IN & OZ
a novel by
Steve Tomasula
In IN & OZ, Steve
Tomasula writes as though the English language were his own
invention. I'm far from certain he's wrong about this. But
if we could still imagine a surrounding in which destiny lay within
creatures and stones, or recognized the unconfinements of words, we
might know fiction as he does. Next to being wholly new, IN & OZ is the best there is.
--R.M. Berry, author of Leonardo’s
Horse and The Dictionary of
Modern Anguish: Fictions
"With IN & OZ, Tomasula
crafts a fiercely intelligent and uncompromising parable on what has
become of us."
--Alex Shakar, author of The Savage Girl and City in Love: The New York Metamorphoses
IN & OZ is a novel of Art,
Love, Auto Mechanics and two places: the here-and-now and somewhere
better. Five men and women—an auto designer, photographer,
musical composer, poet/sculptor and mechanic—find themselves drawn
together when they begin to suspect that the thing lacking in their
lives might be discovered in the other place.
Theirs is a Beckett-like world of drive-up windows and factories rather
than sidewalk cafes: a world where the idiosyncratic is in
tension with the mass marketed, be it in music, automobiles, or
thought.
When Mechanic realizes one day that he has always been a cog in the
machinery of IN & OZ, he
is set off on a journey of self-discovery. His struggle to escape
a destiny preordained by his past has broad implications for anyone who
has ever found themselves trying to be free within the constraints of
their job, their class, but especially within a cultural moment much
like our own….
That is, IN & OZ is about
desire—the desire of Mechanic to speak authentically through the
repairs he makes, of Designer to love through the cars she dreams, of
Photographer to understand through the light he captures. With the
economy of a Kafka story, IN & OZ
hands us a fun-house mirror in which to see ourselves and the worlds
our words conjure. Through the artists, workers, booksellers, and
poets of these two places, we see the absurdity and humor of their
condition. Their all-too-human condition. And ours.
More Advance Praise
…a strong, funny, moving mix of fable and pared-down poem…using strange
new perspectives to reveal us to ourselves.
--Locus
IN & OZ moves like a finely tuned, well-oiled car through the
cloudy landscape of whimsical American Letters. …a novel of ideas
and images…that would have made H.G. Wells nod with approval and a big
fat grin….
--The Review of
Contemporary Fiction
Not very far in the future, things are a lot like now only more
so…. The walls of class do not fall, though, in this eccentric
but worthy descendant of Huxley’s fatally bittersweet Brave New World.
--Booklist
The whole book is full of thought provoking passages…. You’ll like this
quite a bit.
--SF Reader
Beguilingly winsome, yet with a steel core, IN & OZ … is simple yet poetic
and Tomasula’s narrative tactics … render a fabulist romance that’s
very touching and amusing. The sheer innovation…of this book
bespeaks what the small press does best.
--Asimov’s Magazine
The author’s signature intelligence, at once quirky, mannered, uncanny,
removed, and satiric, continues to manifest itself in spades. … IN & OZ bears a family
resemblance to Orwell’s Animal Farm
in its political awareness and fabulist inclination, Barthelme’s Dead Father in its stylized
absurdity and abstract intellect, and Diderot’s Rameau’s Nephew in its fusion of
cool aesthetic contemplation and fictive techniques.
--American Book
Review
Details
Title: IN & OZ.
Trade Hardcover, 144 pages. Author: Steve Tomasula.
ISBN: 1-892389-63-0. List price: $25.00.
Publisher: Ministry of Whimsey Press. Publication Date: Oct. 29,
2003.
IN&OZ is available from
Amazon.com
as well as other on-line and
bricks-and-mortar
bookstores. Individual and quantiy orders can also be
placed directly with the distributor: contact Jason Williams at
Night
Shade Books: night@nightshadebooks.com, (503) 475-7408.
