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Reverse-Gentrification of the Literary World

Akashic Books

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April 2013 News & Features

Introducing the Spring Thrills Digit!

Introducing the Spring Thrills Digit! Excerpts from By the Balls: The Complete Collection by Jim Pascoe and Tom Fassbender, Heart of the Old Country by Tim Mcloughlin, Southland by Nina Revoyr, and The Plot Against Hip Hop by Nelson George.

“Into Darker Night,” by Jim Pascoe

I don’t do well in situations like this.

I don’t like to talk about myself, and I don’t like small talk. Guess that makes me the odd man out in LA.

The scene before me spread out like the opening of a movie. Interior establishing shot. A party. Extras hovering around, moving lips without anything coming out. Even with a bunch of people all grouped together, the place felt sparse. Ten thousand square feet and twenty-five-foot ceilings will have that effect.

What was I doing here, in a penthouse loft on Spring Street?

Dance music from the 80s pushed out of a 90s plastic boom box, the kind that looked like the front end of a car. No one was dancing.

Two weeks. Audrey had been gone for two weeks….