The BURIED Book Club discussion

Où est Marvin Cohen? A tousle-haired New Yorker who from a period spanning 1967 and 1978 penned surreal and whimsical fictions, many in the form of ‘dialogues’ between two unnamed interlocutors, and found himself published in prestigious magazines along the lines of Ambit and The Transatlantic Review. Several collections appeared in hardback from famous outfits such as New Directions and André Deutsch (US & UK publication), and one novel was released from a lesser-known press. His fictions are a mix of riddles, puzzles, fables, logic, and surreal comic antics.

Short Fiction:
The Self-Devoted Friend, 1967, New Directions.
Dialogues, 1967, Turret Books.
The Monday Rhetoric of the Love Club and Other Parables, 1973, New Directions.
Fables at Life’s Expense, 1975, Serendipity Books.
The Inconvenience of Living, and Other Acts of Folly, 1977, Urizen Books.
How the Snake Emerged from the Bamboo Pole, But Man Emerged from Both, 1978, Oasis Books.
Aesthetics in Life & Art, 1982, Gull Books
How to Outthink a Wall: An Anthology, 2016, Verbivoracious Press.

Novels:
Others, Including Morstive Sternbump, 1976, Bobbs Merrill. (Reissued 2016, Tough Poets Press).

Non-Fiction:
Baseball the Beautiful: Decoding the Diamond, 1974, Putnam

Thanks! I'll see about getting the SPADES polished and oiled!

From marvincohen.net:

"However, a resurgence of popularity may be imminent, as Boston-area independent publisher Tough Poets Press is currently working on a 40th anniversary edition of Others, Including Morstive Sternbump, a novel if you call it that. Plans are also underway for Cohen’s resurgence at Verbivoracious Press in Glasgow and Singapore for an omnibus of his earlier work ..."

Here's what Soho Weekly News reviewer Ron Whyte said about Cohen's 1976 novel Others, Including Morstive Sternbump:

“[Like] something out of the brain of a poetic trash compactor fed on ten years’ accumulation of The New York Review of Books and As the World Turns. Cohen is bewitched by the novelty of the novel. He uses plot and language not to tell a story, but to discover and utilize all the lavish possibilities and pleasures these provide. This book is a writer’s lark, yet also a benign ramble through the Disneyland of a literary man’s literature.”

UNBURIED! Most of Marvin Cohen back in print. Verbivoracious Press has recently released How to Outthink a Wall, containing everything under the 'short fiction' header, except The Self-Devoted Friend.

Tough Poets Press are planning to re-issue this novel-of-sorts, and the non-fiction Baseball the Beautiful. All Cohen could be back in print by 2017! Huzzah!

Excellent!!

Yes. And a 40th-anniversary edition of his novel Others, Including Morstive Sternbump will be out later this year from Tough Poets Press.

I just launched a Kickstarter for the 40th-anniversary edition of Cohen's Others, Including Morstive Sternbump.

kickstarter.com/projects/1860098210/4...

I put a link on the page where you can download a PDF of the first three chapters. This book is clearly not for everybody but I liked it enough to think that it should be back in print. One reviewer wrote of the original 1976 edition, "There is no reason to buy this stuff. Or read it. Or publish it." (Library Journal)

The Kickstarter was successful so now the expanded 40th-anniversary edition of Cohen's novel, Other's Including Morstive Sternbump, is available for pre-order on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Others-Includi...

In addition to the full text of the original edition, the book includes a transcript of the 1976 Reader's Almanac interview with Marvin Cohen conducted by Walter James Miller courtesy of New York Public Radio (WNYC 93.9 FM), as well as a new brief introduction by Cohen. The official publication date is November 1.

^ Marvellous!

First Amazon review of 40th-anniversary edition of Others, Including Morstive Sternbump:

"Marvin Cohen is a genius (neglected only of late). His brilliant wordplay, offbeat imagination, and touching humanism unite to make him one of the most vibrant writers of our time. He uses his knowledge of graphic arts, combined with philosophy (which he has studied carefully) to produce fiction (and also drama) that challenge the reader in the most playful of ways. His work is being revived, and new writing is on the way. Can't wait."

https://www.amazon.com/Others-Includi...

Nice profile of Marvin Cohen in today's Village Voice

Surreal Genius: Why Onetime Literary Hotshot Marvin Cohen Deserves Another Look

http://www.villagevoice.com/arts/surr...

Reviving Marvin Cohen's critically acclaimed 1967 debut, The Self-Devoted Friend

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/...

If ever a book deserved to be back in print, it's Marvin Cohen's truly unique and timeless innovative fiction, The Self-Devoted Friend. Not quite a novel, the book is best described as a series of humorous philosophical dialogues between the narrator and his "other" self, touching on a vast array of subjects such as birth, love, art, nature, religion, death, and everything in between.

When it was first published in 1967, The New York Times Book Review gave Cohen’s debut perhaps one of its most enthusiastic reviews ever:

“It is rare these days — perhaps, any days — to come across a work that not only reveals a striking, fresh talent, but stands outside current literary preoccupations. What Mr. Cohen has is his own: a joy in language, and an eye, at once innocent and shrewd, for the paradoxes inherent in the human condition. He puts both language and people through their paces, stands them on their heads, and hugs them to his heart in what amounts as a tour de force of serio-comedy, a sort of superb clowning in which pathos and absurdity intertwine as they do in a Charlie Chaplin film.”

I've got a Kickstarter campaign going to raise a few dollars to help defray some of the upfront costs of republishing this book. Here's the link:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/...

Exciting! I just also want to draw attention to the fact that the Village Voice gave a nod to Verbivoracious in that article.

Today is the official publication date of the 50th-anniversary edition of Cohen's The Self-Devoted Friend. Amazon has it on sale for $9.90 USD.
https://www.amazon.com/Self-Devoted-F...

Nice interview with Cohen on the Fiction Writers Review website today:
http://fictionwritersreview.com/inter...

With the upcoming publication of Marvin Cohen's Baseball as Metaphysics, an expanded edition of his 1974 Baseball the Beautiful, all of his previously published books will now be available in new paperback editions.

Cohen explained that the original publisher took the liberty of changing the book's title "for commercial feasibility and to bring in the lumbering lowbrow audience."

This new edition contains an additional essay from 1977 and a new foreword by the author. The original introduction by Jim Bouton (Ball Four) is also included.

I'm running a Kickstarter to help defray some of the upfront production costs of this new edition. Here's the link:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/...

If you like baseball and can read without moving your lips, you'll probably really appreciate this book.

Here's a link to Cohen's page on Goodreads: Marvin Cohen

Official release date for Cohen's Baseball as Metaphysics is tomorrow, November 15, 2017.

https://www.amazon.com/Baseball-as-Me...

"Unlike any book on baseball that you have ever read."
— Arizona Republic

"Probably the most sympathetic book ever written about the game."
— New York Post

"Cohen's essays on the sport never become trapped in sentimentality or overblown analysis — as pleasing as a perfect game with two out in the ninth."
— Penthouse

"Cohen approaches baseball as the artist does a great work of art — it contains, for him, the metaphysical, the holy, the myth, that which lives beyond us, love. Seeing baseball as the supreme art, we are drawn into the book, and close to whatever art we are involved in, close to life."
— Margins

Rick wrote: "Official release date for Cohen's Baseball as Metaphysics is tomorrow, November 15, 2017.."

Very nice!

[but I'm not seeing the new edition on gr]

Nathan "N.R." wrote: "Rick wrote: "Official release date for Cohen's Baseball as Metaphysics is tomorrow, November 15, 2017.."

Very nice!

[but I'm not seeing the new edition on gr]"

Thanks! I just added the book.

Congrats, Rick! This is fiercely exciting news. Added to cart immediately.

Also note: Sagging Meniscus are publishing TWO MC novels next year. Yes, that's TWO!

MJ wrote: "Congrats, Rick! This is fiercely exciting news. Added to cart immediately.

Also note: Sagging Meniscus are publishing TWO MC novels next year. Yes, that's TWO!"

Yes. I am definitely looking forward to those two. And I'll be publishing a collection of 4 of his shorter fictions early next year, too. Viva Marvin!

I recently reviewed Baseball as Metaphysics for my university newspaper.

I can't promise how widely read it will be, but anything to give a BURIED (though increasingly unBURIED) author a bit of spotlight is worth it.

(PS If I loved BaM, any rec on where to start with his fiction?)

Very nicely done! Thanks!

Reuben.

Nice review! For fiction, I would recommend his only published novel Others, Including Morstive Sternbump, his hard-to-describe serio-comic not-quite-a-novel The Self-Devoted Friend, or the recent anthology of short stories How to Outthink a Wall. All available on Amazon.

I published new editions of the first two recently (Tough Poets Press) and in a few months I'll be releasing a collection of five of his previously unpublished novellas from the mid 1960s. Sagging Meniscus Press is also going to be publishing two of his short novels in June of next year I believe.

Rick

In addition to the two novels from the 70s, Sagging Meniscus will be bringing out a new collection of recent poetry by Cohen sometime soon. He's still writing delightfully!

Brilliant--thanks for the recommendations guys!

Another Marvin Cohen book coming soon. Back when I was working on the new editions of Marvin Cohen's other books, he sent me dozens of typewritten manuscripts – novellas, short stories, and essays that he had written in the '60s and '70s but was unable to find a publisher for. I chose my five favorites and collected them into the ingeniously-titled Five Fictions.

Here's a link to the Kickstarter where you can learn more about the book and download a few sample pages:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/...

As promised, Sagging Meniscus has come out with two never-before-published Marvin Cohen novels, and also a book of his recent poetry, which he is producing at a furious pace. Marvin is appearing in NYC next Wednesday to launch them at the Cornelia Street Café, in a unusually multimedia event, with the author reading and signing books, a presentation of an interesting photography project involving him, and even a short play. New Yorkers, come if you can to cheer Marvin on! More info here: https://saggingmeniscus.tumblr.com/po...

And the official publication date for Cohen's Five Fictions is Tuesday, May 1, 2018. https://www.amazon.com/Five-Fictions-...

Brilliant short video by Williams Cole about Marvin Cohen, now 87 and still writing at a frantic pace. https://vimeo.com/271591885

I just launched a Kickstarter to help cover the production costs of Plays on Words, a collection of 6 satirical, humorous, and somewhat surreal plays written by Marvin Cohen in the early 1980s. Here's the link:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/...

Joseph Papp, legendary theater director and producer (A Chorus Line) and founder of The Public Theater in New York City, wrote the following in his introduction to Plays from the New York Shakespeare Festival (1986):

"The term 'character' was coined with Marvin Cohen in mind. A gentle observer of the unpredictable and slightly absurd, Marvin has a fondness for mankind that is unmistakably his own. Sometimes I think of him as a comedian-chronicler standing at the center, his head turned slightly toward your line of speaking to accommodate his hearing aid. . . . The strength of his writing stems from his baroque sense of humor and his ability to see both the world and himself as wonderfully delightful miscreants."

Staged readings of Cohen's plays have featured actors Richard Dreyfuss, Keith Carradine, Wallace Shawn, and Jill Eikenberry.