Fiction. Aaaargh, it's CHUM, that depraved cult classic first serialized in EXQUISITE CORPSE. The demise of Zoland might have made this scatographical and pornorific book unavailable except for Chum Books, who has dared to step in and distribute it. In this most turgid of tales, feckless fishermen and hellacious hags turn humans into dogfood on an Alaskan island so lost and forgotten that it can only exist in a flash of perversion—it's all "something that Kierkegaard at his most suicidal moment would feel at home with," quips Andrei Codrescu. "The Rasputin-like Mother Kralik would scare the pants off of Kafka," says Barry Gifford. Based on an unpublished film treatment by nihilist novelist Louis Ferdinand-Céline.

Author City: CONWAY, AR USA

Mark Spitzer is a professor of creative writing in the Department of Writing at the University of Central Arkansas. He has translated books by Jean Genet (THE GENET TRANSLATIONS, Polemic Press), Louis-Ferdinand Céline (THE CHURCH, Green Integer), Arthur Rimbaud (From Absinthe to Abyssinia, Creative Arts), Georges Bataille (The Collected Poems of Georges Bataille, Dufour Editions; Divine Filth, Creation Books) and Blaise Cendrars (Films Without Images, Green Integer). Spitzer's novels include CHUM (Zoland Books), CHODE! (Six Gallery Press), and BOTTOM FEEDER (Creative Arts). He has also published the following nonfiction collections: PROZE ATTACK: SELECTED ESSAYS, REVIEWS, POLEMICS, RANTS AND RED- HEADED STEP-FICTIONS 2004-2010 (Six Gallery Press), Season of the Gar (University of Arkansas Press), Writer in Residence (University of New Orleans Press), AFTER THE ORANGE GLOW (Monkey Puzzle Press), and RIDING THE UNIT (Six Gallery Press). Spitzer has published two volumes of poetry as well. A former editor of the legendary EXQUISITE CORPSE literary franchise, he now edits the literary annual TOAD SUCK REVIEW. Spitzer has starred in the "Alligator Gar" episode of Animal Planet's River Monsters series and is an avid fisherman.

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