‘Metrophilias’ by Brendan Connell

Metrophilias

OK, so I have been asked to write a bit about my new book. It is called Metrophilias. The publisher is Better Non Sequitur.

“What’s your book about?” people say.

I generally pause before talking. By then it is too late. Already I am hearing about other books, films, cartoons, phone calls, that have something to do with something to do with someone’s trip to somewhere or a subway ride or the son of a banker falling asleep on a beach. The drums thunder, the flags fly high.

Anyhow, since I am writing, I have a captive audience. Four walls and a window. So I am free to confess. To tell the truth…. Well, I wouldn’t go that far. Successful people after all are economical with the truth.

This book, as the title might (or might not) suggest, is about love and cities, or cities and love, or city love, depending on the reader’s level of dyslexia and how many times the printer sneezed.

The idea came about one spring morning while I was drinking green tea in the bamboo grove behind my chalet in Lugano, Switzerland. And, yes, bamboo is plentiful in the region, as the lakes create certain microclimates in which many Asian mysteries thrive. When movement and rest are in accord, no trouble is encountered.

So I began…

And it began to rain…

I moved inside and plugged in an electric heater.

Then there was a knock on the door. I opened it but no one was there. An envelope lay at my feet. I picked it up and opened it. Inside was a note:

CONTINUE WITH THE GOOD WORK AND YOU WILL BECOME GRAND COUNCELOR OF THE WHITE EAGLE

That night I dreamed that I was wandering around a giant city in the middle of Africa. My friends told me not to worry. I saw a one-legged man trip and fall into the gutter. While I was walking along a vast road a man approached me.

“Are you almost finished?” he asked.

I did not pause before telling him that I had barely begun.

“Look,” he said, taking me by the hand. “Dragon Beard Tiger, Prince of the City of Jade Purity, has chosen you to fulfill this duty. We are burning incense every night and repeating your name. Madame considers you worthy. The rural areas have been neglected by commercial interests and the big towns are whining with neglect. The stories needs to be told.”

I noticed an immense ring on his finger and asked about it.

“Once you have graduated, you will know. At that time we will cover you in oil of dill and you will see the great projection.”

He walked away.

Over the next three days or so I worked on this book, but when I looked at the calendar more than seven years had passed! To say I wrote it would be far from fair. I simply lived on monopolistic hopes and drenched myself in an algebraic solitude.

I cannot make promises or claim this as the final destination. As Caesar said:

Pugnatum est diu atque acriter.

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Brendan Connell was born in Santa Fe, New Mexico, in 1970. He has had fiction published in numerous places, including McSweeney’s, Adbusters, Fast Ships, Black Sails (Nightshade Books 2008), and the World Fantasy Award winning anthologies Leviathan 3 (The Ministry of Whimsy 2002), and Strange Tales (Tartarus Press 2003). His novel The Translation of Father Torturo was published by Prime Books, 2005, and his Dr. Black and the Guerrillia by Grafitisk Press in the same year. His most recent book, Metrophilias, was published in 2010 by Better Non Sequitur, www.betternonsequitur.com.

For more information on Brendan Connell, visit his blog.

Thirty-six cities. Thirty-six stories of obsession. From ancient Thebes to present day Berlin, these little portraits of humans superimposed on their suburban environment are corroding treats thrown together in a past-modern beaker, landmark tales of love in the metropolis. A round-the-world tour of craving and decadence.