Category: Never Mind the Beasts novel
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Mercurius Magazine
I am super happy to have an excerpt from my novel Never Mind the Beasts in Mercurius Magazine (out of Barcelona and the world). The excerpt is from the immigration to Vegas section. Circus Circus. Meat loaf and bishops. Irish ninjas. Lotsa hunks. You can read it over here.
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Down the Shankill
Before moving to Spain, I visited my birth country. Portadown, N. Ireland and then Belfast, to see my biological father. He was a gardener. His wife died. I got an old worker´s hat from her father. World War I. We walked the Shankill. Here is the journey. From my novel Never Mind the Beasts. Available…
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Doom Drone
In 2016, when I lived in London, I went on many journeys. I was trying to align my mind with my body. Lunch room tongue assessments. Spine alignment. A doom drone concert. A magic rabbit hat. In the basement where I worked, I got the phone call. I was going to become a father. Then…
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Post Punk
Terrific review of Never Mind the Beasts in Idler magazine by Robert Greer. “Stylewise it would appeal to fans of both abrupt American Lydia Davis and Soviet absurdist Daniil Kharms . . . A Portrait of the Artist for the Tyskie and Kimchi generation.”
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Squirrels and Ooglers
Have you squirreled away yr nuts? Are you a hidden oogler? Winter is upon us. Here is a short reading.
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Travels from Never Mind the Beasts (Part One)
When I lived in London, I visited Poland twice a year with my partner. The Polish mountains in the summer. The Manhattan Estate in Katowice for Christmas. For a few years, during spring break, and also summer, we also visited Portugal, Italy, and Spain. We have tried many things for healthier living, mentally and physically.…
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Pink Gums
When I lived in the Docklands of East London, next to Commercial Road, it was a battle to keep my gums pink. Here is a short reading, from my novel Never Mind the Beasts, about the many routines from my time in the Docklands. Close to Poplar, in the Lansbury Public Housing Estate. It is…
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The Future is in the Wind
When I lived in East London, we walked along the canal near Christmas and ate the Christmas cake. I thought about my family, especially my brother Aaron, gone now 8 years. We were very close growing up as new immigrants in America, and also in Milton Keynes, where he was born.
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LOVE IS TO SPOON AS ROCK IS TO CHIP
After Turkey, and a stint of dog walking in Italy, he moves to London, falls in love, lands a gig as an adjunct professor at an American style university in London. He feels a sense of community with the avant garde poetry community iand starts to write a novel from his experiences living in various…
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SOUTH KOREA 2006
Doraji doraji doraji! I walk over the pass where balloon flowers bloom. Hey-ya, hey! An ya hey say yo! I walk over the pass where balloon flowers bloom. Hey-ha hey! An ya hey say yo! Reminds me of mother and twinkling boys. Hey-ya, hey! An ya hey say yo!
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THE DOCKLANDS
Don Whiskers and Pineapple live in the Docklands, East London, in a council flat. They visit the river for ancient histories. They take the Mega Bus in the Mega City and visit Amsterdam. They stay on a boat called The Gandalf. Back home, they stand on the balcony from the cheap seats and look at…
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BORA
While working in Trieste as a dog walker, and trying to become a writer, he imagines James Joyce, middle class or higher, like almost all artists and writers. He does not have the advantages but also the advantages, coming from somewhere else. You can only do so much, but how much.
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YOUNG LOVE
He took a long time to do it, or at least a long time for some. After the mission, at age 20, he went back to N.Ireland and England, tried on a condom at his cousin’s house, just for the fitting. He wanted to become bohemian and watched Pulp Fiction at the theatre. He met…
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THE TRIAL
After returning home early from the mission, I had my first sexual experience, it was called docking. I took off my secret garments and attended the trial, in a big wooden room. The devils were coming. I couldn’t return to my job at the mercantile. Every job interview in the small town asked me if…
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THE HOLY MISSION
My debut novel, Never Mind the Beasts, has many movements, from many lifetimes and many countries. When I lived in North America, I lived in many states, both physically and mentally, and you might also say spiritually. I went on a holy mission (from 1993-1994) to Boise, Idaho. Age 19-20. But I returned home early,…
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COFFEE HALL
Worzel Gummidge is on the telly. The father has a new calling in the new church to convert more converts, and also a job in London, driving a train in the underground. There is also Bletchley, a swimming pool with a slide, and hot chocolate, from the machine. He learns how long to brush his…
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NEVER MIND THE BEASTS OPENING
Never Mind the Beasts, an experimental working class novel, begins in Portadown, N. Ireland, with my biological father, The Troubles, in one way or another, and then the move to London, first a homeless hostel, and then later Milton Keynes, with government social housing. It begins in the 1974 and then moves into the 80s,…
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Class consciousness
There is so much of it, and from an early age it was all about the work, working hard to climb a ladder, and we are all climbing ladders, of some sort, hoping for something better, and too much moaning doesn’t help, but it’s there, sometimes hard to put your finger on it, it’s there,…
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VITAMINS AND MINERALS
Art can help us see and hear and smell and taste and touch with a more attentive mind. And there is so much to explore. Art can help us have a beginner’s mind. Empty and open. Art is my medicine and also my spiritual practice. Here is an interview, upon the release of my first…
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HOT OFF THE PRESS
Super grateful. My debut novel, Never Mind the Beasts, 10 years in the making from many countries, is now available for ordering. You can choose Blackwell’s or Amazon. Waterstone’s, Foyles, and Barnes and Noble will be added as an ordering option soon. Here is a description: Never Mind The Beasts is Marcus Slease’s second book for…
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MILTON KEYNES 2
Here is an another excerpt from Part One of my novel, Never Mind the Beasts, coming this month (May 2020) from Dostoyevsky Wannabe. Religious conversion, E.T., a used Chopper, the dole, government housing, wow comics, the toothbrush lesson, Jesus Christ Superstar, rugby and fire hoops, hammer and piggy, a millennium falcon.
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MILTON KEYNES 1
Field Day, the magic of bathtubs & Milton Keynes roundabouts, a pet gerbil, Copperfield Middle School lunch room, a popped football, peer pressures, Bletchley swimming pool, hot chocolate from a machine, brussel sprouts, a man in the bushes, play dough and Worzel Gummidge, a rock through an old woman’s window.
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WHAT IS YOUR NAME?
Your surname is supposed to tell you all about your lineage and heritage and prestige. Authors, who want to be prestige, have prestige surnames, some even use initials for their first names. I am not prestige.
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COVER FOR NEVER MIND THE BEASTS
Feeling joy, excitement, gratefulness. Proofs finalized. My novel, Never Mind the Beasts, over 10 years in the making, coming out this month from Dostoyevsky Wannabe. The cover. A 1 dollar high roller Vegas chip, sent to the press by Jennifer Hodgson (She is the person responsible for re-publishing Ann Quin’s works with And Other Stories…
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READING FROM NEVER MIND THE BEASTS PART ONE
The first part of Never Mind the Beasts begins in Portadown, N. Ireland, in 1974, during the height of The Troubles, and then moves to Milton Keynes, England in 1980s. Here is a sample reading, from part one of the novel, in N. Ireland and Milton Keynes, England (a homeless shelter, a rocket ship in…
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Mutation
Two more days till the Stay at Home Fringe Lit Fest, out of Glasgow, and everywhere, and I am thinking about what to read at the Dostoyevsky Wannabe event, from my soon-to-be-released novel, Never Mind the Beasts, 10 plus years in the making. How it has mutated over the years, over and over. First it…
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Stay at Home Glasgow Fringe Festival
A week from today, on May 8th, 6PM UK time, I am reading from my first novel, Never Mind the Beasts, coming this month from Dostoyevsky Wannabe. Along with some other fab writers from Dostoyevsky Wannabe: Colin Herd, Maria Rose Sledmere Ruthie Kennedy, and Rhian Williams. It’s part of this virtual fringe festival, out of…
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Zion
In my final year of high school, I moved to a small town in Utah, it was much different than Vegas. Here is a microfiction about small town America, in the early 90s, from my novel Never Mind the Beasts, forthcoming from Dostoyevsky Wannabe in May 2020. It is called “Zion.”
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A PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A YOUNG MAN
Battlestar Galactica is partly Mormon. Sci-fi is a big part of Mormon. Do you know the planet Kolob? When we immigrated to America, and my family converted to Mormonism, I had a hankering for sci-fi.
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Fruit Flies
What did you do in biology? Frogs? Baby pigs? Did you colour the muscles. Identify bones? We had a special project with fruit flies. We had to make them mate. Here is a microfiction about fruit flies in high school, in the early 90s, from my novel Never Mind the Beasts, forthcoming from Dostoyevsky Wannabe in May 2020.…
Never Mind the Beasts 