Pocket Full of Loose Razorblades [Paperback]

John Edward Lawson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 15, 2005

This collection highlights dark surrealism at its most experimental and absurd depths. The texts are perception-altering and soul-poisoning, humorous in the way that accidental amputation and spontaneous combustion are. From the man who works at the foot fungus factory to the man who lives in a giant rectum, Pocket Full of Loose Razorblades will leave you wondering where you misplaced your sanity. John Edward Lawson is an author and editor living just outside Washington, D.C. His poetry collections include The Horrible and The Scars are Complimentary. His novel, Last Burn in Hell, was published in 2005. John is editor-in-chief of Raw Dog Screaming Press and The Dream People webzine, and has also been editor of several anthologies, including Tempting Disaster and Sick: An Anthology of Illness.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

"The thing that surprised me most about Pocket Full of Loose Razorblades was not its quality, but its intensity. The absurd, obscene images and scenarios that make these stories so original do not in any way distract from their intelligence and emotion. No matter how bizarre, Lawson writes with a deadly seriousness appropriate only to the book's title." --Kevin Dole 2, author of Tangerinephant

"Knowing that John Edward Lawson is loose in the world not only makes me nervous, but whips me into a hot lather as well. His characters are hopelessly ensnarled in a world they never made...so they remake it in their own twisted images. If you like fiction that gropes into your psyche and rearranges the chromosomes, then this is for you. If you're into Jane Smiley and her ilk, you better go somewhere else." --Efrem Emerson, author The Unauthorized Woman

"Once again, John Lawson takes a jackhammer to the crotch of mainstream fiction. This collection of beautifully-crafted stories is more disturbing than a wet fart in a crowded elevator, and prettier than a whore three weeks dead. His razorblade candy will render you a godless gibbering heathen, and you'll enjoy every last minute of it." --Alyssa Sturgill, author Spider Pie

About the Author

John Edward Lawson is an author and editor living just outside Washington, D.C. His poetry collections include The Horrible and The Scars are Complimentary. His novel, Last Burn in Hell, was published in 2005. John is editor-in-chief of Raw Dog Screaming Press and The Dream People webzine, and has also been editor of several anthologies, including Tempting Disaster and Sick: An Anthology of Illness.

Product Details

• Paperback: 192 pages
• Publisher: Afterbirth Books (August 15, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0976631032
• ISBN-13: 978-0976631033
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,690,228 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I live in the suburbs of Washington, D.C. with my wife and son. During the 1990's I kicked around in the D.C. industrial-electro-goth scene in the band Dead Letter Office and owned Rack and Ruin Studio. Currently I am a full-time member of the bizarro community, functioning as an author of poetry, nonfiction, and stories, as well as an editor.

I am also a founding editor of Raw Dog Screaming Press, and their new imprints Imaginary Books (children's and young adult) and Guide Dog Books (nonfiction). From 2002-2006 I served as editor of The Dream People online literary journal of bizarro fiction and poetry.

Keep an eye on my Amazon page because I'll be having a new book published every two months for the forseeable future. Thanks for your interest!

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Dangerous to mix with lickable toads, December 10, 2005

By 

Jeremy Robert Johnson "Ne'er-do-well" (Portland, OR) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Pocket Full of Loose Razorblades (Paperback)

Bizarro author John Edward Lawson's first short fiction collection is a messy affair. Messy in the pulsing, spurting, purple toxic sludge pit kind of way. Messy like those moments when Cronenberg decides to show you wet things writhing. For those jumping into this collection, invest in some wet-naps; you're going to feel dirty by the end of the affair.

Lawson's tales here, many of which are experimental in a way that defies standard storytelling, are uniformly strange. For example, the best story of the batch, "Consumable Leftovers," involves a man who leaves behind his cubicle life for the wilderness. What starts as an entertaining attack on modern culture takes a grotesque (or is it just gross?) turn when the narrator finds himself encamped in the warm and fruitful bowels of a giant. I'm not kidding. But Lawson manages to take what could have been a juvenile exercise in ass humor and turns it into a funny and entertaining metaphorical rumination.

Other stories of note are "Fabricating Opiates" in which three characters roam a labyrinthine house and are forced by old men to remove garments for reasons unknown, and "A Blight in the Darkness" about Urban Decay Specialists working in a corroding future to make sure the world continues to fall to bits. And the author has an obsession with ice cream trucks that can only be described as "unhealthy."

Not every strange bird in this collection takes flight (as in sections 2-4 of "Less Than Lickable," a lengthy piece about the obsessions of a mentally ill man) but when Lawson's firing on all synapses he's got a gift for the surreal that makes you follow him into the weirdest, wettest places with a smile on your face. And for those looking for an escape from werewolves, serial killers, and vampires, Pocket Full of Loose Razorblades offers a nice vacation- as long as you don't mind venturing into a gigantic bowel now and then.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Lawson is awesome!, October 17, 2005

By 

Bradley (Portland, Oregon) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Pocket Full of Loose Razorblades (Paperback)

This collection is an excellent introduction to the work of John Lawson. His stories conjure up worlds that are like cover songs of our reality, where the original version is recognizable, but its absurdism, grotesqueness, humor, and refusal to adhere to the laws of physics make it into something entirely different. There was this feeling that I kept getting as I read this book, something difficult to communicate without sounding a little silly: something alien-like and gooey, like I was spending time in a radically different headspace.

My favorite story in the book was 'Less Than Lickable,' which is novella-length. This one is a little different from the rest. Instead of using a world of the bizarre, Lawson chooses to use a more familiar setting while sucking up all the strangeness of his other stories into the body of the mentally unbalanced protagonist, who manipulates his environment in many amusing ways.