Description
Fiction. Art. Illustrated by Michael Hafftka. WEST VIRGINIA is the second collaboration between novelist Che Elias and illustrator Michael Hafftka. (The first, the critically well-received underground novel THE TERROR OF LOCH NESS, is also available from SPD.) WEST VIRGINIA is a nihilistic vision of betrayal and desperation set in the innermost reaches of the narrator's mind. "Betrayal destroyed all trust, all security, and one cannot go forwards or backwards. All is pain and darkness in that space. The room is the person, is the writer, is the artist, and then it is the reader. Deception and rape are the violations of trust that produce the pain in the room in which the author and the artist find themselves. One suffers alone and the reader that picks up this book is a witness to the pain of betrayal that is otherwise indefinable"--Michael Hafftka. Che Elias was born in 1980 in Glendale, West Virginia. He spent his formative years in the surrounding Ohio River Valley area, then relocated to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where he is currently living. He is the author of the novels Rockets Construe Vala, Juliet... Remember, The Pagan Ellipsis, The Abacus, and the poetry collections A Lesser Summer: Early Poems, Meddles into Preclusion, Wheeling (Poems and Stories), and Death Poems. Michael Hafftka was born in NYC in 1953. His books Michael Hafftka - Selected Drawings, 1982, and Art of Experience - Experience of Art, 1981, were published by Guignol Books, Tivoli, NY. CONSCIOUS/UNCONSCIOUS, a collection of stories, is published by Six Gallery Press and available from SPD. Hafftka has had one-person shows in New York City since 1982 with Art Galaxy, Rosa Esman Gallery, DiLaurenti Gallery, Mary Ryan Gallery and Aberbach Fine Art. His work has been shown in the US and abroad in numerous museums. Hafftka's work is in the permanent collections of major museums including The Metropolitan Museum of Art, MOMA NY, The National Gallery, Brooklyn Museum, San Francisco MOMA, The Carnegie Museum of Art. Hafftka's work has been the subject of critical monographs by Sam Hunter, Professor Emeritus of Art History at Princeton University, John Caldwell, Curator at the Carnegie Institute Museum of Art and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and the novelist Michael Brodsky. Hafftka's work can be seen online at www.hafftka.com
Author Bio
Che Elias (b. 1980 in Glendale, West Virginia) is an American novelist and poet now based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Elias relocated to Pittsburgh to attend Pittsburgh Filmmakers and remained in the area, subsidizing his primary interest of writing by working as a camera operator for Stroon Vision. He is an experimental novelist whose published works began with the trilogy 'Rockets Construe Vala' (2001), 'Juliet..., Remember' (2002) and the 'The Pagan Ellipsis' (2004). He has also released a collection of poetry titled 'Meddles Into Preclusion' (2003), and his latest work is 'The Terror of Loch Ness' (2007), illustrated by Michael Hafftka. Elias is on the staff as an acquisitions editor at Six Gallery Press.
Author City: Pittsburgh, PA USA