a written self-portrait: "On Psychosis" a Novella Vol. I by Louis Gale
In the first volume of Louis Gale’s experimental series, readers enter the restless mind of Amstel, a man moving through psychotic breaks, travel, drug experiences and an increasingly unstable sense of reality. He does not understand the forces working on him, but the deeper he goes, the more difficult it becomes to separate insight from distortion.
Written in a nonlinear stream of consciousness, a written self-portrait: “On Psychosis” a Novella Vol. I reflects the rhythm of Amstel’s thinking through repetition, abrupt shifts and unconventional typography. The result is less a traditional psychological narrative than an attempt to place readers inside the experience itself.
Strange, darkly funny and often unsettling, the novella asks readers to follow Amstel without the usual guideposts. It is an unusual opening to a larger series about the mind, identity and the possibilities that emerge when familiar ways of understanding the self begin to break apart.
Purchase at https://tinyurl.com/written-self-portrait1.
a written self-portrait: "On Tragedy" Volume II by Louis Gale
The second volume of Louis Gale’s series takes Amstel’s story beyond the limits of the first book and into the worlds his mind creates. Now confined both literally and psychologically, he moves through imagined realms, philosophical speculation and moments in which love still reaches him, even when its meaning is difficult to grasp.
a written self-portrait: “On Tragedy” Volume II continues the series’ nonlinear, experimental approach while widening its focus to include higher consciousness, human potential and the uneasy overlap between imagination and reality. The book is less concerned with giving readers easy answers than with showing how Amstel tries to make sense of what he experiences.
For those drawn to unconventional fiction and inward journeys, this second installment offers a fuller view of the series’ ambitions. It deepens the mystery around Amstel while suggesting that even within confinement, the mind can still create, question and reach for connection.
Gale draws on a life that has included a year of silence, homelessness and psychiatric hospitalization. He later earned a master’s degree in consciousness studies and is pursuing a PhD in international psychology, bringing both lived experience and academic inquiry to this unusual series.
Purchase at https://tinyurl.com/written-self-portrait2.
Infernal Tramps: Tales of Weird Terror by Alex Grass
A forgotten video game with a terrifying past. A spiked dog collar wields the power to convert an entire city to the worship of a dead dog. A surgical implant promising the perfect shape gives its wealthy owner far more than she bargained for.
These are only a few of the horrors lurking in Alex Grass’s Infernal Tramps, a collection of 17 stories that seems determined to keep one-upping itself in strangeness. Some tales are brief and brutal; others lead deeper into worlds shaped by obsession, grief, vanity, debt and loneliness. Regardless of the topic, the familiar rarely stays familiar for long.
Grass writes with a taste for the elaborate, grotesque and macabre, spiked by dark humor that arrives when you least expect it. Black-and-white images add to the book’s disquieting atmosphere. This is horror for readers who like their fiction unapologetically bizarre and their gore grindhouse-style — the sort of collection that may have you laughing on one page and regretting lunch on the next.
Purchase at https://tinyurl.com/infernal-tramps.
The Future Is Not Yet Written by Michael Weiner, MD
History has a way of changing families in an instant. What comes after can take generations to understand.
In The Future Is Not Yet Written, Michael Weiner continues the story begun in Both Sides of the Same Coin, following the interconnected Klein, Carbone, Doyle, Roth and Bartell families from the aftermath of 9/11 to the COVID era. Across two turbulent decades, spouses grieve, children grow up too quickly, careers shift, families blend, friendships deepen and new lives take shape in the shadow of old losses.
Richly detailed and deeply compassionate, this multigenerational saga traces how love, illness, ambition, service and chance redirect even the best-laid plans. Weiner’s wide cast of characters reminds us that resilience is rarely simple or sudden. It is built choice by choice, through the people we hold onto and the futures we dare to imagine.
Purchase at https://tinyurl.com/the-future-is-not-yet-written.
