A Completely Nonexistent Carnival

by Cavin Bryce Gonzalez

He refuses to leave his house. The ramen boxes are piling up. Bong water seeps into the floors. He has forgotten how it feels to touch another person. Paranoia peaks as reality dissolves, as eyes turn to shredded gelatin and we are consumed whole by the shadow of every person who has ever lived. Rats dance about the kitchen. Sharks infest the bath tub. Ducks and deer are lured into a living room where the TV has gone static. And his brain has gone static. The medicine has stopped working. And, if you listen closely, you can hear carnival music leaking from his eyes and ears and mouth.

Genres: Fiction, Poetry

131 pages, Paperback

Published February 27, 2021

About the author

Cavin Bryce Gonzalez is the former prose editor for Soft Cartel. He founded Back Patio Press because making books is fun.

Reviews

[Alan ten-Hoeve · Rating 5 out of 5]

I COULD BE YOUR NEIGHBOR, ISN'T THAT HORRIFYING? had me thinking Cavin might be one of the best writers out there. A COMPLETELY NONEXISTENT CARNIVAL solidified that for me.

[Tao · Rating 5 out of 5]

"All I want is change so I caught and am now training a falcon to take my place in the world."

[Cavin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow... he's done it again. What can't this guy do?

[Tom Snarsky · Rating 5 out of 5]

In his song "My Name Is Carnival", Jackson C. Frank delivers the almost-a-perfect-haiku line, "Here there is no law but the arcade's penny claw, hanging empty." Any time I encounter the carnival-as-image in a poem or a book it filters through that line in my head, and Cavin B. Gonzalez's A Completely Nonexistent Carnival comes out the other side of that filtration like strong sweet tea. The book is beautifully designed by Gonzalez himself with a stunning cover by Zoë Blair-Schlagenhauf, foregoing the typical red-and-white carnival color scheme (e.g. 🎪) for a cool blue kingdom animalia that previews ACNS's charmingly gregarious, zoological melancholy. The book is a bestiary in the best sense: there are Monopoly-playing crows, business falcons, salamanders, magic rabbits, de facto emotional support dogs, bugs, alligators, chipmunks, cats, fish, and (of course this is a poetry book) birds birds birds. What unites these creatures is an "I", a King of the Rats, who is sharing dreams and nostalgias and lonelinesses with us the reader as we are charged with the impossible task of remembrance: "Please bury what's left of me in a garden so that the carrots and the beets and the weeds, too, can weave their roots through my ribcage and eye sockets and I can finally bring life to this world." The weeds, too, can weave. I loved reading this book all the way through to the end and realizing that quote, which I had taken a picture of on my phone, was on the back cover. It's a privilege to be, even implicitly, the "you" of this book. Cav, in Jackson C. Frank's parlance, "I read your words like black hungry birds read every sowin’." & the harvest, it looks well.

[Peter Tyree Morrison Colwell · Rating 5 out of 5]

A Completely Nonexistent Carnival by Cavin Bryce Gonzalez resists convention from the start, or before the start, depending on where you start. Among copyright and publishing credits, this book includes a declaration instead of a disclaimer: “This is a scientific study. All of this really, really happened and it’s happening still, right now, to me, and maybe to you, and that’s why I’ve gone ahead and published this book. . . .” The book proceeds in unnumbered pages that deliver glimpses of daily life, portrayed in fragmented scenes, thoughts, and poems. Depth, style, and heart abound to the end, where readers who like options may be pleased to find an alternate ending. A Completely Nonexistent Carnival comes from Back Patio Press, a brash independent outfit from Florida that publishes an array of innovative literary and art works.

[Tyler Dempsey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cavin's work has three main riffs: Work, Home-Gas Station-Home, and a 3rd.

A Completely Nonexistent Carnival, is his first book-length-lean into number 3. For folks who follow his work online, you know it—the softer riff.

Where he rubs your shoulders and darts his tongue up and down your earlobe. Where, into your hands he places it.

The two of you stare at your two hands. With his Redwood-sized heart on top of them.

An ecosystem in its canopy.

If you're a writer, and know him—here, you too come, and curl up.

The two of you sit. Together.

Know how Fante's characters showed a timeline of growth from book-to-book? This is happening in Cavin's work, too.

Check it out.

[Benjamin Niespodziany · Rating 5 out of 5]

A book-length poem found under a bed infested with rats. Clean it off with some liquor before starting to read.

This is a heartbreaking fever dream that feels like equal parts therapy and intervention.

[Sally the Salamander · Rating 5 out of 5]

More sad and wistful a less funny than Gonzalez's other little books, but also more hopeful (I think).

[Morgan King · Rating 4 out of 5]

“I am prepared”