Pretty Much Dead
ABOUT THE BOOK
Beyond the surface glitter of tech wealth currently overwhelming cities like San Francisco are the interstice communities that have barely survived the onslaught. In the streets, in transient hotels and in rent-controlled buildings, the residents settle and search, trying to hold on in the city at the edge of the world.
In these stories, Daphne Gottlieb chronicles inner and outer worlds, shedding light on the significance of a cat, the larger meaning of a parking ticket, the violent mutability of an indoor hurricane, and the contents of a bag as the owner stalks like a wounded tiger through the streets, dragging the memory of her objects through the collection itself. Artful, heartrending, clear-eyed and darkly magical, Pretty Much Dead is part fable, part witness, and part chorus, giving words to the voices that are only heard when they start to yell.
2nd Edition: Small Doggies Press 2016
ISBN: 978-0-9982429-0-3
Small Doggies Press Trade Paperback Second Edition, October 2016
Edited by: Carrie Seitzinger
Cover Design by: Matty Byloos
237 pages.
Distribution: Small Press Distribution
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PRAISE FOR PRETTY MUCH DEAD
“This is not a book about possibility — it’s about the skin of the unconscious, ripped open. To say it’s about mental illness, about poverty or addiction, about structural oppression, is to limit its grasp, because it’s really about feeling. Not feeling. Feeling the not-feeling so hard it becomes a hole in the atmosphere. Pretty Much Dead is a wrecking ball inside a cry for help inside a wrecking ball.” – Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore
“Gottlieb’s work shows empathy, understanding, and a brilliant mind.” – Jessa Crispin, Bookslut
“Gottlieb builds a bleak but potent cabin of words for the poor, the mentally ill and the homeless of San Francisco.” – KQED Arts
“Daphne Gottlieb is a woman of contradictions. She uses her high brow literary skills to conjure images of low brow living, managing to create works that are both terrifying and beautiful.” – 7×7 Magazine
“[This] collection is not only currently politically relevant, the artfulness and beauty with which Gottlieb portrays the struggles of the above intersections makes the collection timeless. Pretty Much Dead is not an easy read—but a complicated, riveting one.” – July Westhale, Lambda Literary Review
STORIES FROM PRETTY MUCH DEAD
Two stories on Drunk in a Midnight Choir
REVIEWS OF PRETTY MUCH DEAD
Lambda Literary Review | reviewed by July Westhale