{"product_id":"the-orchid-stories","title":"The Orchid Stories","description":"\u003cp style=\"line-height: normal;\" class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003eBy Kenward Elmslie\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp style=\"margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto; line-height: normal;\" class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003eWith an afterword by Robert Glück\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp style=\"margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto; line-height: normal;\" class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp style=\"margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto; line-height: normal;\" class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003ePilot Press\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp style=\"margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto; line-height: normal;\" class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003ePaperback, 2025\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp style=\"margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto; line-height: normal;\" class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003e261 pages\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp style=\"margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto; line-height: normal;\" class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp style=\"margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto; line-height: normal;\" class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"display: none; mso-hide: all;\"\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp style=\"margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto; line-height: normal;\" class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003eA little-known classic of twentieth century queer literature and a masterpiece of eccentric detail, poet Kenward Elmslie’s only novel \u003ci\u003eThe Orchid Stories \u003c\/i\u003epresents us with interwoven stories as delicate and exquisite as the flowers for which they are named, conveying a dreamlike, otherworldly beauty. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp style=\"margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto; line-height: normal;\" class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA masterpiece of astounding and steadfast invention. — Robert Glück\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp style=\"margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto; line-height: normal;\" class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003eKenward Elmslie's insouciance, inventiveness and fearlessness suffuse \u003ci\u003eThe Orchid Stories\u003c\/i\u003e. No one writes like him, no one. His mind travels in language and through sentences that jolt a reader out of settled linguistic paths. His writing marks the road less taken, his stories excursions without plans or plots. Instead, \"Nirvana juice [is] for sale,\" heavenly pleasures the goal. — Lynne Tillman\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp style=\"margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto; line-height: normal;\" class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp style=\"margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto; line-height: normal;\" class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003eA sweetly bizarre fiction that might be a secret autobiography. You tumble ahead and keep reading, led on by the metrics, though it's mostly prose. You just keep reading. The book contains no \"official\" emotions—ones you're supposed to have—but they feel exactly right. This book, first published in 1973, is still way ahead of the times. — Alice Notley\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp style=\"margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto; line-height: normal;\" class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKenward Elmslie is one of the unforgettable writers of our time. It is as though Burroughs’ permanent apocalypse were being observed by someone else: not a closet Savonarola, but someone motivated by the humor, sensuality, and joie de vivre of an O’Hara. . . The world may be an industrial swamp, but Elmslie’s dazzling one-step ahead induction of it is a cause for rejoicing and even joy. — John Ashbery\u003cb\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp style=\"margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto; line-height: normal;\" class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003e\u003cb\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp style=\"margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto; line-height: normal;\" class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003eKenward Elmslie (1929–2022) was a radical poet, artist, performer and librettist. An important figure of the New York School of poets and artists, he was the author of numerous books of poetry in his lifetime, as well as plays, opera librettos, and his only novel, \u003ci\u003eThe Orchid Stories.\u003c\/i\u003e The latter was first serialised by \u003ci\u003eThe Paris Review\u003c\/i\u003e in the late 1960s and published together as a novel in 1973, remaining out of print for decades. Alongside his own work, he also edited \u003ci\u003eZ Press\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eZ Magazine\u003c\/i\u003e, promoting the work of fellow poets, including John Wieners, Bernadette Mayer, John Ashbery and Anne Waldman. From 1963, he was the life partner of the poet and artist Joe Brainard, living and working closely alongside one another until the latter’s death from AIDS in 1994. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp style=\"margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto; line-height: normal;\" class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp style=\"margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto; line-height: normal;\" class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003eRobert Glück is a poet, fiction writer, editor and potter. In the late 1970s, he and Bruce Boone founded New Narrative, a literary movement of self-reflexive storytelling that combines essay, lyric and autobiography in one work. Glück is the author of the story collections, \u003ci\u003eElements\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eDenny Smith\u003c\/i\u003e; the novels, \u003ci\u003eJack the Modernist\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eMargery Kempe\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eAbout Ed\u003c\/i\u003e; and a volume of collected essays \u003ci\u003eCommunal Nude\u003c\/i\u003e. His books of poetry include \u003ci\u003eLa Fontaine\u003c\/i\u003e with Bruce Boone, \u003ci\u003eReader\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eIn Commemoration of the Visit\u003c\/i\u003e with Kathleen Fraser, and \u003ci\u003eI, Boombox\u003c\/i\u003e. He lives in San Francisco.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"My Store","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":54972966699342,"sku":null,"price":14.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0837\/0680\/6606\/files\/cat9a6br.png?v=1760374834","url":"https:\/\/eastbristolbooks.live\/products\/the-orchid-stories","provider":"My Store","version":"1.0","type":"link"}