Thank you to everyone who attended Peter Sotos' reading in New York City.

For our friends in Europe, Peter Sotos will read from COMFORT AND CRITIQUE in Berlin on Wednesday, October 19. Please see the handbill for details.

Check back soon for more updates about future projects, recent press, etc.

First and foremost, we apologize for the delay on COMFORT AND CRITIQUE, which we're proud to finally offer for pre-order. We have decided, in conjunction with Peter, to limit the edition size to 325 copies ONLY. Consequently, we must impose a 2 book limit per buyer. Needless to say, we recommend you secure a copy immediately as these are bound to go FAST. All pre-orders will ship in mid-July at no additional charge to U.S. buyers and a $5 reduced shipping rate for our friends abroad.

To learn more about the book, please see our new interview with Peter Sotos.

To mark the publication of COMFORT AND CRITIQUE, Peter Sotos will read from the book on Wednesday, July 20 at 7:30 p.m. at the Accompanied Library at the National Arts Club, located at 15 Gramercy Park South in New York City. As space is limited at this venue, RSVP is required. Any unsold copies of COMFORT AND CRITIQUE will be available for sale at this event along with other Void Books titles. We'll try to post more information about this reading in the coming weeks.

We have limited quantities of THE SLUTS and paperback copies of SELFISH, LITTLE still available for purchase. The first hardcover edition of SELFISH, LITTLE is now completely sold out.

In other news, we've just learned that an excerpt from Dennis Cooper's THE SLUTS will be included in the forthcoming "Best Gay Erotica 2006" collection edited by Richard Labonte with selections by Matillda a.k.a Matt Bernstein Sycamore.

We want to bring your attention to a like-minded publisher in Paris. Laurence Viallet has recently published the French translation of Peter Sotos' TICK on her Désordres imprint. Laurence's catalog also boasts the French translation of Dennis Cooper's terrific short story collection, WRONG. Please visit www.editions-desordres.com to learn more.

Also, we wholeheartedly encourage you to bookmark Dennis Cooper's amazing new blog. This has become daily, compulsory reading for us. Be on the lookout for Dennis' anticipated new novel, God Jr., due out in August from Grove. And endless thanks to the wonderful folks at www.denniscooper.net for all your help and support.

Forthcoming from Void is a new, revamped website, a volume of poetry by Dennis Cooper, and more from Peter Sotos. Other projects are in the works. Details will be posted soon.

Thanks to everyone who attended Dennis Cooper's reading at Skylight Books in Los Angeles on February 12. Praise for the novel is pouring in. Please see our "Recent Press" section for links to the latest articles.

Thanks to everyone who attended Dennis Cooper's reading at The Accompanied Library on January 13. Photos from the night can be seen here. Dennis will also read from The Sluts in Los Angeles on Saturday, February 12, at 7:30 p.m. at Skylight Books.

Update: Dennis Cooper will be reading from THE SLUTS on Thursday, January 13 at 7:30 p.m. at the Accompanied Library at the National Arts Club, located at 15 Gramercy Park South in New York City. As space is limited at this venue, we ask that you RSVP to be guaranteed admittance. Copies of THE SLUTS will be available for sale at this event.

We are now taking pre-orders for The Sluts. The books will ship in January 2005. The pre-order cost is $50 per copy, with free shipping for U.S. orders and discounted $5 shipping for international orders. All U.S. orders will be shipped by Priority Mail, and all international orders will be shipped by airmail. This book will go fast and will NOT be sold in stores, so please pre-order now if you want to be guaranteed a copy.

To learn more about The Sluts, please make sure to check out the section devoted to the novel on Dennis Cooper's amazing website www.denniscooper.net. This section will feature a gallery of images Dennis Cooper used to create the novel, a ton of links, art and designs from the book (including preliminary sketches by Todd James), a new interview with the author, and more. Make sure to enter the trivia contest for a chance to win the grand prize, which includes an inscribed copy of The Sluts and a page from Dennis Cooper's original manuscript.

To mark the publication of The Sluts, Dennis Cooper will be reading from the novel in early 2005 at events in New York City and Los Angeles. The L.A. reading will be held on Saturday, February 12, at 7:30 p.m. at Skylight Books, located at 1818 N. Vermont Avenue. Wayne Koestenbaum will also read from his new novel, Moira Orfei in Aigues-Mortes, now available from Soft Skull Press, at this event. We are still working out the date and venue for the New York reading and will post the information shortly. Everyone on the East Coast, please check back soon.

We are also taking pre-orders for the paperback reissue of our first release, Peter Sotos' Selfish, Little: The Annotated Lesley Ann Downey, available in January 2005. This edition features new cover art by Matthew Brannon and is limited to 1000 copies. The pre-order cost is $15 per book, with free shipping for U.S. orders and discounted $5 shipping for international orders. All U.S. orders will be shipped by Priority Mail, and all international orders will be shipped by airmail.

There is a small number of signed copies of the hardcover edition of Selfish, Little still available for sale exclusively through this site at the original price of $60. If you would like a copy of this soon to be scarce first edition, please order now.

Update: We have finished production on The Sluts and will begin taking pre-orders for the book on Wednesday, December 8. The Sluts will be strictly limited to 550 numbered copies printed in 2 colors on Mohawk Superfine paper, bound in black and white 3-piece linen, and signed by Dennis Cooper and Todd James. The pre-order cost will be $50 per book, with free shipping for all US orders and discounted shipping for international orders.

Welcome to the new Void Books website. The site has been completely redesigned and updated with information about our next two titles: The Sluts by Dennis Cooper (December 2004) and Comfort and Critique: The Art of Sarah Payne by Peter Sotos (May 2005). We've also added an exclusive interview with Peter Sotos and video from his April 22, 2004 reading at subTonic Lounge in New York City. We still have a limited number of signed copies of Selfish, Little available for sale exclusively through this site. Order a signed copy while they last.

Dennis Cooper's website is now online. The site features a detailed news section with updates on current and forthcoming projects and publications, including The Sluts, available from Void Books in December 2004.

We have begun production on our next book, Dennis Cooper's novel, The Sluts. Written between 1994 and 2002, The Sluts is a black sheep cousin to Dennis Cooper's internationally acclaimed George Miles Cycle - Closer (1989), Frisk (1991), Try (1994), Guide (1997), and Period (2000). Set largely on the pages of a website where gay male escorts are reviewed by their clients, and told through the postings, emails, and conversations of several dozen unreliable narrators, The Sluts chronicles the evolution of one young escort's date with a satisfied client into a metafiction of pornography, lies, half-truths, and myth. Explicit, shocking, comical, and displaying the author's signature flair for blending structural complexity with direct, stylish, accessible language, The Sluts is Cooper's most transgressive novel since Frisk, and one of his most innovative works of fiction to date. The Sluts is scheduled for publication by Void Books in December 2004 in a limited edition of 1000 copies with illustrations by Todd James. Check back soon for more information about this release.

Dennis Cooper is the author of The George Miles Cycle, an interconnected sequence of five novels that includes Closer (1989), Frisk (1991), Try (1994), Guide (1997), and Period (2000). The George Miles Cycle is published by Grove Press, and has been translated into sixteen languages. His most recent novel is My Loose Thread (Canongate Books, 2000). His other books include The Dream Police: Selected Poems '69-'93, Jerk (w/ Nayland Blake), Horror Hospital Unplugged (w/ Keith Mayerson), and Wrong. Dennis, a multi-media project including a new novella by Cooper and a CD compilation of songs created in tribute to his work, will be released in late 2004 by Versus Press/Substandard Records. Cooper is a Contributing Editor of Artforum Magazine and Editor-in-Chief of Little House on the Bowery, a line of books by adventurous new fiction writers, which are published under the auspices of Akashic Press. His forthcoming novel, The Sluts, will be published by Void Books in December 2004. He lives in Los Angeles.

Todd James belongs to a small, influential group of artists who acquired the earliest elements of their visual languages painting New York City subway cars, and in doing so altered an entire generation's perception of urban letterforms. James' work has been shown at the Venice Bienalle, the Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia, the Tate Museum in Liverpool, the Parco Gallery in Japan, and in the STREET MARKET show at Deitch Projects in New York City.

Comfort and Critique: The Art of Sarah Payne, the new book by Peter Sotos, is scheduled for publication by Void Books in April 2005. Check back soon for more information about this release.

Thank you to everyone who attended the Peter Sotos readings in New York City and London.

To mark the publication of Selfish, Little: The Annotated Lesley Ann Downey, Peter Sotos will be reading from and discussing the book at events in New York City and London in April 2004.

News cont'd...

Comfort and Critique by Peter Sotos

- Read our new interview with Peter Sotos

- Order now

$45 | 256 pages | 5.75" x 8.25" | privately issued without ISBN number | limited numbered edition of 325 copies bound in linen boards and signed by the author | 2 book limit per customer

In this unsettling new book, cult author Peter Sotos recounts the abduction and murder of 8-year-old Sarah Payne, a crime that stunned England and spawned an aftermath of reactionary outcry and violent protest. Through news bites and tabloid clippings reassembled in reverse chronology, Sotos examines the media apotheosis of Payne's parents in the wake of her disappearance, scrutinizes the hidden motives of reporters and citizens driven to hysterical excess by grief, vengeance, and opportunism, and illumines the insatiable lusts that govern the actions of sexual predators. Punctuated by philosophical overtures and self-deprecating quips, Comfort and Critique is a brutal meditation on fantasy and desire set against a backdrop of media banter and illicit back room activity in bars and underground sex clubs. Supplemented by over 100 photos, this volume is possibly Sotos' most revealing and multi-faceted work yet.

Peter Sotos is the author of six books. PROXY, a compendium of his out-of-print writings, is currently available from Creation Books. He lives in Chicago.

The Sluts by Dennis Cooper
with illustrations by Todd James

- Read the exclusive Void Books interview with Dennis Cooper

- Order The Sluts

$50 | 296 pages | 6.125" x 9.25" | privately issued without ISBN number | limited edition of 550 signed and numbered copies | shipping January 2005

This first hardcover edition of The Sluts is bound in 3-piece linen, printed in 2 colors on archival-quality Mohawk Superfine paper, and strictly limited to 550 numbered copies signed by Dennis Cooper and Todd James.

Written between 1994 and 2002, The Sluts is a black sheep cousin to Dennis Cooper's internationally acclaimed George Miles Cycle. Set largely on the pages of a website where gay male escorts are reviewed by their clients, and told through the postings, emails, and conversations of several dozen unreliable narrators, The Sluts chronicles the evolution of one young escort's date with a satisfied client into a metafiction of pornography, lies, half-truths, and myth. Explicit, shocking, comical, and displaying the author's signature flair for blending structural complexity with direct, stylish, accessible language, The Sluts is Cooper's most transgressive novel since Frisk, and one of his most innovative works of fiction to date.

Dennis Cooper is the author of The George Miles Cycle, an interconnected sequence of five novels that includes Closer (1989), Frisk (1991), Try (1994), Guide (1997), and Period (2000). The George Miles Cycle is published by Grove Press, and has been translated into sixteen languages. His other books include My Loose Thread, The Dream Police: Selected Poems '69-'93, Jerk (w/ Nayland Blake), Horror Hospital Unplugged (w/Keith Mayerson), and Wrong. Dennis, a multi-media project including a new novella by Cooper and a CD compilation of songs created in tribute to his work, will be released in 2005 by Versus Press/Substandard Records. Cooper is a Contributing Editor of Artforum and Editor-in-Chief of Little House on the Bowery, a line of books by adventurous new fiction writers, which are published under the auspices of Akashic Press. His eighth novel, God Jr., will be published by Grove Press in August 2005. He lives in Los Angeles.

Todd James belongs to a small, influential group of artists who acquired the earliest elements of their visual languages painting New York City subway cars, and in doing so altered an entire generation's perception of urban letterforms. James' work has been shown at the Venice Bienalle, the Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia, the Tate Museum in Liverpool, the Parco Gallery in Japan, and in the STREET MARKET show at Deitch Projects in New York City.

 

Marc Andreottola, winner of The University of Chicago's David Blair McLaughlin Essay Prize "for essays demonstrating special skill and sense of form in the writing of English prose" weighs in on THE SLUTS for the Barcelona Review can be seen here.

Richard Labonte's pithy and pitch-perfect review of THE SLUTS can be seen here.

See Ben Robertson's perspicacious dissection of THE SLUTS here.

And make sure to read Jason Malikow's sagacious follow-up to Robertson's piece here.

Selfish, Little surfaces in a bizarre article by Hofstra University scribe Mita Tate. We encourage you to visit the "Entertainment" section of The Hofstra Chronicle and join us in wondering how "The Loss Of Innocence" got past the fact-checker.

Selfish, Little is featured in Vice UK.

The Sluts is reviewed in the Village Voice! Dennis Lim’s epic take on the novel, “His Loose Thread,” can be seen here.

The Sluts is reviewed in L.A. Weekly! Brandon Stosuy’s laudatory piece, “The Last Hurrah,” can be seen here.

Dennis Cooper discusses his literary oeuvre, including The Sluts, with reporter Justin Taylor for Bookslut here.

Andrew Hultkrans’ “Bottoms Up,” a lively account of the bacchanal launch party for The Sluts at The Accompanied Library in New York, appears in Artforum’s Scene and Herd column. Read it here.

A meta-article about Hultkrans’ story appears in Gawker. Read it here.

Jeff Koyen's review of Dennis Cooper's The Sluts from New York Press Volume 17, Issue 51 can be seen here.

Dennis Cooper discusses his recent projects, including The Sluts (available from Void Books in December 2004), and offers his candid perspective on various topics including the writings of Peter Sotos in a new interview in the online journal Suspect Thoughts.

A lengthy reader's review of Selfish, Little: The Annotated Lesley Ann Downey by Peter Sotos has been posted on the online book discussion forum The Book Barn.

Selfish, Little: The Annotated Lesley Ann Downey by Peter Sotos is featured in Jim Knipfel's alternative summer reading guide in New York Press Volume 17, Number 21.

Peter Sotos is featured on the cover of New York Press Volume 17, Number 16. The issue includes a review of Selfish, Little: The Annotated Lesley Ann Downey and a profile of the author by Jeff Koyen.

Selfish, Little: The Annotated Lesley Ann Downey by Peter Sotos

- Read the exclusive Void Books interview with Peter Sotos

- See video of Peter Sotos reading from Selfish, Little at subTonic Lounge in NYC

- View reader response to the cloth edition of Selfish, Little

- Order the paperback edition of Selfish, Little

$15 | 192 pages | 7" x 10" | privately issued without ISBN number | limited paperback edition of 1000 copies

This limited paperback edition is printed on archival-quality Mohawk Superfine paper with new cover art and a three-color title page.

In this unnerving new book, cult author Peter Sotos delves into the abject details - at once revolting and salacious - of the brutal murder of Lesley Ann Downey, the ten-year-old victim of "Moors Murderers" Ian Brady and Myra Hindley. With frank, inimitable prose and self-deprecating wit, Sotos interweaves numerous accounts - culled from tabloids, memoirs, and television specials - of the sensational crime and its devastating aftermath with analogous excerpts from recent headlines, explicit erotic fantasies, and graphic descriptions of degrading, often-anonymous carnal encounters. Sotos persistently seeks the truth where others are afraid to look, and discovers an implicit pornography in the public lamentations of Downey's grieving mother, media coverage of lurid sex crimes, and journalistic forays into the private lives of sex offenders. Replete with autobiographic tales of sexual excess, telling interviews, and thoughtful musings on crime, art, and pornography, Selfish, Little is a surreal "smorgasbord of unabashed vulgarity" that is the author's most candid book yet.

Peter Sotos, labeled "the most visceral pornographic writer since de Sade," is the author of five previous books - Total Abuse, Special, Lazy, Tick, and Index - and a contributor to the Apocalypse Culture series from Feral House. His new book, Comfort and Critique: The Art of Sarah Payne, will be published by Void in May 2005. Also forthcoming in 2005 is Proxy, a compendium of out-of-print writings along with a new CD by Sotos with Steve Albini, both from Creation Books. And in 2006, Creation will release Predicate, Sotos' controversial study of Thomas Hamilton. Peter Sotos lives in Chicago.

 

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