GRAFFITI ON THE WINDOW

by Alexej Savreux Alexej Savreux ‧ RELEASE DATE: N/A

A young writer presents a compilation of multigenre works, divided into two parts.

According to the introduction, the first part, “Spray Gold Upon the City AKA Spray Paint,” is raw, while the second part, “Artistique AKA Oils,” is more refined. They were written between 2008 and 2013, he notes, and through a manic episode in his early 20s; he writes that he was diagnosed with schizophrenic and manic-depressive illnesses. The book’s first part has a stream-of-consciousness style that’s intricately creative and subversive. It contains moments of rage, contemplations of death and insanity, and a slew of historic references. Despite being described as raw, the first part features many imagistic gems, as in “Rematch, Bobby Fischer, 20 Secs Later”: “I do not e’er have known ye, yet ye speak volumes of prodigies down the lost halls of contrariness. Touch shall be all healing. But until then, no Queen shall touch your King.” In “Black Light Bulb,” “The light is not bright is not white, is dark and dank and black and blue. / A shimmering glow, for all to know, just there, and anything renouncing the spotlight, the ego.” A play titled “Sophocles’s Unfound Friend Tragedy About Scarlet Haired Darcy” tells of a tragedy in which “the Kid” commits suicide after receiving unsound advice from “CBT Therapist” regarding an unanswered letter to a “sensitive chick” named Darcy, who texts the Kid moments after his death. In a moment of clarity, in “Mai ’68 Graffiti, & Joual,” the speaker articulates a fear that will be intimately relatable to anyone who suffers from chronic illness: “Being alive & having a Dead Life instead of a Life is indisputably worse than the Life after Death.”

Sardonic humor tints the more serious works and drives the wholly satirical works in this collection. In “Psych Eval of Jesus Christ, Son of Man,” for instance, Jesus is thusly diagnosed: “Paranoid-Type Self-Referential Delusions. / Delusional Subtype: Primary. / Patient opines God and Salvation frequently.” Sometimes rage and misogyny overcomes the speaker, as in “Hostile Brothels of Fucking Mothers.” In the second part, the theme of death endures. In “O, My Eternal Friend”: “On the beach of the shallow waters of the infinite depth there, Ha. / I walk the plank after you, & we carry thru the drains of ourselves, the veins forever unclogged.” The short story “A Sherpa’s Constitution” evokes an Albert Camus–like absurdist approach to life: “despite purposelessness, the climb itself has an intrinsic purpose. What purpose, Suddah? Suddah looks at me wearily, then, I respond, as knowingly, as self-aware as ever: To go Beyond God.” For the speakers of these many collected works, a wide array of subjects converge: Mathematics meets Marx; women are alien, despised, and revered all at once; and philosophers and Gods are acquaintances. The speaker rules the universe, but remains utterly vulnerable to everything inside it, making for an offbeat exercise in meditative reading.

A set of works in a voice that intriguingly swings between eras and structures, unbeholden to convention.

Pub Date: N/A

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: 134

Publisher: manuscript

Review Posted Online: Aug. 16, 2023

Review Program: Kirkus Indie

Categories:

GENERAL BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | GENERAL NONFICTION