic," and I couldn't say it better than that.
The first novella Static is the story of a man looking for a woman he loves in a love hotel somewhere in the desert where an orgy is currently happening. It's a modern spin off the Opheus myth who went to hell to retrieve his wandering wife. It's cool, it's thoroughly well-written and I enjoyed the nightmare-fueled anthropomorphism. The orgy seems like a living being. It's just that...it's all there is to it. It's enjoyable like a painting is, except it's 60 pages long.
The best way I can descrive Orgone is that it's like a Jodorowsky movie that was never shot. Except I never really found the philosophical driving through. It's oppressively surreal, violent and gory. I can enjoy all three things with a context, but here it left me out to dry. James Grefe is definitely skilled, the guy can write a spellbinding scene, but there's not much storytelling here. At least not put in any dynamic manner.
From Jamie Grefe, author of Domo ArigaDIE!!! (Rooster Republic Press), The Mondo Vixen Massacre (Eraserhead Press), and the man responsible for the official novelizations of Tim Heidecker and Gregg Turkington’s Adult Swim series Decker: Classified and Decker: Port of Call: Hawaii, comes a double-novella nightmare of fevered desire gone mad, trans-dimensional horror, and brain-smearing sensationalism.
In Static, a bewildered man stumbles through a hellish desert-mansion orgy in search of the woman he loves only to find a deranged complexity of fleshy doom, seedy motel rooms full of secrets, and the struggle to overcome the priestly fingers of fate’s sadism.
Orgone mesmerizes readers into the psychomagical world of a post-apocalyptic performance artist who takes vengeance on a spiritual assassin who may have murdered his wife, but when his vengeance awakens a mythical beast, the giant corpse of his dead wife, and Dr. Wilhelm Reich himself, he must harness the power of orgone energy to obliterate the trauma of his past.
With original illustrations by Luke Spooner, this is a literary experience not to be missed.
When Vincenzo Bilof, who knows something of my tastes, presented me with Jamie Grefe's new book he told me if I like poetic prose I'd love Static/Orgone. Of course, I certainly do love that sort of writing so I approached the book with some measure of both anticipation and slight skepticism. I trust Vincenzo, but I've heard that description used hyperbolically so many times that it's hard to take it without at least a small grain of salt. But Bilof is a straight shooter and I can say with confidence that he was spot on with this book. So let me tell you just a small amount about the two stories here and then I'll get on with what I'm so obviously leading up to here.
You can read Shane's full review at Horror DNA by clicking here.
Extremely evocative language that I can only describe as stifling. It is an inherently erotic book, but eroticism that is taken to such extremes that it turns into a suffocating nightmare that the reader feels compelled to finish.