I've read books/stores/et al by Bradley Sands, Anderson Prunty, Jeremy Johnson, and I am currently reading a couple of Carlton Mellick stories (Zombies and Shit, Apeshit).
As a computer nerd, systemist, literalist, and all-around non-artistic person: I would love to know how to define bizarro fiction. I read the books. I enjoyed them. But what makes them bizarro? Why is Carlton Mellick bizarro, but Caitlyn Kiernan is not? If being 'weird' is the defining characteristic, why isn't Jeff Vandermeer or Jeff Noon bizarro writers? It is my horrifying suspiction that there are no Jeffs allowed in bizarro lit, which would foil my plans to be the Joyce Carol Oates of bizarro. However, further review of www.bizarrocentral.com yields a writer named Jeff Burk. So much for that theory.
I realzie it's probably silly, but it bothers me that I can't codify the attributes of bizarro. Help!
I totally fucking agree.
If you could codify the attributes of bizarro, it would cease to exist.
Don't those guys all know each other or something? Maybe it's more of a loose confederacy rather than a genre with delineable attributes.
It always struck me the same as J. Y. Less a genre and more a group, or maybe even a mindset. And by that I mean a mindset more in terms of the author and less of the books they write.
there was a good interview on a booked podcast about bizarro I heard recently, gave a pretty good definition of it. however, that site doesn't seem to be working right now, so i can't link it here.
Check out Night of the Assholes, by Kevin Donihe. It's pretty good too.
It's just "weird fiction." That's all. Simple definition.
Authors like Vandermeer are weird, but they still fit neatly into the sci-fi/fantasy genre. Most bizarro writers would not. Just as the cult/bizarro movies "Six String Samurai" or "The Dark Backward" would not fit neatly into the sci-fi/fantasy section of a video store despite having elements of sci-fi. If bizarro was a subgenre of anything it would probably be humor. Surreal humor.
But most authors working in the genre will tell you that bizarro fiction is just trying to be cult movies in book form.
Well, shit! Thank you Carlton Mellick (love your books!), that's the kind of thing I'm after. A cult movie in book form is something I can grok.
What's funny is the reason I brought up Kiernan is because I was thinking of a particular story of hers where the girl turns into a mermaid (kind of sort of), which reminded me of the movie Mermaid in a Manhole. That movie is weird as hell, while the story is less weird than dark and poetic. Now it all makes sense!
There's a group of people in the film industry who are slowly trying to get the term "cult" changed to "bizarro." These are producers who are trying to get big budget bizarro movies made for hollywood, so the term "cult" would not apply when trying to reach such a big audience. It would help them if they could sell people on bizarro as a label.
The term "cult" never worked as a genre label anyway. It just means a work that has a small dedicated following. But lots of movies have small dedicated followings that wouldn't be labeled cult. The weirdness is really what links together movies you'd find in cult sections, like Pink Flamingos, Toxic Avenger, Eraserhead, Six String Samurai, Tetsuo: The Iron Man, Clockwork Orange, and Rocky Horror Picture Show. Bizarro is a more logical label for these works.
And in the book industry there just wasn't any label at all for this kind of thing, even though there has always been plenty of people writing stuff like it.
The bizarro fiction scene is basically a movement of authors, publishers, and movie producers trying to turn bizarro into a label for weird stuff. In film, it's a new term for cult. In books, it's the literary version of cult films. We'll see how it all pans out over the next few decades, but everyone involved is absolutely serious about making this happen.
Hello all,
I was a bit clueless to this distinct brand of lit. I love it! It reminds me pop surrealist art (lowbrow art), but in literature form.
I'm always around if anyone has any other questions.
Who wrote Cracked.com's page on Bizarro lit? It has you in it, Bradley.
I think a guy named Don Vestal, if I'm remembering correctly.
Damn that link in the Cracked article for not working.
Why would he think you're a dick?
That's what I was wondering.
Bradley Sands Is A Dick is a funny collection of short stories by a bunch of bizarro people. One of my favorites is Jordan Krall's story, because of lines like this:
'I’m gonna take that star virus and vomit it up into your asshole, into the Death Dwarf’s asshole and let it pop into my mouth like coffee beans and telepathic anuses.”'
This is why I don't think I have a future in Bizarro--it just wouldn't occur to me to string those words together in that way. I can still enjoy it though.
Did the Absurdist Journal close or is it a bad link?
I took the Bradley Sands is a Dick anthology offline a while back. I can't even find it on my computer. Jeffrey is welcome to share it if he has the PDF.
The journal is called Bust Down the Door and Eat All the Chickens. absurdistjournal is just the url considering the title is so long. I used to be the head editor. I stopped doing that. Someone else is now the head editor. The last issue I edited came out last year: number 10. Submissions for the next issue have been open since then, but I'm not sure if any have been accepted. The editor said she was having trouble getting stories she liked. So I don't know if there will ever be another issue.
I wouldn't mind embracing Bizarro as a writer. At least I see an avenue for my less than conventional ideas.
I found Bradley Sands is a Dick on a torrent site and just uploaded it. Try that link again if you're interested.
To be fair, I also bought several of Bradley's books, based on samples. I am not an animal!
