TWO DOLLAR RADIO Books Too Loud to Ignore fall/winter 2012
“[Two Dollar Radio] has released some of the finest works of contemporary fiction in the past few years.” The Brooklyn Rail “Aesthetically consistent, editorially adventurous.” Village Voice “I marvel at [their] idealism.” Times Literary Supplement
TWO DOLLAR RADIO is a family-run outfit founded in 2005 with the mission to reaffirm the cultural and artistic spirit of the publishing industry. We aim to do this by presenting bold works of literary merit, each book, individually and collectively, providing a sonic progression that we believe to be too loud to ignore.
Eric Obenauf Publisher/Editor in Chief eric@twodollarradio.com Eliza Wood-Obenauf Art Director/Editor elizajane@twodollarradio.com Brian Obenauf Senior Rights & Marketing Associate brian@twodollarradio.com Emily Pullen Editor/Outreach Director emily@twodollarradio.com
TWO DOLLAR RADIO
Books too loud to ignore www.TwoDollarRadio.com twodollar@TwoDollarRadio.com
141 East Town St., Suite 200 Columbus, OH 43215 740-504-7456
Cover: Mr. Fix-It Cover, John Gagliano
twodollarradio.blogspot.com @TwoDollarRadio
CRAPALACHIA A Biography of a Place Scott McClanahan Literary Non-fiction, Memoir Trade Paper Original, Gatefold & Deckle Edge 978-1-937512-03-3 US $16, MARCH 2013 5.5” x 7.5”, 178 pages
stories
“McClanahan knows about ruined landscapes and he knows the people who inhabit these places intimately. And his love for these people, for these places, as complicated as it might be, did something magical to me.” —Kevin Wilson
A colorful and elegiac coming-of-age story that announces McClanahan as a resounding, lasting talent. When Scott McClanahan was fourteen he went to live with his Grandma Ruby and his Uncle Nathan, who suffered from cerebral palsy. Crapalachia is a portrait of these formidable years, coming of age in rural West Virginia. Peopled by colorful characters and their quirky stories, Crapalachia interweaves oral folklore and area history, providing an ambitious and powerful snapshot of overlooked Americana.
SCOTT MCCLANAHAN is the author of Stories II and Stories V! His fiction has appeared in BOMB, Vice, and New York Tyrant. His novel Hill William is forthcoming from Tyrant Books..
Rights held: World, Audio
THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WORLD novel by Jay Neugeboren Literary Fiction, Trade Paper Original, Gatefold & Deckle Edge 978-1-937512-02-6 US $17, NOVEMBER 2012 5.5” x 7.5”, 278 pages
A seductive and intelligent novel of unlikely groupings and intrigue. Charlie is a journeyman whose friend Nick convinces him to move to Singapore, where he falls in love with the vibrant and endangered world of nearby Borneo. One night, during a fight at a cocktail party in Singapore, Nick dies mysteriously, prompting Charlie to return to New England where he discovers that a former student has moved in with his father, Max, a former professor and source of unlimited sage expressions. Seana is a wildly successful and provocative writer who is equally wild and provocative in life. Together, she and Charlie set out on a road trip of resolution where “weird things happen if you make room for them.” From the lush forests of Borneo to coastal Maine, The Other Side of the World is a grand, episodic novel and another virtuosic performance by one of America’s most revered living writers.
JAY NEUGEBOREN is the author, most recently, of the novel 1940, and collection You Are My Heart and Other Stories. His previous novels have received the American Jewish Committee Award and the Edward Lewis Wallant Award. His stories and essays have appeared in The Atlantic, Tikkun, GQ, Newsweek, The New York Times, and The New York Review of Books. He was the writerin-residence for many years at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and currently lives in New York City.
Rights held: World English, Audio
FREQUENCIES Volume 1 Essays by Blake Butler, Joshua Cohen, Tracy Rose Keaton, Scott McClanahan An interview with Anne Carson Literary Collections / Social Science, Trade Paper Original, 978-1-937512-01-9 US $10, SEPT. 2012 5.5” x 7.5”, 98 pages
From the essay “Open Sesame” by Joshua Cohen: “A writer stands outside a story yelling, ‘Open Sesame!’ and the story, as if a seed, opens. And treasure is found inside. That treasure, of course, is just another story, and it all begins again.” New Biannual Journal!
From an interview with Anne Carson: comfort or the lack of it is not the point, thinking is the point to cause people to think is not easy to cause myself to think is not easy lack of ease generates a certain kind of alertness that is more alive to me
Frequencies is a new biannual of creative essays, sharply illustrated by artist John Gagliano. Frequencies is a journal of creative or artful essays that aims to reconsider the current nonfiction prescription that is published biannually, in the fall and spring. Vol.1 features original work by Blake Butler on the disintegration of the mind, Joshua Cohen on the origins of the phrase “Open Sesame,” Tracy Rose Keaton on groupie-dom and consumer culture, an excerpt from Scott McClanahan’s forthcoming memoir Crapalachia, and an interview with Anne Carson. Each issue features original cover artwork and interior illustrations by artist John Gagliano, whose design clients include Warner Music Group, Black Book Magazine, and the clothing line Unruly Heir.
HOW TO GET INTO THE TWIN PALMS novel by Karolina Waclawiak Literary Fiction Trade Paper Original, Gatefold & Deckle Edge 978-0-9832471-8-0 US $16, 5.5” x 7.5”, 182 pages
July 2012
“Waclawiak takes the immigrant novel and spins it on its head. A great addition to 1.5 generation literature, beautifully written, funny and touching.” —Gary Shteyngart A hilarious and moving twist on the typical immigrant tale from the Deputy Editor of The Believer.
Rights held: World, Film/TV, Audio I’M TRYING TO REACH YOU novel by Barbara Browning
Recent Highlightss
How To Get Into the Twin Palms is the story of Anya, a young woman living in a Russian neighborhood in Los Angeles, who struggles between retaining her parents’ Polish culture and trying to assimilate into her adopted community. She lusts after Lev, a Russian man who frequents the Twin Palms nightclub down the block from Anya’s apartment. It is Anya’s wish to gain entrance to this seeminly exclusive club.
Literary Fiction Trade Paper Original, Gatefold & Deckle Edge 978-0-9832471-1-1 US $16, 5.5” x 7.5”, 212 pages
“Exquisite storytelling at its finest.” —Karen Finley First Michael Jackson, then Pina Bausch, Merce Cunningham... is someone killing famous dancers? A witty, creative, and seductive mystery. Gray Adams, a former dancer with the Royal Swedish Ballet at work on his dissertation at NYU, has a theory spurred by countless hours of YouTube-based procrastination: Someone is killing these famous dancers! (And he may bear an uncanny resemblance to Jimmy Stewart, circa Vertigo.) Rights held: World, Film/TV, Audio
June 2012
RADIO IRIS novel by Anne-Marie Kinney Literary Fiction, Trade Paper Original, Gatefold & Deckle Edge 978-0-9832471-7-3 US $16, 5.5” x 7.5”, 208 pages
May 2012
“A finely-crafted, subtle thriller. Kinney leads us by the hand so skillfully that everyday happenings become riveting... Suggestive of Murakami... A very satisfying and engaging read.” —Brooklyn Rail
Recent Highlightss
A magnificent, new talent.
ambient dream
of a novel that heralds the debut of a stellar
Iris Finch is a socially awkward receptionist at Larmax, Inc., a company whose true function she doesn’t understand (though she has overheard her boss refer to himself as “a businessman”). Her world goes topsy-turvy when her co-workers begin disappearing and a mysterious stranger moves into the office suite next door. Rights held: World
Rights sold: Audio BABY GEISHA stories by Trinie Dalton Literary Fiction, Stories Trade Paper Original, Gatefold & Deckle Edge 978-0-9832471-0-4 US $16, 5.5” x 7.5”, 168 pages
January 2012
“Half ingenuous and half wily, winningly hard to pin down. The result is a kind of everyday fantastic. The effect is a poised instability, more uncanny than the magic the stories sometimes describe.” —Bookforum Eye-popping stories that showcase an assured and exceptionally stylish talent. Baby Geisha is a collection of thirteen sexually-charged stories that roam from the Coney Island Ferris wheel to the Greek Isles. Rights held: World, Film/TV, Audio
NOVELS BY FRANCIS LEVY
Literary Fiction Trade Paper Original, 978-0-9763895-7-6 US $14, 5.25” x 7.5”, 162 pages
“The funniest American novel since Sam Lipsyte’s The Ask.” —Village Voice
“Sex is familiar, but it’s perennial, and Levy makes it fresh.” —Los Angeles Times
A provocative journey that merges sex and psychoanalysis through Rio’s tawdry netherworld of Sontag-quoting denizens as only an incendiary voice like Francis Levy could imagine.
A comedic, absurdist portrait of a modern-day romance that traces the relationship of James and Monica from explosive sex to alcoholism to television dinners.
Francis Levys
Literary Fiction Trade Paper Original, Gatefold & Deckle Edge 978-0-9826848-7-0 US $16, 5.5” x 7.5”, 146 pages
THE ORANGE EATS CREEPS novel by Grace Krilanovich
* National Book Foundation’s ‘5 Under 35’ selection. *NPR Best Books of 2010. *The Believer Book Award Finalist. *Indie Bookseller’s Choice Award Finalist.
Rights held: World, Film/TV
“The book feels written in a fever; it is breathless, scary and like nothing I’ve ever read before. Krilanovich’s work will make you believe that new ways of storytelling are still emerging from the margins.” —NPR With a scathing voice and penetrating delivery, Grace Krilanovich’s The Orange Eats Creeps is one of the most ferocious debut novels in memory.
Rights sold: Audio
Grace Krilanovichs
Introduction by Steve Erickson Literary Fiction Trade Paper Original, Gatefold & Deckle Edge 978-0-9820151-8-6 US $16, 5.5” x 7.5”, 172 pages
YOU ARE MY HEART AND OTHER STORIES stories by Jay Neugeboren Literary Fiction, Stories Trade Paper Original, Gatefold & Deckle Edge 978-0-9826848-8-7 US $16, MAY 2011 5.5” x 7.5”, 190 pages
“[Neugeboren] might not be as famous as some of his compeers, like Philip Roth or John Updike, but it’s becoming increasingly harder to argue that he’s any less talented.” —Kirkus Reviews
Jay Neugeborens
Rights held: World English
From the secluded villages in the south of France, to the cattle crawl in the Valley of a Thousand Hills in South Africa, to the hard-knock adolescent streets of Brooklyn, Jay Neugeboren examines the great mysteries and complexities that unsettle and comprise human relationships.
1940 novel by Jay Neugeboren Literary Fiction Trade Paper Original 978-0-9763895-6-9 US $15, 5.25” x 7.5”, 274 pgs
Dr. Eduard Bloch, the only Jew for whom Hitler ever personally arranged departure from Europe, must now, living in the Bronx, face accusations “Jay Neugeboren traverses the Hit- over the special treatment he received.
lerian tightrope with all the skill and formal daring that have made him one of our most honored writers of literary fiction.” —Los Angeles Times * Long list, 2010 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award.
Rights held: World English
1940 focuses on Dr. Bloch’s relationship with Elizabeth Rofman, a medical illustrator who has come to New York to visit her father, only to find that he has mysteriously disappeared. The story grows more complex when Elizabeth’s son Daniel, a disturbed young adolescent, escapes from the institution in Maryland where his parents have committed him, and makes his way to New York.
In the spirit of Cruddy and Jesus’ Son, Joshua Mohr has created a remarkable and unforgettable character in this charmingly poetic and maturely crafted first novel.
Rights held: World, Film/TV Rights sold: Italian, Audio
“What Joshua Mohr is doing has more in common with Kafka, Lewis Carroll, and Haruki Murakami, all great chroniclers of the fantastic. He’s interested in something weirder than mere sex, drugs, and degradation.”
—The Rumpus
*San Francisco Chronicle Bestseller. *Oprah Magazine Terrific Read 2009. *Nervous Breakdown Best Book ’09.
SOME THINGS THAT MEANT THE WORLD TO ME novel by Joshua Mohr Literary Fiction, Trade Paper Original,
978-0-9820151-1-7 US $15, 5.25” x 7.5”, 205 pages
Literary Fiction Trade Paper Original, Gatefold & Deckle Edge 978-0-9820151-6-2 US $16, 5.5” x 7.5”, 180 pages
*Sacramento Bee Best Read of 2010. * New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice.
A biting and heartbreaking story of “bad love gone rotten.”
“No small achievement.” —New York Times Book Review “Explodes with pyrotechnic prose.” —Rain Taxi Rights held: World, Film/TV, Audio
Rights held: World, Film/TV Rights sold: Audio
DAMASCUS novel by Joshua Mohr
Literary Fiction Trade Paper Original, Gatefold & Deckle Edge 978-0-978-0-9826848-9-4 US $16, 5.5” x 7.5”, 208 pages
It’s 2003 and the country is divided evenly for and against the Iraq War. Damascus, a dive bar in San Francisco’s Mission District, becomes the unlikely setting for a showdown between the opposing sides.
“Damascus succeeds in conveying a big-hearted vision.” —Wall Street Journal “Mohr nails the atmosphere of a San Francisco still breathing in the smoke that lingers from the days of Jim Jones and Dan White, a time when passionate ideologies and personal dysfunction intermingled and combusted.” —New York Times Book Review
Joshua Mohrs
TERMITE PARADE novel by Joshua Mohr
THE DROP EDGE OF YONDER novel by Rudolph Wurlitzer Literary Fiction Trade Paper Original 978-0-9763895-5-2 US $15, 5.25” x 7.5”, 274 pages
Rudolph Wurlitzers
“There’s a bawdy, lunatic thrill to the tale that seems somehow radical. It’s the kind of book someone will stick in a back pocket before heading out on the trail into the unknown.” —LA Weekly The Drop Edge of Yonder begins in the mountains of Colorado and ends in the far reaches of the North*Time Out New York’s Best Book of 2008. west, a journey that includes the beginnings of a * ForeWord Magazine 2008 Gold Medal in Mexican revolution, a voyage across the Gulf of Literary Fiction. Mexico to Panama, and up the coast of California to San Francisco and the gold fields.
Rights held: World
Rights sold: French, German, Audio
NOG
A NOVEL BY RUDOLPH WURLITZER A Trade Paperback Original; 978-0-9820151-2-4; $15.50 US
“[Nog’s] combo of Samuel Beckett syntax and hippieera freakiness mapped out new literary territory for generations to come.” —Time Out New York
FLATS / QUAKE
TWO NOVELS BY RUDOLPH WURLITZER A Trade Paperback Original; 978-0-9820151-4-8; $17 US
“Each book is short, but dense and trippy. Together they provide a tour of the dissolution of identity that was daily life in the late sixties.” —Michael Silverblatt, KCRW’s Bookworm
THE VISITING SUIT
THE CAVE MAN
Stories From My Prison Life
novel by Xiaoda Xiao
memoir by Xiaoda Xiao
Nonfiction Trade Paper Original, Gatefold & Deckle Edge 978-0-9820151-7-9 US $16.5, 5.5” x 7.5”, 263 pgs
Rights held: US & Canada, Audio
“Against great odds, in the grimmest of settings, he manages to find good in the darkness.” —New York Times Book Review
Literary Fiction Trade Paper Original 978-0-9820151-3-1
US $15.5, 5.25” x 7.5”, 184 pgs
* WOSU (a NPR member station)
Favorite Book of 2009. “As a parable of modern China, [The Cave Man] is chilling.” —Boston Globe Rights held: US & Canada Rights sold: Audio
THE PEOPLE WHO WATCHED HER PASS BY novel by Scott Bradfield
“A billowy adventure of a book.” —New York Times Book Review “Brave and unforgettable.” —Los Angeles Times
The People Who Watched Her Pass By is often hilarious as well as startling, and a poignant new contribution to the body of literature of a respected prose craftsman.
Rights held: World, Audio
I SMILE BACK novel by Amy Koppelman
THE SHANGHAI GESTURE novel by Gary Indiana
Literary Fiction Trade Paper Original 978-0-9763895-6-9 US $15, 5.25” x 7.5”, 188 pgs
Literary Fiction Trade Paper Original 978-0-9820151-0-0 US $15.5, 5.25” x 7.5”, 207 pgs
“Explores with ruthless honesty a woman come undone.” —Bookslut
“If you simply enjoy parody, wordplay, scabrous humor and mind-spinning narrative developments - The Shanghai Gesture might be just your kind of jeu d’esprit.” —Washington Post
Rights held: World English Rights sold: Audio
Rights held: World, Film/TV, Audio
Backlist Highlightss
Literary Fiction Trade Paper Original 978-0-9820151-5-5 US $14.50, 5.25” x 7.5”, 146 pgs