My Beckett, My Howe, My Son

"“[A]n important addition to the world of adoption stories—very few by men and none as deep and thoughtful as this."" —A.M. Homes “Dark, brooding, precise, difficult, daring . . . an incomparable piece of writing.” —Barry Schwabsky “I read this beautiful book all in one sitting. It is stunning—poetic and profound.” —Lois Oppenheim “The force of Coffey’s personal abyss asserts the form the book itself takes. Susan Howe emerges here as someone soldering her own abyss.... As for the Beckett side of this story, I think it is right to contest the taboo.” —Seán Kennedy PRAISE FOR SAMUEL BECKETT IS CLOSED: “Michael Coffey’s novel-cum-memoir revolves around a single question: Why Samuel Beckett? … It is refreshing to have the question brought to the fore in this highly intelligent, personal, critical and political work.” —Paul Stewart, Journal of Beckett Studies “A ghostly collaboration . . . a rewarding challenge. Coffey takes a colossal figure whose form-shattering masterpieces can seem hermetic and obscure, deliberately closed off, and opens him up in a way we haven’t seen.” —New York Times “By breaking rules of genre and narrative, by embracing experimental form, Coffey’s work raises questions about how contemporary artists might work to resist the status quo through a subversive, fragmentary style that makes it impossible for us to look away from our political reality. Now, more than ever, we have much to learn from Beckett.” —Amanda Dennis, Los Angeles Review of Books “A shape-shifting fictional tribute to the novelist and playwright Samuel Beckett… complex…emotionally effective….” —Kirkus Reviews “A clever exploration of the ways in which art gives life meaning…shrewd. A stimulating and singular work.” —Publishers Weekly ""In his new book–part memoir, part criticism, and part poetry–Michael Coffey deftly weaves multiple voices into a fractured but unified whole that strongly resonates with the digital age. Highly addictive, fiercely challenging, and lusciously readable—if you ever wondered what Beckett might sound like in the twenty-first century, this is it."" —Kenneth Goldsmith, author of Fidget, Day, Capital, and Wasting Time on the Internet “Samuel Beckett Is Closed makes us experience simultaneously several narratives deployed in subtle counterpoint. These varied voices show the relevance of Beckett’s oeuvre in a world dominated by exploitation, torture, state violence and unbridled capitalism. Such a polyphonic mode of engagement with literature and history . . . opens all the doors at once, turning Beckett’s alleged minimalism into a vibrantly maximalist Irish critique.” —Jean-Michel Rabaté, Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of Pennsylvania, author of Think, Pig!: Beckett at the Limit of the Human PRAISE FOR THE BUSINESS OF NAMING THINGS “Riveting prose… vibrant and unsparing.” —Publishers Weekly [starred review] PRAISE FOR CMYK ""With apparent self-revelations that turn out to be quotations, and jigsaw-like verbal constructions that depict pathos almost despite themselves, Coffey finds ‘what’s in the brain that ink may character.’” —Publishers Weekly PRAISE FOR ELEMONPY  “Although a certain alienation is central to these tightly compressed poems, their energy is also invigorating: if the possibilities for forms and kinds of relationships in language are endless, then so are our own.” —Publishers Weekly “Although… Coffey’s work might be considered ‘language poetry,’ he is, in fact, a kind of Dadaist or ‘dropster punster,’ as he calls himself, delighting in all sorts of verbal pyrotechnics.” —Library Journal  "