A Spy in the Panopticon
Ex Occidente (Mount Abraxas) Press:
Bucharest: 2018
First edition, Hardcovers, in illustrated traycase,
What we have here in terms of physical material is two hardcovers (one imperial octavo and one octo decimo), a broadsheet (folded), an accordion-fold short story and a one-sheet bibliography - all housed in an illustrated traycase. Magnificent. Honestly. I’m calling this the best looking package Ex Occidente has ever produced. The smaller trimsize hardcover is titled THE NOTARY & OTHER STORIES the larger hardcover is titled A SPY IN THE PANOPTICON. This may be the first and last time a quote from Gomer Pyle is employed to describe a literary work. . . SHAZAM! Given the limitation (100 copies) and the fabulous production, we consider the price very reasonable. Double shazam!
What, Gomer doesn’t work for you? Try this: “A woman peers through a hidden eyepiece into a bedroom of lavish design in ‘A Spy in the Panopticon’, the title novella. What she observes in the exquisite chamber is progressively unraveled over the course of an intricately woven narrative, the many threads of which converge upon a series of increasingly enigmatic motifs: lenses, mirrors, cameras, and prisms; illicit transmissions and invisible signals; unspeakable passwords and etheric emanations; and the infiltration of an inexplicable ministry replete with intrigues, counter-plots, and duplicitous technologies. A crucial document is laboriously authenticated beneath the ravages of the wild hunt in ‘The Notary’. ‘Paraffin’ follows the descent of a housemaid into the impossible depths of her employer’s past. Two siblings, in ‘That Holy and Formless Fire’, engage in precarious activities involving a transistor radio and a book of poetry In ‘Imperium’, an infirmity suffered by the wife of a magistrate reveals an ingenious and well-concealed stratagem.” #61279
Price: $1,100.00