Head in Flames by Lance Olsen eBook
Head in Flames is a collage novel composed of chips of sensation, observation, memory, & quotation shaped into a series of narraticules told by three alternating voices, each inhabiting a different font & aesthetic/political/existential space.
The first belongs to Vincent van Gogh on the day he shot himself in Auvers-sur-Oise in July 1890. The second to Theo van Gogh (Vincent's brother's great grandson) on the day he was assassinated in Amsterdam in November 2004. The third to Mohammed Bouyeri, Theo's murderer, outraged by the filmmaker's collaboration with controversial politician Ayaan Hirsi Ali on a 10-minute experimental short critiquing Muslim subjugation & abuse of women.
The aggregate: an exploration of art's purpose, religion's increasingly dominant role as engine of politics & passion, the complexities of foreignness & assimilation, & the limits of tolerance.
This digital download includes .epub and .prc files
Head in Flames is a collage novel composed of chips of sensation, observation, memory, & quotation shaped into a series of narraticules told by three alternating voices, each inhabiting a different font & aesthetic/political/existential space.
The first belongs to Vincent van Gogh on the day he shot himself in Auvers-sur-Oise in July 1890. The second to Theo van Gogh (Vincent's brother's great grandson) on the day he was assassinated in Amsterdam in November 2004. The third to Mohammed Bouyeri, Theo's murderer, outraged by the filmmaker's collaboration with controversial politician Ayaan Hirsi Ali on a 10-minute experimental short critiquing Muslim subjugation & abuse of women.
The aggregate: an exploration of art's purpose, religion's increasingly dominant role as engine of politics & passion, the complexities of foreignness & assimilation, & the limits of tolerance.
This digital download includes .epub and .prc files
Head in Flames is a collage novel composed of chips of sensation, observation, memory, & quotation shaped into a series of narraticules told by three alternating voices, each inhabiting a different font & aesthetic/political/existential space.
The first belongs to Vincent van Gogh on the day he shot himself in Auvers-sur-Oise in July 1890. The second to Theo van Gogh (Vincent's brother's great grandson) on the day he was assassinated in Amsterdam in November 2004. The third to Mohammed Bouyeri, Theo's murderer, outraged by the filmmaker's collaboration with controversial politician Ayaan Hirsi Ali on a 10-minute experimental short critiquing Muslim subjugation & abuse of women.
The aggregate: an exploration of art's purpose, religion's increasingly dominant role as engine of politics & passion, the complexities of foreignness & assimilation, & the limits of tolerance.
This digital download includes .epub and .prc files
praise
Head in Flames has set a new standard for the social consciousness of postmodern narrative.
—Rain Taxi
Lance Olsen has written an important book. Important because it manages to succeed where most innovative literature fails: it plays while being deadly serious. The structure is a tour de force of formal innovation calling to mind Pinget's That Voice, Rulfo's Pedro Páramo, and Cortázar's Hopscotch.
—Review of Contemporary Fiction
Recalling the radically condensed novels of David Markson, the fragmented storytelling of Alain Robbe-Grillet, and the high-velocity jump cuts of an action movie—or maybe an MTV music video—Head in Flames is the rare novel that satisfies equally as an exploration of personality, character, novelistic form, and narrative potential.
—The Quarterly Conversation
about the author
Lance Olsen is author of many books of and about innovative fiction. His stories and essays have appeared in a wide variety of journals, including Conjunctions, McSweeney’s, Black Warrior Review, Hotel Amerika, Denver Quarterly, and Best American Non-Required Reading. An N.E.A. Fellowship and Pushcart Prize recipient, he teaches experimental narrative theory and practice at the University of Utah.
