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In 1915,
Charles Beadle authored a banned literary
novel, A Passionate Pilgrimage: one
of ten books blacklisted between 1914 and 1916
by Britain’s Circulating Libraries
Association. Drawing from personal
experience, the author affords us a glimpse
into the underbelly of Victorian society,
breaking through the “mind-forg’d manacles” of
what was then considered as a “tasteful” tale
and exploring points of view that only an
anti-Victorian story might dare encompass.
With the publication of Dark Refuge
(1938), he produced an even more provocative
chronicle – one that was also banned in the
Anglo-Saxon world due to its brazen portrayal
of the Parisian demimonde. Both these censored
books portray the shifting mores of the times
and encompass a major trajectory in the
author’s life. Back in print for the first
time since 1915, this newly revised edition
features over 200 annotations, an in-depth
Introduction and Afterward, a Postscript by
John Locke, and a transcript of Beadle's
previously unpublished letters to his niece
Isabel. It also includes a reproduction of a
newly uncovered portrait of Beadle by the
artist Amedeo Modigliani.
"A
Passionate Pilgrimage was first
published in 1915, when it earned the acclaim
of being one of ten books blacklisted for
years by Britain’s Circulating Libraries
Association. Modern readers may be puzzled by
this fact when they read this novel; but its
descriptions of free-ranging sensual
encounters between the protagonist and a host
of consenting women made it a scandalous piece
at the turn of the century. Why reissue A
Passionate Pilgrimage now? The
introductory notes (which are extensive and
vital to understanding the novel’s continuing
importance) state that the novel: 'provides a
variety of clues about Beadle’s early life.'
In so doing, it reveals the essence of social
and psychological transformation, toeing the
line between autobiography and a fictional
discourse containing many topics vital to
understanding not just these times, but modern
morals and values. Its subjects and
considerations make for thoroughly engrossing
reading, presented in a way that builds the
character’s focus, emphasizes his differences,
and ultimately creates a captivating tale of
transformation and insight. Libraries that
choose A Passionate Pilgrimage will
find it highly recommendable to students of
literature; teachers seeking novels that hold
lively debates about not just banned
literature, but banned ideas; and book clubs
that will find A Passionate Pilgrimage
thoroughly thought-provoking.”
- Diane Donovan, Senior editor, Midwest
Book Review
Amazon
Bookfinder
"If, perchance, From
Montmartre to the Latin Quarter
sounds familiar, that's because Francis
Carco's memoir was first published in 1927.
This annotated edition makes his work more
accessible to a wider audience, includes Rob
Couteau's analytical Introduction and a new
Afterword by Christopher Sawyer-Laucanno,
and follows the experiences of an 1886 poet,
artist, and traveler who fell into a close,
supportive association with bohemian Paris.
There the young man creatively blossomed,
immersed in the arts and producing over a
hundred books that ranged from poetry to his
own astute analyses of other artists,
including a critical essay on Modigliani
which revealed the man's value at a point
where other French critics scoffed at his
works.
From Montmartre to the Latin Quarter
is more than your typical biography. It
assumes the atmospheric draw of a Proust
production with its 'you are here' survey of
Paris' artistic community. Couteau's
footnotes add critical reflections and
interpretations key to understanding Carco's
objectives and perspectives. Both Carco and
researcher Rob Couteau create compelling
observations, insights, and historical
value, but couch these in lively language
and passages that should reach into
general-interest audiences who hold an
appreciation for all things Parisian and for
its arts community of the early 1900s. Its
survey of friendships, relationships, and
the artistic promise quashed by events of
the Great War create a lively, memorable
read especially recommended for those who
appreciate in-depth footnoted references.
These enlighten readers on facets of Carco's
life that might otherwise slip by with a
reading of the memoir alone.
All these facets make
From Montmartre to the Latin Quarter an
astute historical and literary memoir that
embraces the arts, social and political
milieu, and powerful perspectives of the
times. Libraries (including general-interest
collections as well as college-level
holdings strong in memoirs and artist
history) will find it easy to recommend From
Montmartre to the Latin Quarter for its
thoroughly engrossing, richly realistic
passages, firmly embedded in Carco's life
and the creations and influences of 1900s
Paris."
- Diane Donovan, Senior editor, Midwest
Book Review
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"Here we have a new,
possibly classic memoir of New York. It
begins in Gravesend, Brooklyn, and moves
outward, to Manhattan and Paris ... That
there still exists a path to a writer's life
that is not a dutiful march through creative
writing academies, with perhaps the
apotheosis of becoming a teacher of yet more
academy-shaped writers, is heartening to
learn. Couteau does not make fun of that
approach nor of any other, but he does model
something much different, and to see him
continuing to write books like this one,
which well deserves a place on his already
considerable shelf of valued books, is
excellent news."
- Robert Roper, author of Nabokov in
America: On the Road to Lolita and Now
the Drum of War: Walt Whitman and His
Brothers in the Civil War.
"As
Couteau moves through different worlds
(including France), encountering literary,
artistic, and social figures, he finds a new
sense of home, place, and purpose which
translates to social and philosophical
revelations about life, religion, and the
world. Ultimately, his very method of
engaging with other worlds is what links
readers to his life and the exuberant march
of its encounters and revelations.... Five
hundred pages go by in the blink of an eye
as readers absorb an intriguing memoir that
deserves a place in any library strong in
memoirs that embrace literary, artistic, and
social transformation."
- Diane
Donovan, Senior Editor, Midwest
Book Review.
We're
proud to announce the publication of
Stanley Marks' visionary play, A
Murder Most Foul! A Three-Act Play
About the JFK Assassination.
Introduction by Rob Couteau. Afterword
by James DiEugenio.
On
February 19, 1968, author Stanley
Marks copyrighted his first play, a
visionary attempt to penetrate the
Deep Politics matrix of the JFK
assassination. Among other things, the
play predicts the assassination of
Bobby Kennedy, which occurred only 3
1/2 months later; as well as the
eventual presidential election of
Ronald Reagan. This manuscript sat in
a Library of Congress box collecting
dust until 13 April 2023, when it was
published in book form for the very
first time.
"Attorney
Stanley Marks was one of the very few
people in America who read both the
888 page Warren Commission Report and
the accompanying 26 volumes of
testimony and exhibits. Out of that
mountain of material, his book
features 975 questions for the
prosecution. In a relentless and
blistering manner, he showed why the
case against Oswald should not go to
trial. In other words, he stopped the
Commission right out of the starting
gate.... I could go on and on about
the critical acuity and
comprehensiveness of Stanley Marks'
work and how it differs in kind from
that of other first-generation
critics.... What is so remarkable
about Stanley is that his analytical
efforts were not enough for the man.
He attempted to bring this heinous
crime to the attention of the public
through his efforts as a playwright.
And, thanks to Couteau, we now have
his play about the assassination of
President Kennedy."
-
Scholar and historian James DiEugenio,
the world's leading authority on the
JFK case, author of Destiny
Betrayed: JFK, Cuba,
and the Garrison Case
and The JFK Assassination,
and screenwriter of Oliver Stone's
documentary, JFK Revisited.
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From
the Postscript by Christopher
Sawyer-Lauçanno:
"Beadle is the real deal. And Rob
Couteau is the real deal too. Without
his desire to rescue Dark Refuge
from oblivion, we would all have
missed out on a tremendous modernist
novel that should rank among other
classics such as Tropic of Cancer,
Nightwood, Nadja, Ulysses, To the
Lighthouse, and, of course, Naked
Lunch. And thanks to his
extensive annotations and deep
research, we have both the novel and
the context that created it. I am
admiring and grateful."
Diane
Donovan, Senior Editor, Midwest
Book Review:
"Dark
Refuge appears in
print for the first time since its
original publication in 1938,
presenting a world traveler’s
experiences with bohemian life in
Paris in a novel that also serves
(thanks to Rob Couteau) as a biography
of Beadle’s life.
Extensive
annotated references link Beadle’s
experiences to his fictional
representations, offering a literary
backdrop for understanding both the
atmosphere and progression of his
fiction and its roots in reality.
Readers
should be prepared for a sexual romp
that is ribald, explicit, and
thoroughly steeped in Beadle’s
personal experiences of the times.
Beadle’s language is evocative,
poetic, and dramatic: ‘I simply slip
through the other room of the café and
out into the other boulevard, laughing
to twist my guts. Nobody knows that I
have a rendezvous. The coat and hat
annoy me. How silly! I throw them away
as I run, for I know it is late and
I’m frightened that my beloved will
not wait. God is crying harder than
ever, and I suck in his tears. How
funny it must be to weep!’
Whether
exploring drug experiments and the
revelations that follow them or
descending into the sordid and
colorful world of bohemian Paris,
Beadle flavors all of his impressions
with the same attention to flowery
detail that makes his writing so
time-less: ‘Inexorably I was borne
along up this staircase of Time as an
express lift passes floors, glimpsing
worlds where the highest form of life
was apes chattering futilely in
leagues of simian nations of their
own; where vast beasts resembling
tanks plunged through swamp and over
prairie; where the sky was of steam
and gas, and volcanoes burst like
firecrackers on a Chinese New Year
amid a seething sea; and on and on
until there were no more worlds and
naught seemingly but incandescent
void.’
Pair
this with the extensive notes and
annotated references Couteau injects
to not just explain but expand the
story, for a sense of the unique
literary and historical importance of
this reappearance of Beadle’s rare
classic, which has been out of print
for far too long.
Libraries
seeking literary representations of
the marriage between fiction and
nonfiction will find Dark Refuge
a fine example. The 200+ annotated
notes come from previously unpublished
letters and documents, combining with
photos and historical reviews to
represent a hallmark of not only
literary fiction, but biographical
research.
Dark
Refuge deserves a place in any
library strong in works of literature
that represent the intersection
between fictional devices and
biographical inspection, whether or
not there is prior knowledge of or
interest in Beadle’s works and
importance."
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Book
review by Scott Sublett,
New Art Examiner:
"A Blind Man Crazy for Color: A
Strange Tale from the Annals of
Art Collecting":
In
Paris of the 1910s, when hungry
artists would take almost any
pittance for their work, an old
man of extremely limited means
scooped up Picassos, Modiglianis,
Utrillos, Matisses and Cezannes,
each painting bought for the price
of a couple of good restaurant
meals. The prescient old man’s
collection would, today, be worth
hundreds of millions, if not
billions, and one might say the
old man had a superlative eye,
were he not blind.
In
his strange, fascinating new book,
A Blind Man Crazy for Color,
writer-painter Rob Couteau
assembles and unearths what little
can be known about the mysterious
collector Léon Angély, a bald,
fat, retired solicitor’s clerk who
gambled what small money he had on
the dream of assembling a
collection that could someday
finance a luxurious retirement in
Nice.
When
Père Angély started collecting, he
was already myopic but could still
see. Over a period of about 20
years, though, his vision
disappeared. “I have only one fan,
and he’s blind,” Modigliani is
quoted as saying. (In the book’s
footnotes there’s another lovely
Modigliani quotation: “I do at
least three paintings a day in my
head. What’s the use of spoiling
canvas when nobody will buy?”)
Rather than let blindness end his
Sunday afternoon visits to
studios, Angély continued
collecting with the help of a
poor, unschooled young girl, on
whose shoulder his hand rested as
they made their way through
Montmartre. Little Joséphine would
describe the paintings, and on the
basis of her simple descriptions,
he would choose. Figures as
distinctive as Léon and Joséphine
were certainly noticed. Couteau
quotes John Richardson’s A Life of
Picasso as asserting that the
painter was fascinated by the old,
blind collector, and Richardson
goes on to speculate, quite
plausibly, “Picasso may have drawn
on his memory of the sightless art
lover and his child guide when in
1934 he depicted a blind Minotaur
being led around by a little
girl.” It’s likely Léon and
Joséphine were beloved Montmartre
characters, despite the old man’s
tightness with a franc. Adding
another layer of resonance to
Couteau’s slim volume are the
charming illustrations by Lydia
Corbett, also known as Sylvette
David, the pony-tailed model and
muse who inspired Picasso’s
Sylvette Period (and whose
hairstyle was copied by Bridgette
Bardot). Now 87 and living in
Devon, Sylvette had a show seven
years ago at London’s Francis Kyle
Gallery. It may seem tragic that
Angély died in 1921, before the
artists he discovered skyrocketed
in value. To keep body and soul
together in inflation-racked
post-World War I Paris, he
disposed of his collection for
little more than he had paid.
Still, for decades he had the
aesthetic thrill of some of art
history’s greatest accomplishments
covering his shabby garret walls,
and for some of that time, he
could see them.
Diane
Donovan, Senior Editor,
Midwest Book Review:
A
Blind Man Crazy for Color:
A Tribute to Léon Angély
documents an early 20th
century retired clerk who
collected art by Picasso,
Modigliani, and Utrillo
before these artists were
famous. Despite his failing
vision, Léon Angély could
see the promise of these
artists before those around
him acknowledged their
talents. He employed a young
girl to help him make his
selections when his sight no
longer permitted him to
personally enjoy them.
The
book is illustrated with original
artwork by Picasso's model and
muse, Sylvette David, who posed
for the painter in 1954 when she
was only nineteen years old. Her
black and white and color sketches
accent this colorful portrait of
Léon's life, motivations,
involvement in the art world, and
the pieces he collected.
Previously unpublished information
about the blind man's passion and
his influence on the art world
enhances a survey that should be
required reading and acquisition
for any serious art history
student and the libraries catering
to them.
The
well-researched treatise is
supported by documentation that
ranges from birth and death
certificates to Rob
Couteau's personal research
into Sylvette David who, at
eighty-seven, adds her memories to
the story to expand reader
insights about both Picasso and
David's life and their art
involvements.
Readers
also receive revealing inspections
of the process of interviewing
artists and capturing their
historical and artistic impact,
adding to A Blind Man Crazy
for Color's importance as a
survey that goes beyond a singular
biography of an art enthusiast to
delve into the world of artists,
art appreciation, and muses. The
blend of all these elements
demonstrates the interlinked
potentials and importance of
artists, muses, and those who
appreciate, purchase, and analyze
their work:
"Although
he died impoverished and nearly
forgotten, and although the
identity of his youthful guide is
still enshrouded in mystery, le
Père Angély helped to preserve
what Richardson calls the “sacred
stuff of art” – regardless of
whether his motivation was merely
pecuniary. Léon and Joséphine may
also have inspired the greatest
artist of the twentieth century."
Serious
art libraries should consider this
extraordinary recreation of
artistic ambitions against all
odds a mainstay that stands out in
many different ways.
Available
for the first time since February
1970: Stanley J. Marks' Coup
d'Etat, with an Introduction
by Rob Couteau.
"A
good book by a keen and
knowledgeable attorney. Rob Couteau
has done a service by bringing these
books back. Marks was a buried gem."
-
James DiEugenio, the foremost
scholar of the JFK assassination and
author of Destiny Betrayed:
JFK, Cuba, and the Garrison Case.
DiEugenio is also the screenwriter
of Oliver Stone's documentary, JFK
Revisited: Through the Looking
Glass (2021).
Diane
Donovan, Senior
editor,
Midwest Book
Review:
"SELECTED
POEMS features 101 poems, 40 of
which have been printed in numerous
print and online journals since
1985. The rest are new to this
collection, and represent a
satisfying blend of old and new
works designed to appeal to
newcomers and prior fans alike. Rob
Couteau's works are diverse. They
follow no set poetic structure, even
defying some of them when the muse
strikes and special needs indicate
that the subject is more important
than poetic form.... His inspections
of artistic, literary, and social
issues are astute and compelling....
Don't anticipate set structures,
uniform poetic approaches, or
singular subjects here. SELECTED
POEMS offers a freewheeling approach
to poems and life alike, and is a
thought provoking, evocative
gathering of works recommended for
literary readers not bound by
convention or rules." With an
Introduction by the poet, critic,
and literary historian Edward
Foster.
"Rob
Couteau has performed a miraculous
deed. He has gotten two of the late
Stanley Marks' books on the JFK case
republished. Marks was way ahead of
the field. While people like Harold
Weisberg and Josiah Thompson were
still counting bullets, he was
calling JFK's death a coup d'etat.
That is the perspective he wrote
from way back in the late Sixties.
Don't pass up the chance to meet up
with a prophet. Read both of these
books. You will be shocked by the
insight in them."
-
James DiEugenio, JFK scholar and
author of Destiny Betrayed,
commenting on Murder Most Foul!
and Two Days of Infamy.
DiEugenio is also the screenwriter
of Oliver Stone's 2021 documentary,
JFK Revisited: Through the
Looking Glass.
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Stanley
J. Marks' MURDER MOST FOUL! is now
back in print for the first time
since September 1967. Includes Rob
Couteau's biographical essay on the
blacklisted author's groundbreaking
work and how it may have influenced
Bob Dylan's JFK ballad of the same
name.
JFK
scholar Jim DiEugenio writes:
"Couteau's
work is important, first-rate, and a
wonderful homage to one of the most
important critics of the Warren
Report ever ... and an unsung hero
in the JFK case. Stanley Marks was
rocket miles ahead of everyone. He
really understood the big picture
early. And not just on the JFK
case." DiEugenio is the foremost
scholar on the Kennedy
assassination, author of Destiny
Betrayed: JFK, Cuba, and the
Garrison Case, and
scriptwriter for Oliver Stone's
documentary, JFK Revisited:
Through the Looking Glass
(2021). 400 pages, with
illustrations.
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"Chapters
explore not just each individual's
actions, but their backgrounds,
reasons for participating in Occupy
Wall Street, and their experiences,
and offers criticism of media
reporting of the movement's history,
intentions, and approaches. From how
participants decided to react to
violent antagonism against the
Occupy movement to the social and
political ramifications of not just
Occupy but the elements it opposed,
these interviews capture
participants from all walks of life,
from teens to full-time workers, and
turns the newspaper reports into a
series of personal vignettes about
Occupy's deeper meaning."
-
Diane Donovan, Midwest Book
Review.
"Couteau's
essays are informal, fervent, and
well-versed examinations of the work
or author at hand. At their best,
they include fascinating insights
into the significance of a writer
like Hubert Selby.... The interviews
are uniformly strong and include
conversations with Michael Korda on
T.E. Lawrence, Justin Kaplan on Walt
Whitman, and Robert Roper on
Vladimir Nabokov. Not all of them
focus on literature: author Jeffrey
Jackson covers the 1910 flood of
Paris and why it's relatively
forgotten; and Robert De Sena, in
one of the best interviews,
discusses his life as a gang member
turned community activist. Couteau's
passion and wealth of knowledge are
obvious throughout the book ... and
should appeal to many readers." - Publishers
Weekly Select.
"The 'Renaissance Man' is a
multi-faceted individual whose
fingers are in just about every pie
you could imagine, fostering a
variety of abilities and mastering
many quite well. His expertise is
wide-ranging and there's seemingly
no limit to his subject, as is
demonstrated in More Collected
Couteau: Essays and Interviews,
which gathers Couteau's insights and
encounters with a diverse range of
individuals... The joy of reading
Couteau lies as much in his
penetrating, crystalline language as
it does in the works or figures
being examined, and so readers
receive a wide-ranging treat that
examines victims, vengeance,
mortality and immortality through an
inspection process that educates
even those unfamiliar with the
subject.... After proving his
prowess at the essay form, he turns
to the heart of the collection: its
interviews. These range from
discussions with Albert Hoffman
(activist and the discoverer of LSD)
to interviews with literary figures
such as historian and cultural
commentator Robert Roper or poet
Christopher Sawyer-Lauçanno. One of
the pleasures in this collection is
that readers needn't have prior
familiarity with the writers' works.
Couteau provides that familiarity by
the structure of his interview
questions, which probe the
foundation beliefs of each
figure.... From the possibility that
Nabokov suffered unconscious doubts
about his own value that led him to
insist that the world acknowledge
him as a genius to the underlying
patriotism of counterculture icons
who were commonly seen as rebels ...
both essays and interviews are
designed to make readers think about
underlying psychology, social
perceptions, and cultural change.
Readers seeking not just a literary
presentation but a lively analysis
of selected wordsmiths and their
lives and influences must add More
Collected Couteau to their
reading lists. It's a powerful
presentation that offers much
insight and food for thought, and
which should find its way into many
a college classroom as well.
- Diane Donovan, Midwest Book
Review.
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Collected
Couteau features an anthology
the author's early writings and
publications. It contains the only
complete, unabridged versions of
interviews with Ray Bradbury and Last
Exit to Brooklyn author
Hubert Selby. The 188-page
trade-sized paperback also features
an unabridged interview with Paul
Bowles' biographer Christopher
Sawyer-Lauçanno, in which the author
discusses Paul Bowles, Allen
Ginsberg, William Burroughs,
Louis-Ferdinand Céline, and the
Beats. The collection includes an
essay on Walt Whitman and numerous
book reviews, including essays on Tea
in the Harem, by Mehdi
Charef; The Demon and The
Room, by Hubert Selby; Libra,
by Don DeLillo; Love in the
Time of Cholera, by Gabriel
Garcia Marquez; The Mustache,
by Emmanuel Carrère; A Literate
Passion: The Letters of Anais Nin
and Henry Miller, and a
review of Allen Ginsberg's 1990
photography show in Paris. It also
contains an in-depth review of Carl
Jung: Wounded Healer of the Soul,
by Claire Dunne; and Jung, My
Mother and I. The Analytic Diaries
of Catherine Rush Cabot, by
Jane Cabot Reid.
"Intellectual freshness, richness,
and potency ... Couteau is an
impressively creative writer, whom
Barney Rosset urged me to review." -
Jim Feast, assistant editor of the Evergreen
Review, from his essay on Collected
Couteau and Doctor Pluss.
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"Doctor
Pluss is exceptionally well
developed and emotionally
compelling, connecting metaphorical
description with experiences that
often challenge the traditional
roles of doctor and patient, linking
them in unexpected ways ... Couteau
is not afraid to push the literary
boundaries of convention in pursuit
of a different form of descriptive
truth, bringing readers along in a
rollicking ride through
schizophrenic experience that
ultimately questions the foundations
of reality and perception from both
sides of the therapist's couch ...
His interpretations and descriptions
of the schizophrenic experience are
particularly astute, astonishing,
and evocatively described ...
Readers who choose Doctor Pluss
are in for a treat. It's like One
Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest on
steroids: a thought-provoking
examination of sanity, insanity, and
the crossover process that leaves
readers thinking long after this
therapeutic slice of life is
consumed."
- Diane Donovan, Midwest Book
Review.
"Amazingly beautiful, haunting
prose. It's a great book."
- Christopher Sawyer-Lauçanno,
author of The Continual
Pilgrimage: American Writers in
Paris (City Lights) and An
Invisible Spectator: A Biography
of Paul Bowles (Grove Press).
"Intellectual freshness, richness,
and potency ... Couteau is an
impressively creative writer, whom
Barney Rosset urged me to review."
- Jim Feast, assistant editor of the
Evergreen Review,
from his essay on Collected
Couteau and Doctor
Pluss.
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