The Show That Smells

This book, our most recent addition to the "Little House on the Bowery" imprint (curated by Dennis Cooper), is in a lot of ways the most fascinating, bizarre, surreal, and playful book I've encountered in awhile. The narration, featuring Elsa Schiaparelli as a vampire, and including Schiaparelli's real-life rival Coco Chanel, character actor Lon Chaney, Joan Crawford, and the Carter Family (as red state vampire hunters, no less), is a tale of hillbillies, high fashion, and horror. The action is played out in a mirror maze, in a carnival. Here are some excerpts:

Coco Chanel.
Carries Rodgers. Mother Maybelle.
Sara. A.P. Coco Chanel. Carrie Rodgers.
Mother Maybelle. Sara. A.P. Coco Chanel. Carrie Rodgers.
Mother Maybelle. Sara. A.P. Coco Chanel. Carrie Rodgers.
Mother Maybelle. Sara. A.P.
Coco Chanel and Carrie Rodgers and the Carter Family and
Elsa Schiaparelli and me in a mirror maze.

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Freaks file in. From the cast of Freaks. A midgetess. A giantess. Fatty the Fat Lady has an all-day lollipop. She eats three a day. The Bearded lady braided her beard. To be pretty. A chicken Lady carries in the Human Worm. The Word was born without arms, without legs. Born a dress form.

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"Sequins!" She says.

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"Beads!" She says.

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"Crystals!" She says.

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See more official press on our website here: http://www.akashicbooks.com/showthatsmells.htm

Derek McCormack is the author of Grab Bag (Akashic) and The Haunted Hillbilly (Soft Skull), which was named a "Best Book of the Year" by both the Village Voice and the Globe and Mail, and was a Lambda Literary Award finalist. He writes fashion and arts articles for the National Post, and lives in Toronto.

Dennis Cooper blogged extensively (with a ton of relevant video's and images) here: http://denniscooper-theweaklings.blogspot.com/2009/06/derek-mccormacks-show-that-smells-day.html