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"Many of the books we see these days perched perfectly in high street seasonal window displays are written by static, worn-out, curmudgeonly blatherskites, pitiful zombies who write by numbers. It's not their fault, they're writing for the tastes forced upon us. But they do not walk amongst us; they do not walk our streets. They sit, motionless, staring at blank walls, waiting for instruction. They write their books, these books are posted to publishers and agents in plain brown padded envelopes to be opened in modern, minimalist foyers, to be published in nice, clean pastel shades, to be displayed in identikit formulae - barbed fishhooks to catch the drab passer-by's eye. These manuscripts have never touched our streets. They've been created for another purpose - and it isn't ours. We do not belong. We are elsewhere."[ Lee Rourke, Scarecrow Editorial 8 ].

Praise for EVERYDAY:

"Dark and seamy stuff - London from p.o.v. pigeon-in-gutter" [ Tom McCarthy , author of Remainder , Men in Space, Tintin and the Secret of Literature ].

"EVERYDAY is a guide book of sorts: a dark, twisted, hysterical and macabre map of the twilight city which lurks underneath our nation's capital. This magnificent collection is living proof that the short story is alive and well and living in London". [ Tony O'Neill , author of Digging The Vein, Seizure Wet Dreams, and Songs From the Shooting Gallery].

"Sick, depraved and utterly mad, with no redeeming features whatsoever. I loved it". [ Stewart Home ].

"EVERYDAY is an essential read for misanthropes, alcoholics and slubberdegullians." Dazed and Confused.

"Everyday marks an exciting debut. Glibly humorous and with a big, blackened heart, Rourke is a leading light of 'The Off-Beat Generation' . . . Here he delivers a stunning collection charting the tormented lives of everyday misanthropes." ShortList Magazine.

"So this is what EVERYDAY is, then. Not Dubliners but Londoners; a Dostoevskyan tale of Poor Folk; a proletarian classic inflected with a modern(ist) sense of absurdity in all its comic and tragic reverberations. A book of outsiders, from outside hegemonic culture; tales from the margins; a drama of superfluous men and women. Sometimes they have literally been made redundant, which is what they have always been anyway." Ellis Sharp [Author of Walthamstow Central, The Dump, Aria Fritta].

"Rourke portrays a London strung between mysterious history and bland modernity . . . He peoples his brief fictions with happy-slapping teenagers, office juniors miserable to the point of hallucination, murderous amateur psychogeographers and even, in his most visceral illustration of capitalism’s sharp-end, a putrefying corpse performing as a lapdancer. These misfits, cynics and disappointed dreamers don’t show the reader much of a good time, and yet somehow you feel enlivened for having crossed their path." Chris Power, BBC Online.

"Everyday is Lee Rourke’s first collection of short stories for tipped publisher Social Disease and is a work deserving of any reader’s attention. A disparate set united by boredom, ennui and a London backdrop, leading light of the self-styled Off-Beat Generation Rourke stakes his claim as heir apparent to greats such as Ballard, Joyce or Houellebecq. In these dark-hearted insights explored with supreme finesse, he succeeds in writing arguably the first believable London book of the decade." Ben Myers, The Guardian [author of 'The Book of Fuck' and 'The Missing Kidney']

"Rourke’s stories are dense with authentic London detail – only someone who regularly takes the 38 bus can understand why it might be appropriate to set a story on it – and manage to be at once bleak and jaunty." John O'Connell [Time Out].

"The people in his stories float in and out of each other's lives, via a chain of bad dates and brief sexual liaisons, wine-misted meetings in bars. Events frequently turn violent, even – on one occasion – murderous. People snap, they break up, they break down, they break out, or at least, they try to. London has a strong hold, its grip is tight. A common theme is the chucking in of a dead end job, of people reaching their snapping point, hitting their limits and walking away. It's a familiar urban impulse, to just stop. Or, alternatively, to keep going – and going – to break free of the grind, to ride the tube to the end of line, to hop off the bus at a stop that's not yours [...] Rourke's writing is brisk, fresh and supremely readable." Natasha Tripney, RSB.

"That sense of Chekhovian boredom (where a conversation "is becoming a bore;" dinner "rouses in me nothing but boredom and irritation;" "you could die of boredom;" "sheer boredom;" "his life is dull, nothing interests him;" "life is a snare and a delusion;"), the "continuous shifting and shuffling" through everyday life, and an indifference ("philosophers and sages are said to be indifferent. It isn't true. Indifference is paralysis of the soul, premature death") permeates these fragments of Rourke's. Admittedly it is hardly original, yet this writer, by looking at the pavement and writing from the point-of-view of the pigeons, has crafted miniature masterpieces, made all the more captivating for his enduring fascination with repetition." Susan Tomaselli [Dogmatika]

Read an excerpt from EVERYDAY right here

ARTICLES/REVIEWS:

~Please take time to read my article on Michel Houellebecq~

~Please take time to read my article on Ann Quin~

~Please take time to read my review of Tom McCarthy's Remainder~

~Please take time to read my article on Blaise Cendrars~

~Please take time to read my review of Gwendoline Riley's Joshua Spassky~

~Please take time to read my review of Stewart Home's Memphis Underground~

~Please take time to read my short article on Joy Division~

~Please take time to read my best of 2006~

OFFBEAT/BRUTALIST NEWS:
"Zeitgeist is such a post-modern word, but it seems appropriate as we are resting on the cusp of literary change. Little points such as Kundera’s essay on literary evolution, Martin Amis’ appointment as professor of creative writing at Manchester and Zadie Smith’s long literary manifesto in the Guardian suggest a lapse into introspection of the current literary establishment. They are examining everything they stand for and the ideas that have formed their writing. It’s the kind of self-conscious analysis that has always foreshadowed death. The recent attention given to the Brutalists and the Off-beat generation reveal that we are ready for something new. Something fresh and honest." [ Wesley Weyers, 3AM Magazine ].

"A shake up may well be coming . . ." [ Sam Jordison, The Guardian ].

~Surfing the New Literary Wave~

~Literature for the Myspace Generation~

~Pub Culture~

~No Offence?~

INTERVIEWS BY/OF:

~PBHP Interviews Lee Rourke~

~Lee Rourke interviews Merlin Coverley~

~Lee Rourke interviews Stewart Home~

~Lee Rourke interviews Tony O'Neill~

~Lee Rourke interviews Travis Jeppesen~

~Rob Woodard interviews Dan Fante~

~Tony O'Neill interviews Mark SaFranko~

~Lee Rourke interviews Mark Thwaite~

~Mark Thwaite interviews Lee Rourke~

~Lee Rourke interviews Ellis Sharp~

EDITH STATES:

Non, je ne regrette rien

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NICO STANDS:

Femme Fatele

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NICK WAILS:

No Pussy Blues

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