Take a Chance on E.

I'd like to paraphrase ABBA, as well as interrupt my usual self-promotion, to put in a word for a friend and colleague.

That is one Eric Hendrixson, whom I've known for about a decade from DC-area events including The Batcave and the Iota Poetry series. I've read and endorse his Bizarro Fiction novel with the highly improbable but strangely apt title Bucket of Face. Published by Eraserhead Press of Portland, Oregon as part of its New Bizarro Authors series last October, this novel features a noir sensibility and a MacGuffin-driven plot and has a cast of characters including various sentient fruits and vegetables, most notably a "hit tomato" whose softer side involves Michael Jackson fandom.


No, I am not making this up. Eric is.


But in these days of constrained resources and limited advertising budgets, Bucket of Face has not yet found all the readers it deserves. As noted in a piece on the book in the Washington City Paper, books in the New Bizarro Authors series must sell 200 copies before an author's second book is considered. Right now Eric's book is just a little over halfway there, which means that lots of people have not treated themselves to a story that will make you laugh out loud, challenge your sensibilities and, when you least expect it, deliver an emotional gut-punch.


You could spend bigger money on smaller thrills, but why bother when you can read Bucket of Face?