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It Came from Below the Belt (Paperback)

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Key Phrases: time travel technology, safety patrol, Nurse Boner, Grover Goldstein, Assumption High (more...)
4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
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Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Meet Grover Goldstein: Twenty-First Century rascal, trainee provocateur, boy next door who won't stop snickering at you from behind the lawn gnome. Swallowed by a giraffe and regurgitated oodles of years into the future, Grover must satisfy his urge to go home—even if it means going back to high school and helping his severed, and sentient, penis win the presidential election.

Come along to Assumption High as Grover tries to answer the age-old question, "What if I had forgotten then what I don’t know now?"

"Bradley Sands’ debut novel is an absurdist dreamscape that subverts the physical laws of the world as we know it and exposes a brilliant new arena of bizarro existence. In It Came from Below the Belt, the body becomes a surreal, grotesque playground as enfant terrible Grover Goldstein tears through the libidinal fabric of time and space on an uncanny journey to the end of the night. This is speculative fiction at its best. Sands is a talented, fearsome, comic visionary who will usher you into the psychedelic matrix of futurity." —D. Harlan Wilson, author of The Kafka Effekt, Stranger on the Loose, and Pseudo-City

"Reading the work of Bradley Sands caused me to vomit happiness and sunshine from my eyeballs. Highly recommended." —Kevin Donihe, author of Shall We Gather at the Garden? and Editor of Bare Bone



About the Author

Bradley Sands currently lives in Northampton, Massachusetts, where he edits Bust Down the Door and Eat All the Chickens: A Journal of Absurd and Surreal Fiction while working on his next book. This is his first novel.

Product Details

  • Paperback: 204 pages
  • Publisher: Afterbirth Books (February 18, 2006)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0976631040
  • ISBN-13: 978-0976631040
  • Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.3 x 0.6 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,245,620 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Bradley Sands
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Front Cover | First Pages | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
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time travel technology, safety patrol
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Nurse Boner, Grover Goldstein, Assumption High, Thea Roundabout, Old Man Hubbard, Grassy Noel, Donner Burger, Giant Cockroach, Principal Phleg, Fritz Willy, Mistress Giggles, Neal Cassidy, Officer Jingles, Super Saver Electronics, Minister of Propaganda, Syphilitic Kidz, The Kidz, Officer Brutality, Sweet Tart
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Almost too weird for its own good, November 3, 2006
By Craig Clarke (New England) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)      
"Listen carefully and no one gets hurt.... I've always thought an oft-repeated phrase contains more power than an ordinary 'or I will hurt you'.... There is a gun aimed at your head, a gun that I purchased for the singular purpose of making you do exactly as I tell you.... Are you with me so far? Good." -- from It Came from Below the Belt

Contrary to what I had originally thought, reading a novel at gunpoint is not an entirely unpleasant experience. It Came from Below the Belt -- the debut novel of Bradley Sands, editor of "the journal of absurdist and surreal fiction," Bust Down the Door and Eat All the Chickens -- is a fine example of the burgeoning genre known as bizarro. The writers known for this style embrace weirdness for its own sake, while still retaining the primary goal of telling an entertaining story (like David Lynch does for film). The relatively inexpensive Bizarro Starter Kit is available for those wishing to test this fascinating subgenre further.

It Came from Below the Belt is only the second bizarro novel I have read. The first was Gina Ranalli's Chemical Gardens and while it gave me a good taste of the genre, it by no means prepared me for the level of oddity I was to encounter in Bradley Sands' novel. (The two authors share a publisher, Afterbirth Books.)

Grover Goldstein is not a stalker! He's just misguided, literally misguided into the future after being eaten by a giraffe that turned out to be a time machine. There in the United States of Moonsylvania ("The name had to be changed due to a copyright infringement."), he meets his clone and, in a bizarre auto-fellatio accident, the clone's penis is severed, becomes sentient, gets irked at never having been named (an unforgivable slight, apparently) and having to go around as The Unnamable ... and then ... well, once The Unnamable expresses its newfound Hitlerian aspirations, it's kind of hard to summarize what happens after that. Sands throws every offbeat tangent possible at us -- It Came from Below the Belt contains enough weirdness and absurdity for six novels.

If the purpose of a bizarro novel is to make the reader go "WTF?" at least once a page, then Sands succeeds and then some because It Came from Below the Belt had me doing that about once a paragraph! The frequency of startling weirdness did hinder my getting caught up in the story, but it is definitely an ambitious choice that lends the book a certain indefinable charm. After all, if Sands wanted us to follow along easily, he would have written a different book.

Not surprisingly, it took me a while to get my head around what Sands was trying to accomplish. His particular style seemed, on the surface, to eschew the traditionally felt need for a coherent story in favor of pure strains of oddity. I see now, however, in hindsight, that there was a discernible narrative thread there all along that kept me reading in the face of interminable outlandishness -- it was just covered with every bit of strangeness that Sands could get to stick. You could maybe say that It Came from Below the Belt is the Airplane! of bizarro.

I originally thought it was going to be a horror novel due to the freaky cover art by Lucas Aguirre, but It Came from Below the Belt is probably more rightly termed science fiction due to its involvement with time travel. But there's not all that much of that going on and, in any case, any novel where the protagonist's penis gets severed is instantly branded horror in my book. And as if the narrative itself weren't bizarre enough, Sands also plays with the novel form, changing it to suit his needs. He makes the plot interactive by including a Choose Your Own Adventure-style chapter, a recipe, a TV sitcom pilot script (complete with laugh track), an actual drawing of The Unnamable working its way up the career ladder, and even a reference to a possible alternate-world audio version available on cassette. I can't wait to get to Moonsylvania for that one!
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars There's a plot in here SOMEWHERE..., September 10, 2007
Imagine your crazy uncle picks you up from school and tells you he's taking you to the zoo. Now imagine he takes the scenic route. It takes three hours and you are subjected to the most absurd things you can imagine. Now, remember.. you REALLY want to go to the zoo. But everything outside the window is so COOL. Plus, your uncle is telling you some wild stories. You can either curse under your breath and complain about not getting to the zoo quick or you can sit back and enjoy the ride.

Once you read this book, you'll know what I mean.

Like I said "There's a plot in here somewhere." Well, that's not a bad thing, really. That is, having a plot that is so buried beneath random chaos, puns, and playful use of the English language that it makes the reader's eyes and head spin with wonder.

Basically the story is about a guy named Grover who travels to the future and meets himself. And then his, um, MEMBER is alive and is really the reincarnation of Hitler who then wants to run for president. In order to get access to the Nazi time travel technology, Grover must go back to high school and enroll as a student or something. It's weird. Trust me.

When you read this, you can practically see the author at his computer, pounding away at the keys, laughing hysterically at his wordplay. How can he resist? The humor is overwhelming. It borders on a work of comedic art. Some of it has echoes of the Marx Brothers. Quick witted and nonsensical in some places yet obviously written with care in order to extract the maximum amount of humor from each sentence and in some cases, each word.

I read this book in about a day. That says a lot about this book. It's fast-paced. It's absurd. It bludgeons the reader into submission with every page. It also injects itself directly into the reader's veins just like that popular energy drink. It will send you into a hyperspace realm of surrealism and social commentary. Yes, social commentary. It's somewhere in there, I'm sure. At the end of the book, things get a little clearer.. and you see what the author, perhaps, had to say by having The Unnamable run for president.

(To give an example of the utter wildness of this book...In the midst of it, the reader finds him or herself reading a "Choose your own adventure" book. Right in the middle of this book. Brilliant!)

Much of the imagery in this book is grotesque, dirty, vulgar, and (self-admittedly) low-brow. Still, it's a wild ride.

A downside to the book is the wild diversions that the author takes. Many readers, even if they like weird fiction, want a clear plot. IT CAME FROM BELOW THE BELT often deviates from the plot in amazing and entertaining ways.. but for some, I can imagine, this may cause them to lose sight and interest. The upside to this downside is that the book is short enough (190 pages) that for a fast reader (like myself) it makes for a quick and satisfying read.

Another downside is that there are paragraphs where SO MUCH happens that you have might have to reread it in order to get a grasp on what exactly is happening. And then you think to yourself "The author can't really mean that....Wait a minute.. Did that really happen?" For some this is great.. for others, annoying. I just immersed myself in the action and let myself forget about the overall plot of the book (basically I let my crazy uncle lull me into a hypnotic trance via his surreal story telling abilities).

For those interested in funny, "anything goes" (and I do mean ANYTHING) book.. this is for you. It's like a violent, obscene cartoon involving time travel, sex, nuclear explosions, self-discovery, politics, dance craze fads, and everything else you can think of.

IT CAME FROM BELOW THE BELT is a keeper. There's so much in here...WHEW.. I imagine some people, in the future, may even want to study it. I'd like to take that class.


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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars A Great Bizarro Novel, November 26, 2007
By J. C. Ng (New Orleans) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
Sands has a gift for juxtaposing images, combining familiar realities in a way that creates new, unfamiliar realities. Examples include cockroaches on wheels, giraffes doing ballet, nuclear lunchboxes and toupee-wearing orangutans on surfboards. One is reminded of Rene Magritte or Russell Edson.

But what really impressed me about this book was its clarity and craft. His diction is always simple and conversational. His rhythms steady and controlled. His plotting is profluent and convincing. His characters active and rounded. Everything is vivid, everything delightfully boisterous, like a deep, fascinating, unsettling dream that stays in your mind for days.

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

1.0 out of 5 stars Pointless and tedious
The first thing you need to know about It Came From Below The Belt is that it is really, really bad. I bought it based mostly on the reviews, and because it's Bizarro. Read more
Published 2 months ago by zl21

5.0 out of 5 stars Strange, to some, perhaps
But always sharp and funny--like a smiling, crying clown, wielding a machete, with flowers painted on it.
Published 15 months ago by John Reed

5.0 out of 5 stars Very Unique and Quite Strange
Due to an incident with a giraffe, Grover is transported back in time. He meets up with his unattached "member," which goes by the name The Unnamable. Read more
Published 20 months ago by Charles Glover

3.0 out of 5 stars Add it to your Bizarro to-read list, but taste a few other titles first
(this review originally appeared at www.depravedpress.com)

The Bizarro genre can be very diverse and equally polarizing. Read more
Published 21 months ago by Caleb J. Ross

3.0 out of 5 stars Absurd in all the right ways
Bradley Sands writes books that are not for everyone, infact if you are one of people who connects with his work finding `It came from Below the Belt' would be like being struck... Read more
Published 23 months ago by David Agranoff

5.0 out of 5 stars The Value of Bizarro
I am a fan of Bizarro writing. I'm a fan because it's plain good writing is what it is. D. Harlan Wilson, probably the largest name in Bizarro, is a self professed grammar nazi... Read more
Published on June 24, 2007 by Samuel Toebe

5.0 out of 5 stars damn good book!
as i said
this is a daamn funny, clever, absurd and innovative stuff,
i speak spanish and i readed it in two days, i loved it, really
some days ago i re-readed... Read more
Published on June 3, 2006 by chatran

5.0 out of 5 stars 2.718281828459045235360287471352662497757247093699
This is a wild book with plenty of laughs in each chapter. The writing is top-notch throughout and the author clearly has a unique and wacky sense of humor as this novel is... Read more
Published on May 17, 2006 by jcearls

5.0 out of 5 stars This is a CRAZY book!
In a really good way! You never know where this book will take you next. The surprises are imaginative and funny. Read more
Published on April 30, 2006 by Nicole Del Sesto

5.0 out of 5 stars thank the 'druglord' this was released...
agreed that there are some editorial oversights... nevertheless, this debut novel should be placed among the upper echelon of absurdist literature. Read more
Published on April 5, 2006 by Michael A. Smith Jr.

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