- Paperback: 160 pages
- Published: 10/1/07
- IBSN: 9780978910310
- Genre: Fiction
Catalog » Browse by Title: M » The Musical Illusionist and Other Tales
The Musical Illusionist and Other Tales
The second installment from Hotel St. George Press, following the release of The Session by Aaron Petrovich.
What people are saying…
Past praise for Alex Rose:
“This guy is very talented . . . one of the funniest, smartest writers I have come across in some time.”
—Ross Katz, producer, Lost in Translation
“Equally at home with narrative form and an experimental aesthetic, Alex is on my shortlist of filmmakers to watch.”
—Filmmaker Magazine
Description
Hotel St. George is an online literary and arts quarterly featuring original fiction, artwork, short films, music, soundscapes, spoken word and secret histories, all occupying carefully designed rooms in an ever-expanding virtual hotel. Our imprint is dedicated to publishing work that playfully fuse the formal craftsmanship of art books with the substantive content of dynamic, modern prose.
In the tradition of Borges and Calvino, The Musical Illusionist is an interwoven collection of post-modern folk tales—disappearing manuscripts, neurological anamolies, teleporting bacteria, and an unforgettable composer who manipulates sound to bend perception—that masterfully blends scientific curiousity with magical-realist caprice. The collection is organized by a giant underground archive—The Library of Tangents—in which the reader takes an imaginary journey through a series of exhibitions exploring parallel understandings of space, time, language, and all of the senses.
From a mythical underground, Rose introduces a new form of parable—the Hypothetical Reality—in which the reader is never certain if Rose’s fiercely intellectual and carefully researched premises are the stuff of historic fact, or are instead an exploration of possibility. The impact of the collection is not measured by its verity, but by the way in which Rose’s illusions activate the imagination.
Also check out The Session by Aaron Petrovich.
- Subjects: Literary Fiction
- Tags: Aaron Petrovich, Alex Rose, Hotel St. George Press
Book Details
Author
ALEX ROSE has published stories and essays for McSweeney’s, the North American Review, the Providence Journal, the Forward, Science-Creative Quarterly, and DIAGRAM. He has also directed a number of short films, videos, and animations, which have appeared on HBO, MTV, Comedy Central, Showtime, and the BBC. He is presently collaborating with composer Sarah Kirkland Snider on a lyric suite about 12th century visionary Hildegard von Bingen. The Musical Illusionist is his debut collection.