M. Allen Cunningham
P a r t i s a n s
* A 2014 Flann O'Brien Award Finalist *
It gave me energy. ... We join forces. --JOHN BERGER
Part fable, and an all-out plea for the love of good stories.--NewPages
Vol.3 in the Atelier26 Samizdat Series:
Partisans: A Lost Work by Geoffrey Peerson Leed
by M. Allen Cunningham
On the basis of an excerpt from Partisans, Cunningham was awarded a 2014 residency at the Yaddo colony.
Partisans: A Lost Work by Geoffrey Peerson Leed
by M. Allen Cunningham
On the basis of an excerpt from Partisans, Cunningham was awarded a 2014 residency at the Yaddo colony.
Readers who favor either the political dystopias of Orwell or the zombie-apocalypse works of Max Brooks will be interested in what Leed has to say. Partisans is part of Atelier26’s Samizdat Series. The term 'Samizdat' gives the book a sense of dangerous urgency. During the Communist era, dissidents clandestinely printed, published, and distributed censored publications (or Samizdat) throughout The Soviet Union, its satellite nations, and abroad. Vladimir Putin can choose to ignore Samizdat existed, but its importance is undeniable — and Leed’s book points to a renewal of the practice. ... Part fable, and an all-out plea for the love of good stories and the talent to tell them, Partisans is thoughtful and, unfortunately, relevant.--NewPages
M. Allen Cunningham reads from Partisans: A Lost Work by G.P. Leed
At a recent meeting with fellow members of the Literary Resistance, M. Allen Cunningham presented the work of the vanished writer G.P. Leed. This meeting was monitored by Market Optimization Bureau Agents, and this is a copy of their recording:
"Always, everything we see challenges us to understand. The extent to which we take up the challenge by our own wits and without resorting to prior interpretations is the extent to which we escape oppression."
"He felt that he had no life to lose. He was no proper self and therefore no proper death, symbolical or actual, could await. He'd let slip somewhere, or had had torn from him, the I of identity. He was a
blowing dust that got in under doors."
"Still, even in the quiet of your room you face the onslaught. Endlessly you work to clear your vision against the day's overcrowding. You seek a single sheer coherent narrative of thought, the prolonged extension of a tone amid the broken broadcast noises, antic and ever-changing. You school yourself in history. You labor to remember: underlying the current complexity is woeful oversimplification. Meanwhile you will know the truth by the serene simplicity of its surface."
--from Partisans
"He felt that he had no life to lose. He was no proper self and therefore no proper death, symbolical or actual, could await. He'd let slip somewhere, or had had torn from him, the I of identity. He was a
blowing dust that got in under doors."
"Still, even in the quiet of your room you face the onslaught. Endlessly you work to clear your vision against the day's overcrowding. You seek a single sheer coherent narrative of thought, the prolonged extension of a tone amid the broken broadcast noises, antic and ever-changing. You school yourself in history. You labor to remember: underlying the current complexity is woeful oversimplification. Meanwhile you will know the truth by the serene simplicity of its surface."
--from Partisans
Q:
What is Partisans about?
A:
War, Art, Ambition, Perception, Subversion.
Q:
You can't be any more specific?
A:
How could I possibly be?
Q:
Who was G.P. Leed?
A:
A writer who worked in the Northwest Territory like me. A compatriot of anyone espoused to the humane imagination, the powers and possibilities of consciousness as opposed to mass perceptions or the dilutions and mediations of systems and 'high' technologies.
Q:
Is Partisans a political book?
A:
Ask the reader.
Q:
Is Partisans an allegory?
A:
No. Though many things are.
Q:
Is it speculative fiction?
A:
What other kind is there?
Q:
How did you come to edit and publish G.P. Leed's lost manuscript?
A:
Some questions cannot be answered.
Q:
Will its publication put you in danger?
A:
Probably. But that's true of every book. Art is the result of having been in danger.
Q:
You're quoting someone, aren't you?
A:
Yes. Of course everything is a quote in its way.
Q:
Is Partisans a quote? What of?
A:
Oh, Don Quixote and many other things. It's not for me to say but for the reader to perceive.
Q:
Where is the Acknowledgements page?
A:
Leed never included one. Why should I? Refer to answer above.
Q:
Was G.P. Leed for real?
A:
Was Jules Renard or Cervantes, or Janos Lavin?
Q:
What are your hopes for Partisans?
A:
They're no different than Leed's were, and those are plain to see on every page.
Q:
Read the book, you're saying.
A:
Leed himself writes, "Dare the reader to understand!"
Q:
But would you really call most readers daring?
A:
They'd better be.
Q:
Who are the most daring among them?
A:
Those who go first, naturally.
What is Partisans about?
A:
War, Art, Ambition, Perception, Subversion.
Q:
You can't be any more specific?
A:
How could I possibly be?
Q:
Who was G.P. Leed?
A:
A writer who worked in the Northwest Territory like me. A compatriot of anyone espoused to the humane imagination, the powers and possibilities of consciousness as opposed to mass perceptions or the dilutions and mediations of systems and 'high' technologies.
Q:
Is Partisans a political book?
A:
Ask the reader.
Q:
Is Partisans an allegory?
A:
No. Though many things are.
Q:
Is it speculative fiction?
A:
What other kind is there?
Q:
How did you come to edit and publish G.P. Leed's lost manuscript?
A:
Some questions cannot be answered.
Q:
Will its publication put you in danger?
A:
Probably. But that's true of every book. Art is the result of having been in danger.
Q:
You're quoting someone, aren't you?
A:
Yes. Of course everything is a quote in its way.
Q:
Is Partisans a quote? What of?
A:
Oh, Don Quixote and many other things. It's not for me to say but for the reader to perceive.
Q:
Where is the Acknowledgements page?
A:
Leed never included one. Why should I? Refer to answer above.
Q:
Was G.P. Leed for real?
A:
Was Jules Renard or Cervantes, or Janos Lavin?
Q:
What are your hopes for Partisans?
A:
They're no different than Leed's were, and those are plain to see on every page.
Q:
Read the book, you're saying.
A:
Leed himself writes, "Dare the reader to understand!"
Q:
But would you really call most readers daring?
A:
They'd better be.
Q:
Who are the most daring among them?
A:
Those who go first, naturally.
Partisans is a lost work by the mysterious writer Geoffrey Peerson Leed, presented in nine parts according to Leed's designs as indicated in manuscripts discovered after his disappearance. The book describes a brutal war in an unspecified past as well as Leed's struggle to survive in a paranoiac future riven by totalitarianism and social decay. Everywhere at its heart, Partisans speaks boldly to our contemporary moment: a time of unbridled surveillance, constant war, and maddening technological upheaval.
M. Allen Cunningham is the author of the novels The Green Age of Asher Witherow (a #1 IndieNext Pick) and Lost Son (about the life and work of Rainer Maria Rilke), the illustrated, limited-edition short story collection Date of Disappearance and two volumes of nonfiction, The Honorable Obscurity Handbook and The Flickering Page: The Reading Experience in Digital Times. He lives and works in the Northwest Territory.
A rare photo of
G.P. Leed
G.P. Leed lived and worked in the Northwest Territory.
ISBN: 978-0-9893023-4-0
Retail price:16.95
262 pages
8.5" x 5.5" trade paperback
Distributed throughout North America by Ingram and Baker & Taylor
Retail price:16.95
262 pages
8.5" x 5.5" trade paperback
Distributed throughout North America by Ingram and Baker & Taylor