If I Close My Eyes by Ben Fama
Ben Fama | If I Close My Eyes | Paperback | $20.00 US
ISBN: 979-8-9879849-0-1 | Release date: Oct. 10, 2023 | SARKA
In a debut novel as emotionally raw as it is uncanny, a tragic love story unfolds against the complicated backdrop of Hollywood's elite, where the line between reality and fantasy blurs under the modern tension of the civilian and celebrity worlds.
Deathwish and Fantasy author Ben Fama brings a poet’s sensibility to his highly original and delicate debut novel. If I Close My Eyes showcases Fama’s demonstrated skill for startling visual imagery, emotional depth and caustic satire, all woven into a tragic narrative as real as it is otherworldly.
The novel tells the story of two strangers who begin an affair after surviving a mass shooting at a Kim Kardashian book signing. Lust and pleasure fuel the romance between a 19-year-old aspiring screenwriter and a 30-year-old struggling actress over the backdrop of our fast-paced, digital world. Set in Los Angeles and New York City, playing out through text message banter, trashy tabloid stories and other appropriated forms, If I Close My Eyes presents the story of two damaged bodies whose lives briefly touch and are forever changed as a result. Humorous and melancholy, simultaneously satirical and deadpan, If I Close My Eyes is for readers of Bruce Wagner, Bret Easton Ellis and even Evelyn Waugh.
A true poet's novel, beautiful yet deliberate, If I Close My Eyes comes undone with each turn of the page, peeling back every artifice facing us and showing us ourselves, stripped of our narratives, naked except for our desires. Fama pulls us into his spiral with ease, offering humor and devastation with each card dealt to us, and the chaos feels as intrinsic yet mysterious to us as our own bodies. If I Close My Eyes makes us question: What do we do when fantasy abandons us?
"Imagine a young Bret Easton Ellis with a heart, if you can, and that's Ben Fama. With devastating compassion for his dissolute characters, Fama extracts truths about contemporary pop culture that feel original and bold, even as they come at the cost of some unfortunate young people's grasping, heartbreaking, sometimes hilarious lives. Every sentence is a twisty, poetic pleasure, but never at the expense of the plot. I treasured every weird-ass page."
—Emily Gould, author of Perfect Tunes
"Ben Fama's debut novel If I Close My Eyes is David Cronenberg's Maps to the Stars meets Chris Kraus' Summer of Hate—come for the acute Hollywood satire and stay for the dreamy love story. I adored this book."
—Anna Dorn, author of Exalted
"A playful and ultra-contemporary story in which Fama's prose sparkles."
—Rachel Rabbit White, author of Porn Carnival
"Ben Fama’s debut is a tender, hyper-contemporary satire about Hollywood and digital life, grief and addiction."
"It’s Fama’s meta-textual nod toward the contrivances of a novel, to the act of author as auteur. By turning the mirror, Fama provokes further inquiry into the nature of our own obsessions."
"A thoughtful … vivid tale."
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Ben Fama is a writer based in New York City. He is the author of Deathwish (Newest York, 2019), Fantasy (Ugly Duckling Presse, 2015), and the chapbooks Odalisque (Bloof, 2014), Cool Memories (Spork, 2013), New Waves (Minutes Books, 2011) and Aquarius Rising (Ugly Duckling Presse, 2010). He is also the author of the artist book Mall Witch (Wonder, 2012). His writing has appeared in The Believer, Denver Quarterly, Boston Review, Jubilat, LIT and The Brooklyn Rail, among others. He is the co-founder of Wonder, an imprint that publishes innovative poetry, fiction and nonfiction.
Cover art by Forsyth Harmon
Cover design by Ben Pease