Perfect Bound //. 4×6, 149pgs
I became aware of the writing of Shane Jesse Christmass shortly before inviting him to the first Little Birds anthology. Since then, I’ve done a deep dive, and I can’t think of another author today who has such a singular voice, and a style that is unlike any author out there today. I cannot recommend any of SJX’s books nearly enough.
METH-DTF was also included on Dennis Cooper’s year-end list for 2023.
(cover text)
This is a story about an imaginary city. an imaginary city called Los Angeles.
I am a science fiction novel with no science fiction references.
“One of the most ecstatic, deranged, and propulsive books I’ve read, Meth-DTF careens wildly through the fucked dreamscape of Los Angeles. The love child of Gasper Noé and Édouard Levé, Shane Jesse Christmass is one of our great cult novelists.”
– Kate Durbin (author, Hoarders)
“METH-DTF is a hypnotic, lunatic thrill ride. With the antic, paranoiac stutter of William S. Burroughs’s cut-ups and fold-ins and Rudolph Wurlitzer’s altered apocalyptic ‘70s novels, Shane Jesse Christmass creates a hothouse mindspace meltdown where sex, booze, and drugs build and dismantle worlds. Our narrator guides us through a jangling, porous Los Angeles. Where we’re going, we don’t know, but it’s all velocity and addled noticing. The details jump and rattle. We are absolutely flying, and it’s gritty, funny, and scary.”
– Nate Lippens (author, My Dead Book)
“METH-DTF is a schizophrenic landfill of corpses, pill bottles, crop circles, Burger King, horny billionaires, flip flops, tobacco, aliens, orgasms, crying infants, designer aphrodisiacs — and it’s all on fire. Shane Jesse Christmass writes with the discordant rhythm of an erratic heartbeat, rendering the reader restless. Enter at your own risk.”
– Danielle Chelosky (author, Cheat & founder of The Waiting Room)
“Entering Shane Jesse Christmass’ world is always a thrill, and Meth-DTF confirms this but somehow this time it is with an even wilder abandon that feels new.
VHS tracking blurs through our imagination as we try and keep up with the latest literary death-trip that SJXSJX has strapped us to. We’re going through American suburbs and cities with a nihilistic pace, trying to get rest in damp and sweaty motels where nothing stands still and the paranoia practically drips from the paragraphs – the radio is constantly changing, so are the clothes, the era and faces of those around you. The narrator and his sidekick Samuel – who maybe died a little while back but who maybe didn’t – not that it even matters because there’s some new fresh hell coming already – try to offer some guidance along their hallucinatory mission as the pages continually cause my pulse to increase and my imagination to rattle.
Christmass’ has a knack of writing sentences that have a way of connecting with you in a real, physical way. You feel it in your chest. They raise your stomach acid to your throat. If you’re holding this book and your hands aren’t shaking, then you’re doing it wrong.”
– Thomas Moore (author, In Your Dreams, Alone)
