I just saw this for the first time. PM Press will be publishing Gary Phillips’s The Underbelly this June. The novella was first serialized online at Four Story in sixteen installments. The book will also feature an interview with Phillips. The June Pull List just grew by one.
After the jump take a look at the cover, the synopsis and a brief teaser
Here is the synopsis from the PM Press website.
The explosion of wealth and development in downtown L.A. is a thing of wonder. But regardless of how big and shiny our buildings get, we should not forget the ones this wealth and development has overlooked and pushed out. This is the context for Phillips’ novella The Underbelly, as a semi-homeless Vietnam vet named Magrady searches for a wheelchair-bound friend gone missing from Skid Row–a friend who might be working a dangerous scheme against major players. Magrady’s journey is a solo sortie where the flashback-prone protagonist must deal with the impact of gentrification; take-no-prisoners community organizers; an unflinching cop from his past in Vietnam; an elderly sexpot out for his bones; a lusted-after magical skull; chronic-lovin’ knuckleheads; and the perils of chili cheese fries at midnight. Combining action, humor and a street level gritty POV, The Underbelly is illustrated with photos and drawings.
Plus: a rollicking interview wherein Phillips riffs on Ghetto Lit, politics, noir and the proletariat, the good negroes and bad knee-grows of pop culture, Redd Foxx and Lord Buckley, and wrestles with the future of books in the age of want.
Not only is Gary Phillips is one of the best kept secrets of the crime genre right now but he is versatile and prolific as well.
Last year saw the publication of a graphic novel, the re-issue of his modern classic The Jook as well as a historical novel Freedom’s Flight. His most recent work was the webcomic Bicycle Cop Dave and he had a short comic in the Noir Anthology published by Dark Horse. I almost envy those who haven’t discovered his work yet, almost.
Over at Blackdaffodill we get this brief teaser:
“Who you supposed to be, old school?” Savoirfaire taunted, flexing his shoulders and shifting his weight onto his back foot. “Captain America don’t live here no more.”
“I’m telling you it’s through,” Magrady repeated calmly, eyes moving from the man’s hands to his face, locking onto the faux designer shades the discount desperado wore.
“You and Floyd are done.”
“You his older brother, cousin, somethin’ like that?”
“You’re missing the point, Flavor Flav,” Magrady said. “My message is what you should be focusing on. Floyd Chambers is no longer on your loan list. No more vig off his SSI checks.”
The two men stood on Wall, smack in the womb of L.A.’s Skid Row. Unlike the street’s more famous incarnation in Manhattan, the west coast version didn’t boast of edifices as testament to giddy capitalism. Trickle-down had long ago trickled out down here.
“Oh, uh-huh.” The bottom-feeder nodded his head. “You lookin’ to take over some of my territory, that it? Don’t seem to me like you got enough weight between your legs to be doin’ that, nephew. Don’t appear to me you got enough left to run this block.”
The Spinetingler crew are huge fans of PM Press and its Switchblade imprint. Before the spilt, when we were writing for BSC Review we reviewed The Jook and I-5 multiple times and I-5 was named as a best book of the decade and of 2009. Yeah. We’re fans.
Spinetingler is looking forward to The Underbelly as well as the new Switchblade title, Pike.
When we know more so will you.
