{"product_id":"the-irish-sea-9781943150144","title":"The Irish Sea","description":"\u003cp\u003eAt a New Year's Eve party, a dead woman turns up alive again, after passing through a mysterious post-mortem way station located on another planet, and much to the disbelief of her old flame, who interprets the night's events with the help of his reading of Kafka. A priest is sent by the Vatican to investigate a strange development in the American cattle market: a breed of cows identical in all physical respects to human women. A man leaves his wife and flees to the north of Spain, where he meets a sickly woman in an empty caf , introduces himself as Jorge Walser, and makes plans with her to disappear. Aboard a trans-atlantic cruise, a door-to-door vacuum salesman bumps into a woman who appears to be Natassja Kinski, and they swap tall tales as the ship floats them asymptotically toward world's end. Christ turns out to be a girl who fronts a punk band. The words of such writers as Beckett, Walser, Chekhov, Gombrowicz, Bola o, Kafka, Blanchot, and Borges are characters in themselves.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Irish Sea\u003c\/i\u003e is a novel masquerading as a book of short stories. A meditation on the paradox of nostalgia, which always seems to pine for what never was. A fevered search for order through writing, of truth through literature, of the nodal point where life and literature intersect. A strange personal gallery curated by a razor-sharp reader and his other, unknown self. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eKurtzke, Eric:\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e - Eric Kurtzke was born on April 16, 1990, in Durham, North Carolina. He studied English literature at the University of Notre Dame and currently teaches English in Mexico City.\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eMaleno, Carlos:\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e - Carlos Maleno was born on October 4, 1977, in Almería, Spain, where he resides still, having lived for a time in Madrid, where he studied Economics. He has contributed to the literary reviews \u003ci\u003eQuimera\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eLa bolsa de pipas\u003c\/i\u003e, and is the author of two novels, \u003ci\u003eThe Irish Sea\u003c\/i\u003e (2014)--winner of the Premio Argaria for best narrative work--and \u003ci\u003eThe Endless Rose\u003c\/i\u003e (2015), both published by Editorial Sloper. He is a passionate reader of Roberto Bolaño, Michel Houellebecq, Rodrgio Rey Rosa, and Enrique Vila-Matas. He works as an international sales broker at a produce company.","brand":"Dalkey Archive Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50857272017170,"sku":"9781943150144","price":10.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_067cb8db-078b-4760-9335-227d76c462c7.jpg?v=1737526373","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/the-irish-sea-9781943150144","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}