By Steve Cannon. Foreword by Darius James. Afterword by Tracie Morris.
Steve Cannon’s cult classic novel returns to print
Despite decades of notoriety as one of the “filthiest books in the world,” Steve Cannon’s first and only piece of longform fiction, Groove, Bang and Jive Around, has hardly been read since first being published in 1969. In the words of American poet Ishmael Reed, Cannon’s debut work inspired a generation by breaking with staid literary modernism. Its publication “signaled a resurfacing of the irreverent, underground trickster tradition of Black orature.” This erotic farce follows Annette, a teenage runaway, from the outhouse of a New Orleans juke joint to the psychedelic paradise of Oo-bla-dee—an idyllic country possibly founded by Dizzy Gillespie—by way of bacchanalian voodoo ritual. As Ophelia Press, its original publisher, wrote, Groove, Bang and Jive Around is an absolute necessity “for everyone who wants to know where and how the action takes place in Sex and Soul.” Steve Cannon (1935–2019) moved to New York City in 1962 and joined the Umbra Workshop. He worked with and was a mentor to many artists and writers. In 1990 he founded the magazine and gallery A Gathering of the Tribes in New York City’s East Village.
PRAISE AND REVIEWS
Author of 'a "Working Life"'
Eileen Myles
If there’s a dirty prayer, this is it. 'Groove, Bang and Jive Around' will invariably piss people off, that’s the plan and its delight. It’s gorgeously uneven, like a country road, it’s squawking & sonorous like great live music, indeed, it is that. 'Groove, Bang' is poetry and a novel out loud, and Steve Cannon, who wrote it was a huge heckler and a funny man and I wish I could thank him for this wonderful disturbing, deeply wrong (hot) and light-footed book that somehow fell out of reading history he has given us and now it has fallen back in.
Screw magazine
'Groove, Bang and Jive Around' is a real jewel—adolescent, informed, funky—both sex and writing.
Author of 'The Slave Who Loved Caviar'
Ishmael Reed
'Groove, Bang and Jive Around' is the outside, breakthrough novel that inspired a generation of avant-garde writers to imitate the Cannon style. Representing a departure from old fogey African-American literary modernism, this funky, pre-Rap novel signaled a resurfacing of the irreverent, underground trickster tradition of black orature.
Author of 'Black Jelly'
Melanie Maria Goodreaux
A filthy novel . . . full of enough sex, rhythm and New Orleans bite to turn even the most disenchanted reader into a voluptuary.
Author of 'Street Players: Black Pulp Fiction and the Making of a Literary Underground'
Kinohi Nishikawa
Steve Cannon dared to blaze his own path, taking a sledgehammer to whatever was expected of Black art from all corners. This new edition of 'Groove, Bang, and Jive Around' does not try to recover his voice for tasteful appropriation. Instead, it delights in the underground paperback world in which Cannon pursued his artistic freedom, giving us a feel for the book’s insistence on not belonging. From cover to cover, 'Groove, Bang, and Jive Around' will not be redeemed—but can be savored as a one-of-a-kind reading experience.
Author of 'STUDY' and 'Anonymous Landscape'
Yuko Otomo
“Introduce yourself!” “Read the goddam poem!” “I love you madly!” With a solid faith in universal humanity, Steve Cannon’s door was open to everyone. He was/is our mentor. Written in the manner & the language only he could maneuver in his youth, 'Groove, Bang and Jive Around,' an adventure of Annette, the Juliette of de Sade of our time, is a rare treasure. Don’t be bashful! Delve into it hard to groove together!
Inpatient Press
Mitch Anzuoni
No mere relic of a lost era, 'Groove, Bang and Jive Around' is a living portal, a scrying mirror pouring out wisdom lurid as it is lucid in an uproarious stream which has no course but to overtake the reader in its vulgar transcendence. For those holding this book, drink deep or not at all.
The Baffler
Grayson Scott
Groove' isn’t a pornographic allegory, but the inventory of an encyclopedic realist...Annette’s is as good a definition of the dialectic as you will ever find in porn.
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FORMAT: Pbk, 4.25 x 7 in. / 244 pgs / 1 b&w. LIST PRICE: U.S. $15.00 LIST PRICE: CANADA $23 ISBN: 9781953691194 PUBLISHER: Blank Forms Editions AVAILABLE: 6/25/2024 DISTRIBUTION: D.A.P. RETAILER DISC: TRADE PUBLISHING STATUS: Active AVAILABILITY: In stock TERRITORY: NA LA ASIA AU/NZ AFR ME
Published by Blank Forms Editions. By Steve Cannon. Foreword by Darius James. Afterword by Tracie Morris.
Steve Cannon’s cult classic novel returns to print
Despite decades of notoriety as one of the “filthiest books in the world,” Steve Cannon’s first and only piece of longform fiction, Groove, Bang and Jive Around, has hardly been read since first being published in 1969. In the words of American poet Ishmael Reed, Cannon’s debut work inspired a generation by breaking with staid literary modernism. Its publication “signaled a resurfacing of the irreverent, underground trickster tradition of Black orature.” This erotic farce follows Annette, a teenage runaway, from the outhouse of a New Orleans juke joint to the psychedelic paradise of Oo-bla-dee—an idyllic country possibly founded by Dizzy Gillespie—by way of bacchanalian voodoo ritual. As Ophelia Press, its original publisher, wrote, Groove, Bang and Jive Around is an absolute necessity “for everyone who wants to know where and how the action takes place in Sex and Soul.”
Steve Cannon (1935–2019) moved to New York City in 1962 and joined the Umbra Workshop. He worked with and was a mentor to many artists and writers. In 1990 he founded the magazine and gallery A Gathering of the Tribes in New York City’s East Village.
