Here’s another story from my 2023 collection The Potato Farm. Nevil reads a detective novel, amid trouble at work and his growing curiosity about its elusive author. There are 13 chapters of 250 words apiece; here’s the first one.

NEVIL READS A NOVEL

CHAPTER ONE

Nevil settles into his armchair, setting the glass on the table. It had been a slow week at the stationery shop. Sales are down, since nobody writes letters anymore, but he was still on his feet most of the time. To make things worse, Mr. Duckworth was irritated that a shipment of promotional erasers hadn’t arrived, and was cranky with Nevil and Mariella, the other clerk. Nevil is looking forward to a quiet Friday night with a book and a glass of wine. He takes a sip and picks up the paperback.

The title is Don’t Bring a Cat to a Dogfight, from 1961, its colorful cover showing two beatniks fighting in a coffeehouse. The author is Trent Foxberger, who is new to Nevil. He turns the book over to study his photo. Foxberger looks conventionally professorial, with a blazer and pipe. Nevil then reads the blurbs. Critics liked it, comparing it favorably to other novels that were probably popular at the time.

Nevil takes another sip, and opens to the first chapter.

It takes place in the Club Somewhat, in Manhattan. A trio, consisting of suave pianist Sport Betteridge, exuberant bassist Jinx Dugan, and sardonic wit Senator Phelps on drums, is playing their usual Friday night set. There’s a fair amount of description of both the club and their music. During Senator’s solo, a young woman runs across the stage, chased by a stocky middle-aged man. Sport and Senator jump up and tackle him, letting the woman escape.

Every year, Meg Reichardt assembles musicians in Brooklyn for a Holiday Recording Party. This year, I contributed a song that I sent in from upstate. It’s called “Here’s to the Longest Night,” and it celebrates the solstice. You can listen to the whole album on Bandcamp.

This affecting tale of roommate conflict can be found in TYPO 12. Don’t worry; it has a happy ending.

This lipogrammatic crossword appears in TYPO 12. It excludes the letter E from all of the words and clues. The photo is of that master lipogrammist Georges Perec. The solution can be consulted after the break.

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From TYPO 12, here’s a reader survey for an imaginary novel. This is only the first page; there are 100 questions.

From TYPO 11 comes this tale of the Bach family, in which Johann Sebastian kicks out his many children so there will be enough roast duck for himself. They have to find musical positions themselves, which isn’t easy in a field with so many Bachs.

My 14th string quartet is for four ‘cellos, sawing industriously away on diatonic tone clusters and polyrhythms.

TYPO 12 is now available from Black Scat Books! For this one, I contributed a short story (“The Flotation Device”), a “Reader Survey” for an imaginary novel, and a “Lipogrammatic Crossword”–a crossword puzzle shaped like the letter E, in which that letter is excluded from all the words and clues.

My extraordinary colleagues in this issue are Robert Archambeau, Corina Bardoff, Terry Bradford, Igor Bulatovsky, Paul Busson, Apollo Camembert, Norman Conquest, Albert Cossery, Noël Devaulx, Rachel Galvin, Jean-Luc Gameau, Shawn Garrett, Edward Gauvin, Julien Gracq, Pierre Autin-Grenier, Rick Henry, Esteban Isnardi, Julia Lillard, Joshua Martin, George MacLennan, Dmitri Manin, Paul Nougé, Thomas Owen, Angelo Pastormerlo, Alejandro Albarrán Polanco, Bernard Quiriny, Adam Ranđelović, Simon Read, Lono Taggers, Mark Valentine, Tim Walker, Gregory Wallace, Alyson Waters, Andrew Wenaus, Tom Whalen, and Bill Wolak. As usual, the whole thing is edited and designed by Norman Conquest.

For TYPO 6, I wrote an article on the Indisposizione di Belle Arti, a satirical exhibit organized by the Famiglia Artistica Milanese in Milan in 1881. It included conceptual pieces, parodies, monochromes, ready-mades, and other techniques later exploited by the Incohérents and Dadaists. Very little has been written about it in English. My article presented the reader with its history, descriptions and drawings of artworks from the contemporary press, and translations of excerpts from the catalogue. The Indisposizione should not be forgotten!