Ivyland
"Delightfully manic and sharply intelligent... Klee is undoubtedly a formidable talent in the making—he can make sentences crackle with an intensity and humor not seen since David Foster Wallace."
- Publishers Weekly"The exquisitely talented Miles Klee's Ivyland is a weird, sensitive, totally messed up and wonderful book"
- Choire Sicha, editor, The Awlabout the bookabout
NAMED A FINALIST IN THE 2013 TOURNAMENT OF BOOKS.
It's spring in Ivyland...
Debut novelist Miles Klee takes a landscape of drugs, decay, loss and, perhaps, hope, and manages to make the ensemble wryly funny: something only a few notable contemporaries such as Jeff Vandermeer and Michael Chabon have been able to do. Post-urban New Jersey is instantly recognizable in this interlinked series of short vignettes.
...and Lev's living room is puddles of water and sun, and a bunch of those furry caterpillars are hauling themselves from surface to surface.
Populated by a bumbling, murderous citizenry of corrupt cops, innocents, ravenous addicts, lovesick geniuses, and cynical adventurers, Ivyland operates in the shadow of a giant pharmaceutical corporation that thrives on people’s weaknesses... and may have an even more sinister agenda. It's our world, only a bit more extreme, and lovingly, precisely depicted with the adept skills native to a master of dark humor.
"Ivyland is a harsh, spastic novel about drug-addled misfits clawing their way through a wrecked future that feels disconcertingly familiar. As if that wasn't enough, it's also got evil caterpillars, flung jellyfish, great prose, new drugs, sharp jokes, a stolen ice cream truck and a miracle tree." - Justin Taylor
"Miles Klee's fiction is not only devastatingly smart; it's also ruthlessly hilarious. But I love it most for the manic comedy it manages to wring from despair: that’s a talent that’s likely to be more and more valuable in the coming years." - Jim Shepard
"Apocalyptic, word-drunk, inventive, hilarious--and that doesn't begin to cover Miles Klee's exuberant first novel. His catastrophic caterpillars alone are worth the journey; both the vision and the language delight." - Andrea Barrett
About The Author / Editor
Preview
For whatever reason, chest-deep in a bathwater ocean, “Dr.” Leviticus Van Vetchen is screaming with joy.
"It's alive!" he screams, and I'm ringing hard enough to be equally revved minus the exact circumstances of why.
"It's alive!" I scream.
He pulls what’s alive from the water, cupping it like communion. I stumble closer through the surf and freak when a fish grazes my leg.
"A sea dollar," I sing admiringly when I finally see.
"A sand dollar," Lev corrects, turning it over. "An alive sand dollar."
To my revulsion, the sand dollar has actual moving parts on the underside, wiggling hairs arranged in a star. The amount of Belltruvin in my system plus plain old revulsion makes me barf hard.
"Can I keep it?" I hear as a wave tosses my barf right back. One and only time he's asked my permission. I spit and look again. The sand dollar’s hairs are churning frantically. "I'll keep it alive"
"This, what you're doing right now," I murmur, spitting, "is I think killing it."
"Nonsense," says Lev, who stabs a hole in it with his lucky scalpel. He threads a bit of seaweed through for a leash, ties it off and drags the little guy up the beach like some reluctant toy dog as wave after wave chops me down.
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Ivyland
"Delightfully manic and sharply intelligent... Klee is undoubtedly a formidable talent in the making—he can make sentences crackle with an intensity and humor not seen since David Foster Wallace."
- Publishers Weekly"The exquisitely talented Miles Klee's Ivyland is a weird, sensitive, totally messed up and wonderful book"
- Choire Sicha, editor, The Awlabout the bookabout
NAMED A FINALIST IN THE 2013 TOURNAMENT OF BOOKS.
It's spring in Ivyland...
Debut novelist Miles Klee takes a landscape of drugs, decay, loss and, perhaps, hope, and manages to make the ensemble wryly funny: something only a few notable contemporaries such as Jeff Vandermeer and Michael Chabon have been able to do. Post-urban New Jersey is instantly recognizable in this interlinked series of short vignettes.
...and Lev's living room is puddles of water and sun, and a bunch of those furry caterpillars are hauling themselves from surface to surface.
Populated by a bumbling, murderous citizenry of corrupt cops, innocents, ravenous addicts, lovesick geniuses, and cynical adventurers, Ivyland operates in the shadow of a giant pharmaceutical corporation that thrives on people’s weaknesses... and may have an even more sinister agenda. It's our world, only a bit more extreme, and lovingly, precisely depicted with the adept skills native to a master of dark humor.
"Ivyland is a harsh, spastic novel about drug-addled misfits clawing their way through a wrecked future that feels disconcertingly familiar. As if that wasn't enough, it's also got evil caterpillars, flung jellyfish, great prose, new drugs, sharp jokes, a stolen ice cream truck and a miracle tree." - Justin Taylor
"Miles Klee's fiction is not only devastatingly smart; it's also ruthlessly hilarious. But I love it most for the manic comedy it manages to wring from despair: that’s a talent that’s likely to be more and more valuable in the coming years." - Jim Shepard
"Apocalyptic, word-drunk, inventive, hilarious--and that doesn't begin to cover Miles Klee's exuberant first novel. His catastrophic caterpillars alone are worth the journey; both the vision and the language delight." - Andrea Barrett
About The Author / Editor
Preview
For whatever reason, chest-deep in a bathwater ocean, “Dr.” Leviticus Van Vetchen is screaming with joy.
"It's alive!" he screams, and I'm ringing hard enough to be equally revved minus the exact circumstances of why.
"It's alive!" I scream.
He pulls what’s alive from the water, cupping it like communion. I stumble closer through the surf and freak when a fish grazes my leg.
"A sea dollar," I sing admiringly when I finally see.
"A sand dollar," Lev corrects, turning it over. "An alive sand dollar."
To my revulsion, the sand dollar has actual moving parts on the underside, wiggling hairs arranged in a star. The amount of Belltruvin in my system plus plain old revulsion makes me barf hard.
"Can I keep it?" I hear as a wave tosses my barf right back. One and only time he's asked my permission. I spit and look again. The sand dollar’s hairs are churning frantically. "I'll keep it alive"
"This, what you're doing right now," I murmur, spitting, "is I think killing it."
"Nonsense," says Lev, who stabs a hole in it with his lucky scalpel. He threads a bit of seaweed through for a leash, ties it off and drags the little guy up the beach like some reluctant toy dog as wave after wave chops me down.