City of Roses is a serialized epic firmly set in Portland, Oregon, only with more sword fights: an urban fantasy mixing magical realism with gonzo noirish prose, where duels are fought in Pioneer Square, and river gods retire to comfortably shabby apartments.
The first of these aims will result in his being “kissed” or praised by the reading public and his courtly audience, but at the same time can only result from being “kissed” or touched by critical contact. If the poet remains unnoticed by criticism (“vnkisste”) he will always remain obscure (“vncouthe”) in the twin senses of unheard-of but also invisible, unavailable to the consciousness of his potential readers. The one who can provide him not only with fame but, at one level, his very existence, is the already knowledgeable EK.
Actually, having gone back to volume 5 already, I’ve finished the first draft of no. 47, and I’m a couple-thousand deep in the first draft of no. 48, which means I’m back again in volume 6, but today, today we’re doing the cover reveal for no. 47, which is in volume 5—thus, the title.
Anyway: the cover for no. 47, June 29th:
Want to make carnitas without all the fat? Bolognese without the wait? Why? Why when there are so many pork dishes that are not confited, so many Italian pasta sauces that don’t require hours of simmering. If “that” is to be avoided for whatever reason, it feels like a failure of the imagination to stay stuck on “this.” We, editors and readers alike, are all drinking the same very contemporary, very American flavor of Kool-Aid, keeping up the charade that we can have everything we want and nothing that we don’t, even as our lives feel harder and tighter.
Becker’s eyes are closed, but his brows lift in surprise or delight perhaps, at something in a dream, a deep breath in through his nose and out through lips hatched about with stubble, pressed together to shape a word he doesn’t speak. The shuff of bedclothes, crisp linens striped with indigo. His eyes blink brownly open as his face arranges a consternated scowl, a grimace as he lifts his head, a wince as he props up on an elbow, looks down the length of himself softly pale in the buttery daylight, boxer briefs pink and black in the clutch of those widely grey-furred fingers crumpling, tugging, grizzled scalp a-bob, blue eyes lifted up to meet his, as from between those lips slips out his cock, stiff enough now to sway over swell of belly, and long grey mustaches trailing, weighted to either side with pewter beads that drag up his skin as Pyrocles smiles and says, “Good morning, beloved.”
“Oh,” says Becker, falling back to the pillows, but then, when Pyrocles takes him in his mouth again, “no, wait,” lifting a weak hand, thumb to a cheek, to the corner of lips that swerve to kiss, “not yet,” says Becker. Rolling away, reaching over, as Pyrocles lays him out to one side on those blue-striped sheets, the leanly naked length of him a-gleam in the suffusing light. Past him a sweeping wall of glass, and out across the river the city edged and cornered shadows hazed by steaming cloud, shreds and lines and clots of trees gone grey and yellow and blue in all the pale and chilly morning light stretched parlous thin through all that air from the one sharp far-off mountain.
“I think he stuck the landing. This was good, damn good.”
“I think it’s the only time I’ve fallen in love with a city through a novel.”
“—people who like urban fantasy written in a rather jumpy unusual style will like this book—”
