{"product_id":"nate-lippens-bastards-1","title":"Nate Lippens, Bastards","description":"\u003cp class=\"size-20\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"font-size-20\"\u003eNate Lippens, author of the acclaimed novels\u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"font-size-20\"\u003eMy Dead Book\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"font-size-20\"\u003e, a finalist for the Republic of Consciousness Prize, and\u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"font-size-20\"\u003eRipcord\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"font-size-20\"\u003e, a New Statesman Book of the Year, completes his Wisconsin trilogy with\u003c\/span\u003e \u003cem\u003e\u003cspan class=\"font-size-20\"\u003eBastards\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cspan class=\"font-size-20\"\u003e, a book of losses, memories and survival. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"font-size-20\"\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"m-size-16 size-20\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"font-size-20 m-font-size-16\"\u003e\u003cem\u003eA full-on breakdown, wouldn’t that be fabulously dramatic? Instead, I ended up in green gripper socks, sweatpants, and a T-shirt, a look like a California cult member or a suburban schlub (same thing) on a seventy-two-hour hold—a crack-up fortnight—until I started acting like myself. Well, not myself, because how would they know who that is? A facsimile of normal. I mimed coherence, the continuity of a person moving from room to room. I performed my sadness convincingly, pimped memories of Rudy, flensed my crazy down to thimbles of death, an understandable loss.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003eYou win. I say it all the time to people. You win. You won. You’re the winner. Congratulations. I said it when a boyfriend told me he didn’t love me. I said it on the ward. I said it when I got evicted. You win. Good for you.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"size-20\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"font-size-20\"\u003eRecently sprung from a stint on a psychiatric ward, the narrator of\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cspan class=\"font-size-20\"\u003eBastards\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cspan class=\"font-size-20\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003eworks hard to perform at being a person while questioning the concept of identity and what it means to be an aging working-class gay man when the word queer has become so elastic and gentrified it’s used to conservative ends. Struggling to survive, pay rent, and navigate a hostile world, he takes solace in art and his friends and measures what makes a life. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"font-size-20\"\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"size-20\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"font-size-20\"\u003eBorrowing from the tropes of fragmented lyric essays, New Narrative, autofiction, and transgressive literature, Lippens is a bricoleur who creates a confected new form in his short novels. Queer pessimism in the age of affirmation. A search for something honest. An old queen’s cackle.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"font-size-20\"\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"size-20\"\u003e\u003cstrong class=\"font-size-20\"\u003ePraise for Nate Lippens:\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"text-align-left size-20\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"font-size-20\"\u003e“I can't say enough about how good Nate Lippens's books are.” \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cstrong class=\"font-size-20\"\u003eGary Indiana\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"m-size-16 text-align-left size-20\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"m-font-size-16 font-size-20\"\u003e“I’ve been reading Nate Lippens for years … I’m finally getting a grip on what kind of machine his writing is. I think it’s a poetic instrument and also some kind of natural phenomena.”\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cstrong class=\"m-font-size-16 font-size-20\"\u003eEileen Myles\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"text-align-left m-size-16 size-20\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"font-size-20 m-font-size-16\"\u003e“Nate Lippens is a true blue radical queer.\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"font-size-20 m-font-size-16\"\u003eBastards\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"font-size-20 m-font-size-16\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003eis a spiralling trip through the less canonized parts of our history.”\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cstrong class=\"font-size-20 m-font-size-16\"\u003eNicole Eisenman\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cspan class=\"font-size-20\"\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"text-align-left size-20\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"font-size-20\"\u003e“Nate Lippens is a brilliant writer, and a much-needed voice among the new crop of queer novelists. His portrayals of working-class queers, ex-members of the queercore movement, recovering addicts, and artists, feels new, though somehow also a part of a nearly lost family of queer thinkers: the writers and artists his characters still cherish.” \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cstrong class=\"font-size-20\"\u003eChicago Review of Books\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cspan class=\"font-size-20\"\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"text-align-left size-20\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"font-size-20\"\u003e“His bracing novels represent an honest reckoning with the post-AIDS era and its effect on life and imagination.” \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cstrong class=\"font-size-20\"\u003eThe Nation\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cspan class=\"font-size-20\"\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"size-20\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"font-size-20\"\u003e“What a gift to encounter such intelligent homosexuality!” \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cstrong class=\"font-size-20\"\u003eRobert Glück\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Pilot Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57982171775311,"sku":null,"price":12.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0774\/3068\/6031\/files\/PKB_4607.jpg?v=1781875476","url":"https:\/\/publicknowledgebooks.com\/products\/nate-lippens-bastards-1","provider":"Public Knowledge","version":"1.0","type":"link"}