"The first 351 pages are terrific. I will attempt a review once I finish the last 200 pages or so.

Review:

I first heard the term meta-fiction in a workshop reference to something I myself had written. The term was not used pejoratively, rather as a sort of desperation to classify. Next, some twenty years later, I learned the term maximalist when it was used to describe large metafictional novels, and again it was in reference to a novel I myself had written. Since then I have come to learn that as the author of a maximalist novel, I am either in a group that includes Thomas Pynchon, or a larger one of pretentious writers who think they are Thomas Pynchon. This was enough to get me to read Gravity’s Rainbow in 2021, I think. I loved it. I had already read The Recognitions, which I loved. Zachary Tanner’s Margie and the Atomic Brain is probably a maximalist novel. I just finished the first volume of what I will abbreviate as MATAB, the first of a trilogy that has been well-conceived but is expected to require two years for each of the next two volumes. If I have to subcategorize the novel I would put it more in the Gaddis group than the Pynchon, but I am pretty sure Tanner would prefer it be set in a separate category. If any of this is relevant it is because of my expectations as I was reading and thinking hard about how I would review this book. The first third or so displayed no meta hijinks if you don’t include an occasional authorial aside; in fact delivered an astonishingly adept examination of core US American values, thought, and economics from WWII to the early post-war period in what is perhaps most aptly referred to as high melodramatic register—insights keen enough to make compelling the friendship between two women in small-town Louisiana who work at a bomber factory while their husbands make what they can of the war they’ve been drawn into. This includes some amazing sky war fiction and is grounded in a realistic, detailed approach to storytelling. Here is where I feel compelled to offer realism as a term to describe the works of Pynchon, Gaddis (and myself, pretender or no), though inviting a preceding adjective, such as intense or hyper or even metaphorical (surely there are dozens more, particularly if the vast array of novels included in the maximalist pantheon are included in my classification scheme [America and the Cult of the Cactus Boots: a Diagnostic perhaps fractal realism?]).
But that was just the first third of volume 1, or the first ninth of the whole. After that, time the narrative begins to fragment, the novel moves back and forth in time, the narrative voice is relinquished on occasion, exhibits A through something like H are introduced, the last being La Philosophie dans la Douche, by a local generous host and drug benefactor. The largest portion of prose continues the tale of the neighbor ladies through their children, examining with painful exactitude the unrequited love of one for the other. At the same time, a great deal more is happening: a time ‘machine�� has been successfully been created, the atomic age is examined from the angles of innumerable anglers, a film crew has set up in bayou country to film a monster movie, a pulp style monster has begun to wreak misunderstood havoc around town, Lester Nubile, a priest for fuck’s sake, is feeling horny, and so on. And if you are like me and don’t much care generally for coming of age novels, don’t worry, for the adults are carrying on with enough gusto to make up for any teen timidity, as orgiastic activities are well describe among characters involved in the film.
The questions I asked myself going into the reading were 1) whether the novel came to a satisfying end that yet did not leave readers frustrated that they would have to wait for two years for the next ‘installment��. Surprisingly, I was very satisfied on this account. The other [that would be 2)] was whether the book did what Tanner said it would on the copy of the first flap, deliver ��..literature’s first true multiverse novel, existing as a superposition of ever-bifurcating and contradictory moments lived and relived within a greater web of experience that, I hope, cumulatively suggests the macro/micro-cosmic nature of our own universe.�� First, I wanted to see if by reading this first volume whether I could understand what he meant, and then see if it succeeded. I do actually understand now, and there is every indication that he will by the end pull it off.
Further observations: this is an extremely beautiful book, given the cover, and the typography, and including a spine that (and this was my idea) will display a coherent picture once the three volumes are together on the shelf. This is where the book may fail, though, for I want that now. I don’t want to wait four years for that. So I am going to suggest to the author that we produce and sell, cheaply as possible, replica covers so readers can look at that final spine-in-thirds while awaiting the next actual volumes."

"Through GR and IG I’ve been able to forge some incredible friendships with fellow readers. Some writers. Some publishers. Some, all of the above. Rick Harsch, a truly brilliant writer, also owns and operates Corona/Samizdat Books printing and publishing unique works of literature. Fiction and non. The 2 books I’m writing about The Seven Madmen/The Flamethrowers are now collected and available together for the first time ever. Ever!!!

NYRB released The Seven Madmen some time ago and you may have read that. And then you were probably wondering where the heck The Flamethrowers is. Thanks to translator Larry Riley he learned Spanish and translated it into English for many, many people. Along with the translation of TSM by Naomi Lindstrom, here are Roberto Arlt’s two awesome books together as they should be.

Both books are phenomenal and dig into your soul like nothing else. An insane bunch of characters in a Buenos Aires of the 1920’s that may be unrecognizable to people today. Anyway, both books are fantastic. Support small presses. And let’s do what we can to make these two books the best seller it rightfully deserves. Buy them here��

"

"This is one of the few greatest books of the 20th century.

Unfortunately I have to use this space to reply to 'Gil', who wrote:
"Washed-up narcissist Richard Harsch expects people to believe this is the first edition to combine the two halves of The Flamethrowers yet that edition came out from River Boat Books a year ago, and the quality is much better than this bottom-dollar pocket book. Do yourself a favor and pick this up instead: ."

Washed-up is an unfortunate description of a narcissist, as is the use of such denigration for someone celebrating a writer not himself, in this case Roberto Arlt. Regarding the first edition to combine two halves (of the Flamethrowers? That is one half, the second, the other being The Seven Madmen). The press referred to has a book called Madmen in Revolt, which is not a book that Roberto Arlt ever wrote. Calling his book by that name would be as perplexing and misguided as if I published Moby Dick and instead called it Big Ed or Wild Whales of Yore. As a publisher I find it a simple matter to respect the authors' choices for the titles of their books. Further, that book used, without permission, my own writing for introductions to the Flamethrowers, and was put together without the knowledge of the translator, Larry Riley, of the Flamethrowers. Our complete edition of Arlt's books was something I have been working toward for years, had the imprimatur of both translators, and includes a range of front matter, most importantly from two Colombian authors who helped us reproduce the book as closely as possible to what is traditional in South America and, most importantly, to what Arlt wrote and arranged.
I have not held that book in my hands, so I won't speak to its print quality, but any reader of corona\samizdat books knows that our books are of high quality and that this 'bottom-dollar pocket book' is a beautifully made full-size paperback with french flaps, and not a pocket book. I wish it had been bottom-dollar, for then I could have afforded to print many more of them, as they are selling quite well.
Most important, this book was put together with care and respect for Roberto Arlt, one of the greatest of 20th century writers, and with the sheepish cooperation of River Boat Books, the chief editor of which recognized that what he had done was underhanded and sent me all the files I needed, such as Naomi Lindstrom's great translation of The Seven Madmen. He also said he would remove my introductions from his book. Finally, no book called Madmen in Revolt was ever written by Roberto Arlt, and no aficionado of Arlt would buy such a book.

As for Gil, who does not allow responses to his comments, I challenge him to describe the nature of my washing up so that I can correct him on particulars. I am indeed washed up, beached, careened...a man without a country, a hat without a head, a haircut posing as a man (thanks to Woody Allen for that one), and absolutely finished as a potential contributory to all things good in society."