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"We are wide-eyed for hard-won wisdom. We are wide-eyed for epiphanies of beauty."
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Wiseblood Books fosters works of fiction, poetry, and philosophy that wrestle us from the ruse of distraction; find redemption in uncanny places and people; articulate faith and doubt in their incarnate complexity; dare an unflinching gaze at human beings as "political animals"; and render well this world's sufferings without forfeiting hope—all of this with an unflinching gaze, wide-eyed.
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Recent Releases
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The Demons
Heimito von Doderer Regarded by many as the most important Austrian novel of its era, Heimito von Doderer’s The Demons is a sweeping portrayal of Viennese society on the cusp of catastrophic and irrevocable change. Narrated by retired civil servant Georg von Geyrenhoff, this monumental work takes readers on an intimate, multi-layered tour through Vienna’s cafés and kitchens, bedrooms and back alleys, modest apartments and artist’s ateliers, palatial parlors and wooded parks, a basement, and a burning palace. The paradoxes of this novel–which von Doderer wrote and revised over the course of twenty five years–are born from the paradoxes of Europe after the first world war, with its superficial peace and order layered over a festering decline and despair that erupts into World War II. But amidst the background of Vienna’s historical July Revolt, which culminated in the Palace of Justice set aflame, The Demons asks us to see significance in even the smallest kitchen fire too–to see the souls beneath the world-historical heavings. The Wiseblood Double-Volume contains both an extended introduction by Martin Mosebach, “The Art of Archery and the Novel: The ‘Commentarii’ of Heimito von Doderer,” and an appendix with von Doderer’s lectures on the “Foundations and Function of the Novel.” Both have been ably translated by Dr. Vincent Kling. After the Carnival
Alfred Nicol In After the Carnival, Nicol is unafraid to confront the mysterious, painful, and evil elements of human existence. The ballads end in either physical or moral catastrophe. “The Man in the Middle” is torn limb from limb. “Tell You the Story” chronicles a descent into madness. Even in the lighter poems, readers must be alert to the shadows: “Don’t think that it’ll be a lark / because you’ve always loved the dark.” A giant of contemporary metrical poetry, Alfred Nicol is also a virtuoso of irony. After paying good money for a seaside vacation, tourists grow restless and clamor to help a fishing crew. The best-dressed man on a bus is a former death-row inmate skipping parole. If God is dead, everything is rendered unto Caesar. A bear knows every secret but cannot speak. The irony is never played for laughs, though there are plenty, and at least as many tears. An early poem announces a dichotomy between what’s welcoming and what’s sublime, and indeed the ironic turns throughout After the Carnival have a sublime core. I was bowled over by the emotional power of these poems, by how much they gave voice to what I had always known but had not necessarily acknowledged about being human. Bonus points if you notice the subtle literary references peppering this musical, energizing collection! —Anton Yakovlev, author of One Night We Will No Longer Bear the Ocean |
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Jane Austen's Darkness
Julia Yost “Three or four families in a country village,” wrote Jane Austen to a niece, “is the very thing to work on.” This message from “Aunt Jane” is often understood as defining the breadth and depth of Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, and the rest of her work. The appearance of narrowness and shallowness in her novels is prized by many readers, who find escapist charm in the mannerly courtship intrigues of Austen’s rural gentry. Others share Charlotte Brontë’s complaint that Austen’s women and men are all “ladies and gentlemen,” their concerns superficial, their happy endings guaranteed. But does the sun always shine on a country village? And do those who dwell there cast no shadows? Julia Yost argues for seeing darkness in Austen’s novels: the marriages that will not be happy, the heroes who are not heroic, a society that elevates the mediocre at the expense of the meritorious. Austen’s wit notwithstanding, the shadow of mortality darkens with every novel until the author’s own death at forty-one. She suffered under the same natural and social evils as her heroines, and a righteous hatred troubles her comedies. Yost reads Austen’s six major novels and her unfinished last manuscript to show how she turned her protest into art. |
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"The late James Laughlin’s publishing house, New Directions, is the standard at the moment for contemporary fiction. When you see ND on the spine, you know that you’re getting a solid work that is actively engaged with contemporary literary concerns. It is still too early to tell what will become of the upstart Wiseblood Books, but such a strong entry as this early on is a sign that it is heading in the right direction."
—From an early review of Wiseblood Books'
A Waste of Shame and Other Sad Tales of the Appalachian Foothills |
