Articles by Blake Butler

Blake Butler

Please Start Banning Books Again

I kind of miss the idea of cultural lines that one can’t step over. One of my most memorable high school experiences was getting a permission slip signed by my parents so I could listen to an audiotape of Allen Ginsberg reading “America.” Full story

2013 May 23 Blake Butler Stuff

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Suck on the Monolith

Ken Baumann is best known for his role as Ben on ABC Family’s teen drama show, 'The Secret Life of the American Teenager,' but offscreen he’s of a wholly other mode. Besides spending his TV dollars as publisher of Sator Press, an independent publishing house that traffics in ambi… Full story

2013 May 15 Blake Butler Stuff

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Anton Chekhov Versus Jeffrey Dahmer

For some reason I think about the cannibalistic serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer every time someone mentions Anton Chekhov, a forefather of the contemporary short story. I can’t help but want to draw them out, to put them together in a cage and watch their brains bump. And so the oth… Full story

2013 May 8 Blake Butler Stuff

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Sarcophagi of Prisoners Covered in Cocaine

Johannes Göransson new book, 'Haute Surveillance,' is kind of like a novelization of a movie about the production of a play based on Abu Ghraib, but with way more starlets and cocaine and semen. Full story

2013 May 1 Blake Butler Stuff

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Tupac, Neck Braces, and Suicide: An Interview with Harmony Korine

In 1998, after his feature-length directorial debut, 'Gummo,' Harmony Korine published a novel called 'A Crackup at the Race Riots.' For years the book has been out of print, fetching prices upward of $300 online—until recently, when it was repackaged. Harmony was kind enough to… Full story

2013 Apr 23 Blake Butler Stuff

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The Unrelenting Novels of Thomas Bernhard

Often characterized by a seething loathing of social decor, patriotism, and ego, and fed by years spent suffering from tuberculosis and a gathering madness that would eventually force him to spend two years in a sanatorium, Bernhard's work is some of the blackest, most bare-teeth… Full story

2013 Apr 17 Blake Butler Stuff

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Shapes That Make You Dizzy

Coconut Books is the print arm of the longest-running online poetry publisher I can think of. In the past several months they’ve released a slew of wicked new books. Here are my thoughts on three of them, along with an excerpt from each. Full story

2013 Apr 9 Blake Butler Stuff

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One Hundred Literary Rumors

I don’t know what you’ve heard, but I’ve heard a lot of shit. People whispering in hallways and Gmail chatting about all kinds of dark secrets. People up in parties with their coats and hair all looking nice and their mouths just full of you wouldn’t even want to know. I’ll tell… Full story

2013 Apr 1 Blake Butler Stuff

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The March Madness of Fast Food

After spending several days sprawled out watching men on TV throw a ball at a hole in an effort not to get eliminated from a competition, I decided to subject the glorious fast food restaurants of America to a similar contest. I seeded 64 of our most popular corporate fast food c… Full story

2013 Mar 27 Blake Butler Stuff

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Scott McClanahan’s Animal Magnetism

I think of Scott McClanahan as a kind of reauthenticated version of everything that’s good about Southern writing. I’ve seen him silence a room at least five different times now with just the words that came out of his mouth. Scott just released his first full-length book of nonf… Full story

2013 Mar 20 Blake Butler Stuff

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