MONTAG PRESS
COLLECTIVE
B O O K S W O R T H B U R N I N G
Books by Jim Meirose
Mount Everest
Christine Zidar is a woman plagued by voices visions and delusions, but manages to keep her “business” together for a number of years, until she is suddenly forced to deal with the fact that her hoarder Mother with whom she lives has had their house condemned and she and Christine are forced with eviction.
"There’s something Jim Meirose does when he writes, and its definitely ‘the hard way.’ As a reader you have to earn his sentences, one after the other, to get to the bliss, the ecstasy. In this case, it’s the very top of Mount Everest. In life, it’s the very top of an author’s skill. It’s the reason I published a chapbook of his years ago and it’s the reason I still still love reading him, climbing that mountain."
— Christopher Bowen, author of We Were Giants.
"Flannery O’Connor and Samuel Beckett aren’t dead; they’re just found each other in the mind of Jim Meirose. ‘Mount Everest’ takes grotesqueries and near-nihilistic fetishes and pours them into a nightmare that is sometimes funny, always vivid, and unexpectedly incisive. Surreal, scary, even scorching, ‘Mount Everest’ is a look at our trivial ambitions and pastoral fantasies, and the dreamscapes that tell us more about reality than our waking hours ever could."
— Jane Rosenberg LaForge, author of An Unsuitable Princess
"In a house moldering in trash, a young woman wades throughher own delusions, as she earns her living being used and discarded like the refuse around her. At every turn, Meirose forces you to feel the weight of our own consumption and the need to make our world clean."
— Trevor Richardson, author of Dystopia Boy and editor of The Subtopian
"Meirose's Mount Everest is a truly unique and indelible work, at once haunting and insightful with a great story and insight into a troubled mind. Meirose's narrative is compassionate without necessarily championing his protagonist's pained soul and that's a neat trick. Great writing and worthy read!"
-Steven Gillis, author of Benchere In Wonderland
Eli the Rat
The CEO of a giant Pharmaceutical Corporation has discovered that thousands of dollars worth of dangerous narcotics have gone missing from the company’s warehouse, and nobody has even noticed. It’s an inside job; a smuggling racket that’s been in gear for years, brazenly sneaking the drugs right out through the front door. An undercover Rat is hired to pose as a worker and get to the bottom of the racket. And this he does; very quickly, he identifies the smugglers, cozies up to them, and is all set to report in and and have them busted. But his developing love for the young female member of the ring of thieves has complicated his job.
"Tawdry and mesmerizing, Eli the Rat is as much a commentary on greed and urgent compromise as it is a caper doomed before it begins. The characters and their circumstances may seem all too familiar and yet still pack the power to surprise even after the dust settles. Reading this book a lot like starting a new job, and finding out the truth about the American workplace after obligations and responsibilities make quitting in protest impossible."
-Jane Rosenberg LaForge, author of An Unsuitable Princess: A True Fantasy/A Fantastical Memoir(Jaded Ibis Press 2014)
"Eli the Rat is a noirish, kaleidoscopic novel checkered with the allure of money, power, addiction, envy, and longing. Meirose's multi-perspectival storytelling evokes the turbulent lives of workers behind the scenes, churning with misfortune and misguided loyalties."
-James Esch, Editor, Turk’s Head Review
"Using clean, minimalist prose, Meirose constructs the complex dreams—and schemes—of workers stuck on the 9-to-5 wheel. This is poignant yet subtle literary fiction, offering both humor and tragedy as its characters strive for better lives outside the workplace walls. When Meirose holds up a mirror before the workaday world, we see grit in the reflection—as well as truth."
-David Massengill, Author, Red Swarm
"With wild imagery and his masterful use of internal monologue, Meirose thrusts us in the mind-bending drug-induced madness of his characters. His words, like that which is present in so many of Eli’s visions, are fire."
-Corey Mingura, Editor, Arcadia
