Title: Who Killed Amanda Palmer

Plotline: A Collection of Photgraphic Evidence

Author (s): Neil Gaimen (short stories)

Photography: Kyle Cassidy, Beth Hommel and many more.

Lyrics: Amanda Palmer (of the Dresdon Dolls)

Summary: Since I'm at a loss for words as to how to describe this book, I'll leave it to Neil Gaimen (also about how he became involved:

She had sent me her then-forthcoming CD WHO KILLED AMANDA PALMER, which I'd loved, and I'd agreed to write the back cover "liner notes". And then Amanda sent me an email telling me that she had been taking photographs of herself dead for about 14 years, that the original idea had been to use some of those photos for the CD sleeve, but that would not happen, and she was making it into a book, and asking if I'd be interested in writing some words to go along with them.

She sent me many of the photos. I was intrigued. Nobody had ever asked me to do anything like that before, and the photos were small frozen stories, so I said yes. I went out to Boston in August and spent a few long-but-good days with Amanda and with photographer Kyle Cassidy, who is astonishing, with Amanda's then-boyfriend Michael and with Beth Hommel, her assistant. It was like a combination of mad improv theatre and instant film-making as we created scenarios and Kyle shot them. Mostly I was somewhere off to the side, scribbling in a notebook while everything happened around me, but occasionally I was dragooned into helping, or even being part of a shot. (There was one night where I staggered back and forth down an alley at 2.00am, with a dead Amanda over my shoulder, while nearby my friend Kira made imaginary cell-phone calls, and I waited for a squad car to pull up and find out what was going on. No squad cars turned up. People in Boston are very blase about dead people in alleys. The photo made it into the book, I think.)

I loved trying to turn the photos into stories. Some big stories, some very small stories, even a new-old fairy tale, each story odd, each story fun to write, and each story, invariably, fatal.

The most fun I think were the ones where the photo created more questions than it answered (a dead woman on some waste ground, her head crushed by a manual typewriter, apparently dropped from a very high place just left me going WHY? and produced one of my favourite stories as I got to explain...)

I've said it before on this blog: Writing is (like death) a lonely business, and it was enormously fun for me writing surrounded by creative people busy creating. I wrote several of the stories sitting in a corner of a room while Amanda practiced for her upcoming tour, tuning in and out of reality while songs were being played. It was fun.

There are about a dozen stories altogether, and a few shorter things by me in there. And there are lyrics by Amanda. And photographs. So many photographs.

Who Killed Amanda Palmer is, at first glance, a book of photographs. A companion to the epinonimous Amanda Palmer's forthcoming album of the same name, consisting of photographs of Amanda dead, maimed, or killed in variously odd ways. These pictures are accomponied by small tidbits of stories by Neil Gaimen, which is what sold me in the first place (seeing as I'm a hopeless heap of Gaimen Fangirl) as well as lyrics from songs in the album, "Who Killed Amanda Palmer" by...erm...Amanda Palmer.

So.

I think the part that will draw readers in is the strange, unique ways Amanda Palmer is "killed" and the ways Neil Gaimen executes each explanation. The range from surreal tidbits that let the photo elaborate for them, such as "The Two of Them" to simple phone conversations that can be taken into whatever context the reader sees fit, such as "The Boys Room". There is no doubt that "Who Killed Amanda Palmer" is an art piece, meant for those who are fans of Amanda Palmer's music, or just the strange and morbid in general. There is some very tasteful nudity (not like Playboy tasteful--just plain tasteful). The photos themselves are very, very odd, ranging from limbs flying though the air, to simple bodies floating down a murky river. The pictures, lyrics, and stories all weave together so perfectly it's hard to imagine any of them without the other.

Neil Gaimen, once again, proves that he is a master of stories, creating an entire scenerio with just a few shrot sentences. Amanda Palmer's lyrics are fantastic (though this could just be because I'm a HUGE fan of her and the Dresdon Dolls), as is the photography (I'm sounding like a broken record, aren't I?). Again, it's difficult to explain this book without actually holding it up for you to see. There is a short introduction of shorts in the front, accompanied by the cover photo of the CD of which this book is based:



...explaining the reason multiple 'Amanda Palmers' have been turning up dead all over the world. Here's the last paragraph:

(...) If you see Amanda Palmer on the street, kill her, said the graffiti under the bridge in Boston. And beneath that somebody else wrote, That way she'll live forever.

I'm not entirely sure how to explain this, because it's such a visual thing...I can't do it justice by writing a review for it. There is simply nothing I can say that can capture the bizzare genius of Who Killed Amanda Plamer. All I can suggest is to go and get it.

Rating: 10 out of 10

Also: Here are some lyrics written by Palmer for one of the photgraphs called "Astronaut"

Is it enough to have some love
small enough to slip inside a book
small enough to cover with your hand
because everyone around you wants to look

it is enough to have some love
small enough to slip inside the cracks
the pieces don’t fit together so good
with all the breaking and all the gluing back

and i am still not getting what i want
i want to touch the back of your right arm
i wish you could remind me who i was
because every day I’m a little further off

but you are, my love, the astronaut
flying in the face of science
i will gladly stay an afterthought
just bring back some nice reminders

and is it getting harder to pretend
that life goes on without you in the wake
and can you see the means without the end
in the random frantic action that we take

and is it getting easy not to care
despite the many rings around your name
it isn’t funny and it isn’t fair
you’ve traveled all this way and it’s the same

but you are, my love, the astronaut
flying in the face of science
i will gladly stay an afterthought
just bring back some nice reminders
and i would tell them anything to see you split the evening
but as you see i do not have an awful lot to tell
everybody’s sick for something that they can find fascinating
everyone but you and even you aren’t feeling well

but you are, my love, the astronaut
flying in the face of science
i will gladly stay an afterthought
just bring back some nice reminders

yes you are, my love, the astronaut
crashing in the name of science
just my luck they sent your upper half
it’s a very nice reminder
it’s a very nice reminder

and you may be acquainted with the night
but I have seen the darkness in the day
and you must know it is a terrifying sight
because you and i are living the same way

Title: Mosh Pit
Author: Kristyn Dunnion
Pages: 270

Summary: (from back)

Juliet meets her Juliets in this raw look at punk, young love and the sometimes cloudy road to adulthood. Mosh Pit, a compelling story of rebel girls in the modern city, stars Simone--torn between her loyalty to her heart-throb Cherry and her feelings for Carol, streetwise and distant enough to be alluring. The edgy young adult novel takes Simone through the modern equivalent of Hades where she gradually gains a sense of who she is and more importantly who she can be.

There's a lot of things one could call Mosh Pit; traditional publishers and authors might call it terrible, might call it disgusting and vulgar and inappropriate. Luckily, I am not a traditional publisher/author. I am a teen and, as a teen, Mosh Pit was probably the most honest novel I have ever read.

Simone's voice is completely raw, stripped of worldly description, stripped of traditional 'teen angst'--she is a character all her own, completely believable in her honesty, her vulnerability, and her fears. Simone is a young lesbian, struggling through high school and thriving in the local punk scene with her self-destructive friend/love interest Cherry. This book is not for the conservative or the weak of heart; there is cursing, and lots of it. While this is one of the main reasons I'm able to relate to it so much (I have a mouth like a sailor who stubbed his toe on a rock), I know a lot of people have problems with it. There's high levels of sexuality, underage drinking, underage sex, drugs, implied rape, etc. There's also alot of slang used between quotations. If in the wrong hands, this can be either annoying or cliche, but Ms. Dunnion uses it in a way that further allows the reader to relate to Simone. How many of us have used IM lingo whle narrating our daily life?

I think the most sincere part of Mosh Pit is Cherry. From beginning to end, Cherry slowly descends into a world of drugs, sex and rock n' roll. In between sever la chapters, their are post from her Livejournal, to help catch us, the reader, and Simon, on what Cherry is up to as she and Simone gradually drift apart. You watch her descend further into her destructive relationship with her drug dealer boyfriend, slowly giving in to the drugs themselves.

Usually, I try to veer away from books self-published or published to a smaller company, just because, from my experience, they're usually not very good. But now, I might be more convinced. Many big time publishing houses tend to avoid books like Mosh Pit, not because they're not good, but because they feel as though it would cause an uproar. And it probably would. Parents don't want their kids reading books like this, completely uncensored, completely stripped of everything but the heart of the novel; the characters. This is a completely, 100% character driven novel. Once more, the characters are relatable. I know a Simone, I know a Cherry, and I know a Carol. The entire thing is a twisted, punk rock Juliet and Juliet love triangle, uplifting one moment and heartbreaking the next. The musical undertones just add to the surreal, yet readable atmosphere. I can't recommend Mosh Pit enough.

Also: Here's a poem Cherry wrote on her Livejournal (page 172)

We run, woolly pack animals
abandoned by our fathers
betrayed by our mothers
raped by our uncles
now we storm the jailer, run wild, rabid, into the night.
Diseased.
We are the night.
we bite the hand that never feeds.

Rating: 10 out of 10