Giraffes in Hiding: The Mythical Memoirs of Carol Novack

by Carol Novack

This book is a full color edition!!! "Carol Novack's Giraffes in Hiding mirrors our weltanschauung by using its own language against it or by using its own language to pry open the circus hidden within it. If we say the world is insane or we say the world is a manic whirl, Novack embraces manic insanity with a great hug of laughter. She flings images, characters, ideas, and language around until they all, finally losing, - no, abandoning - their moorings, collide, crash, ka-bang one into another creating nuclear reactions of the non-sense that is even Emily Dickinson's "divine sense," although Novack would certainly hurl those two words (and that idea) against each other until they radiated. To read this book is to bring the giraffes out of hiding!" -- Martin Nakell "She's great at creating a Freudian cage, & trapping the reader in it. 'Tis very powerful." --Rae Desmond Jones "She has the literary equivalent of perfect pitch, like those musicians who can specify the hertz of birds and burps. Uncanny tympani!" -- Tom Bradley

250 pages, Paperback

First published September 12, 2010

About the author

Carol Novack's fictions, fusions, and poems may be found in numerous journals, including American Letters & Commentary, Caketrain, Drunken Boat, Diagram, Exquisite Corpse, Fiction International, Gargoyle, Journal of Experimental Literature, La Petite Zine, LIT, Mississippi Review online, Notre Dame Review & Word Riot. Anthologies include The Penguin Book of Australian Poets, Diagram III, and The &Now Awards: The Best Innovative Writing. She's the publisher of the multi-media e-journal Mad Hatters' Review, author of a poetry chapbook, and an erstwhile Australian Arts Council grant recipient. Ms. Novack is also a former criminal and constitutional attorney in NYC, and has a Master's in Social Work (community organizing). She recently established a non-profit arts organization and intends to operate a retreat in her mountain home in Western North Carolina.

Her beautifully illustrated collection of fictions, fusions, and poems, Giraffes in Hiding: The Mythical Memoirs of Carol Novack, (Spuyten Duyvil Press) was published in Fall, 2010.

Hugh Fox has called "Giraffes": THE most seductive, original, impacting work I have seen for years. A fascinating combination of Kerouacian street-talk plus a trip through the museum of Modern Art in Chicago, plus a nod-off to Kosty's furthest out experimentalism. Magnifique!

She has the literary equivalent of perfect pitch, like those musicians who can specify the hertz of birds and burps. Uncanny tympani! -- Tom Bradley.

"Carol Novacks Giraffes in Hiding mirrors our weltanschauung by using its own language against it or by using its own language to pry open the circus hidden within it. If we say the world is insane or we say the world is a manic whirl, Novack embraces manic insanity with a great hug of laughter. She flings images, characters, ideas, and language around until they all, finally losing, - no, abandoning - their moorings, collide, crash, ka-bang one into another creating nuclear reactions of the non-sense that is even Emily Dickinsons divine sense, although Novack would certainly hurl those two words (and that idea) against each other until they radiated. To read this book is to bring the giraffes out of hiding!" -- Martin Nakell

In Giraffes in Hiding Carol Novack proves once again that she is the all-time champion of wild, wigged out, original prose/ poetry and poetic prose. The first full-length collection of her work, subtitled The Mythical Memoirs of Carol Novack, is a feast of fusions, inventions, myths, dreams, forms, and possibilities. Theres no one like Novack, and here she is at her best as she chases her ontological tail round and round the intelligible, unknown worlds of her subconscious (and ours). Think Alice in Wonderland on acid simultaneously dancing with Tristan Tzara, Rimbaud, Oedipus, Pandora, Gertrude Stein, Proust, Kerouac, and that weird kid next door who ate all of the heads off your Barbie Dolls and youll begin to get a feel for what shes up to. -- Mary Mackey

Carol Novack is a conundrum to literary editors whose ideas of poetry and fiction as forms are rigid. To such editors, Novack might say, as one of her personae does, Your imagination has closed walls. The best term for Novacks typical literary form flash fiction qua prose poem qua fusionis Novacks own, invention. Her eloquent inventions are witty, lyrical, and new, even as they reinvent the themes of family, myth, art, and self. The crux of Novacks art is her imaginative power to bring alternate realities to vibrant life. -- Larissa Shmailo

Shes great at creating a Freudian cage, & trapping the reader in it. 'Tis very powerful. --Rae Desmond Jones


See her blog, http://carolnovack.blogspot.com for prior publication details, & amazon.com for customer review/s. Other reviews are accessible via the blog. Order at amazon.com.

Reviews

[Carol]

I learned a lot.

What others are saying:

“THE most seductive, original, impacting work I have seen for years. A fascinating combination of Kerouacian street-talk plus a trip through the museum of Modern Art in Chicago, plus a nod-off to Kosty's furthest out experimentalism. Magnifique!” -- Hugh Fox

"Carol Novack’s Giraffes in Hiding mirrors our weltanschauung by using its own language against it or by using its own language to pry open the circus hidden within it. If we say the world is insane or we say the world is a manic whirl, Novack embraces manic insanity with a great hug of laughter. She flings images, characters, ideas, and language around until they all, finally losing, - no, abandoning - their moorings, collide, crash, ka-bang one into another creating nuclear reactions of the non-sense that is even Emily Dickinson’s “divine sense,” although Novack would certainly hurl those two words (and that idea) against each other until they radiated. To read this book is to bring the giraffes out of hiding!" -- Martin Nakell

In “Giraffes in Hiding” Carol Novack proves once again that she is the all-time champion of wild, wigged out, original prose/ poetry and poetic prose. The first full-length collection of her work, subtitled “The Mythical Memoirs of Carol Novack,” is a feast of fusions, inventions, myths, dreams, forms, and possibilities. There’s no one like Novack, and here she is at her best as she chases her ontological tail round and round the intelligible, unknown worlds of her subconscious (and ours). Think Alice in Wonderland on acid simultaneously dancing with Tristan Tzara, Rimbaud, Oedipus, Pandora, Gertrude Stein, Proust, Kerouac, and that weird kid next door who ate all of the heads off your Barbie Dolls and you’ll begin to get a feel for what she’s up to. -- Mary Mackey

“Carol Novack is a conundrum to literary editors whose ideas of poetry and fiction as forms are rigid. To such editors, Novack might say, as one of her personae does, ‘Your imagination has closed walls.’ The best term for Novack’s typical literary form— flash fiction qua prose poem qua fusion—is Novack’s own, invention. Her eloquent inventions are witty, lyrical, and new, even as they reinvent the themes of family, myth, art, and self. The crux of Novack’s art is her imaginative power to bring alternate realities to vibrant life.” -- Larissa Shmailo

“She’s great at creating a Freudian cage, & trapping the reader in it. 'Tis very powerful.” --Rae Desmond Jones

“She has the literary equivalent of perfect pitch, like those musicians who can specify the hertz of birds and burps. Uncanny tympani!” -- Tom Bradley

[Marcus Speh · Rating 5 out of 5]

«Though “Giraffes in Hid­ing” is a col­lec­tion, I almost read this in one sitting-and I do have a post­mod­ern atten­tion span, ade­quate to the cre­ation and con­sump­tion of flash but not much else. Novack’s lan­guage and her ear for the absurd tied me down and lifted me up at once as few books have done lately. “We need to dream before we drown”, says the nar­ra­tor in the short “Spawn­ing babies”. This book, read by every­one under Milk Wood, will inspire you and help you dream.» [See also my long review at Smash Cake Magazine]

[Julie Weinstein · Rating 5 out of 5]

A world where children, pretending to be giraffes, eat raisins along with a family of minnows’ who pontificate about the colors in a crayon box and a tumor that mirrors a pregnancy. The minnows keep populating in bigger, bolder colors and the children wonder if giraffes have a place to hide. This is the kind of magic realism in Carol Novack’s writing, that is at once startling with its realism and haunting with its lyrical, playful, language.