The Gorko Gazette

CIALIS, VERDI, GIN, JAG
BY Adam Johnson
ANXIETY PRESS/PRISM THREAD BOOKS, 2022
250 pages, OUT OF PRINT

I had had the good luck to have been acquainted with Adam Johnson’s prose, via Misery Loves Company and the now-infamous Bear Creek, before I got my hands on this book, but nothing could have prepared me for this once-in-a-world lynchian masterpiece. I worship this book and will be reading it on loop, so help me Satan.

Mild-mannered surface dweller Goddard goes off the tracks for his own son’s wife, abandoning life as he had established it and normalcy in every sense, in a crash and burn spiral. Johnson gives the character a bank account, maniac brain, and thirst each the size of Rhode Island to play with, and away we ride. The plot is not complex, it is that of a biopic without the final arc of redemption, but told from a first person POV restricted to the protagonist’s unwell gloating uber-educated eyes. The cultural realia (food, drink, drugs, car, clothes, decor) are in themselves something so Bret Easton Ellis about this work that they may even betray Johnson’s own past. A collaborative production from Anxiety Press and Prism Thread Books, the book is a comfortable 250 pages paperback without typos (jk I caught 2…but were they typos? Such was the breakneck speed of the work that it did not madder! Utter for udder was one).

Why this book is like no other is its intensity and drive, that every single sentence contains a joke or cruel punchline, though I hesitate to say joke or punchline because this is not cheap entertainment, no giving up here. As a humor writer I appreciate the feat of this, however, that Johnson has managed to concentrate so much horror and angst (the essence of a good laugh) into every single line. Not that this is a funny book, or genre humor. This is the story of a psychopath, but full of insights and remarks.

Get your hands on this beauty now for your Cialis, Verdi, Gin, Jag jag, and please fasten up.

Her hair was put up in rich blonde plaits, her cheeks were round, her body enigmatic, though obviously classical (or pre-obese), and her beach-burned, reddish skin was osmotically emigrating through the thin white cotton of her below-the-knees, one-piece dress. She had a hideous laugh, which I learned of on my first-impressing, ice-breaking attempt at wit, but pearly teeth and a radiant smile, and cheeks that looked as though they’d stand up against time even though I knew they wouldn’t, and an almost gawping appreciation for the Old English accent I peddled out like a cheap ware…
–Cialis, Verdi, Gin, Jag, 95

GET IT HERE? TALK TO CODY AT ANXIETY PRESS

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covered in sharpie and suing for peace
BY Adam Johnson
Pig Roast Publishing, 2023
191 pages, $24.95 CASE hardcover

I was going to say of Adam Johnson’s exquisite iPhone/Android collection of poems ‘covered in sharpie and suing for peace’ that it is not for everyone, it is after all a collection of stream of consciousness poems that seems obsessed with guns, blow, and gay sex, but have to change that to that it is actually a book for everyone, since there is something in here for everyone. A confession: I have not read the whole thing yet, because this book is in fact one of my favorite possessions and I am rationing it off like spiked lemonade. [Editor’s note, May 2025: Almost immediately after posting this review, sometime in 2023, sadly enough, I finished the collection. It is now in the Deferred Gratification Pile, marinating for a second read.] I take it around everywhere with me and read off a page or two a day, because every line is like opening a present, whatever has hatched this time from AJ’s brain. Here we also have sneaky insights into not just the lawyering and lowlifes from AJ’s own history, but his skanky heterosexual take on gay cruising, and the love of firearms only appreciable in the midwestern united states. Bang bang bang! Great oldschool case laminated hardcover edition from Pig Roast Publishing makes for one of the great indie lit purchases of 2023.

mavis can’t see the faults in anyone
she even thinks dustin is some kind of diamond-cracker and artist
who’s mavis i don’t think i know her
she’s that waitress from applebee’s whose mom was a judge and
committed suicide after some kind of weird corruption thing
oh yeah mavis, i only knew her as ken, she’s pretty mendacious now
you and your words…
–covered in sharpie and suing for peace, 97

Get it here: covered in sharpie and suing for peace

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WHAT IS WE IS SERIES?

We Is Series is the new Gorko Club of Books Series of serious book reviews. We plan to review a new indie book a month, or per year, or maybe once a decade.

NO BUT WHAT IS IT

It is series, we are not joking around. The concept is to review new indie books, and to just give you the most honest impression we have got of them.

WHO WRITES IT

Me, Raddy. But if you want to, if you think you have a real honest take on a new indie book, and can write words in a row, send queries raddywise to thegorkogazette@gmail.com

Cover image generated on Magic Studio

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