MONTAG PRESS
COLLECTIVE
B O O K S W O R T H B U R N I N G
Books by Jonathan R. Rose
Carrion
Carrion is about a world consumed by chaos. But in this world, you are not a desperate survivor hoping to outlast the bedlam; instead, you are the monster that caused it. Consumed by an insatiable hunger, a malevolent need to feed, you are the one from whom the masses flee. And because of you a group of barbaric men led by a fanatic with a gleaming badge fastened to his chest have banded together with the intention of hunting you and all those like you down. Follow in the footsteps of a fiend. See what he sees. Taste the flesh. Smell the decay. Suffer the anguish. Witness a massive city crumble under the weight of fear and hate and become hell. Whether engulfed in flames, or flooded by lakes of blood, all that remains are monsters and men, and the war that wages not only between them, but within themselves.
Following in the path of Jean Paul Satre's Nausea and Dante's Divine Comedy J.R. Rose's Carrion is an epic length prose poem that delves deep into the capitalist psyche.
"Here is a claustrophobic landscape of heaped flesh, ravenous vermin,and human monsters. Each body in Carrion is possessed by a maddening hunger that Jonathan R. Rose describes viscerally and graphically. What begins as a brutal, relentless effort to fill the stomach becomes another kind of ravenousness, one emotionally rooted but still debilitating. This novel is starvation captured on the page."
-Alana I. Capria, author of Wrapped in Red and Hooks and Slaughterhouse
"Unique and soul-shattering -- one of a kind."
-Nicholas Morine, author of Punish the Wicked and Cavern.
This stark, minimalist novel is about existential flesh munching and bone-crunching that conflates heroism and monstrosity. Sure, ‘it is a dog-eat-dog world and the first bite counts.’ All about the free market, El Chapo style.
-Peter Wiesner, author of Xtremus: a Bionican Quest in the Wake of Cybrergeddon
The Spirit of Laughter
Francisco Roberto Morelos is trapped in a school run by a cruel, sadistic, corrupt principal nicknamed Evil Espinosa, and she has chosen him to perform a Herculean task. As punishment for disobedience, he must paint 92 portraits of his classmates on a giant wall surrounding the school. He has only 3 weeks to do it, and the portraits must be perfect, or he will face terrible consequences. In his quest to bring those students to life on the wall, Francisco embarks on a journey into their hearts, minds and lives, where he discovers just how much Evil has affected each and every one of them. Evil can only win for so long however, and as his journey comes to an end, Francisco discovers that laughter is not just a means to oppose it, but a potent weapon that can be used to destroy it.
Inspired by the murals of victims of Evil painted on walls throughout Mexico, The Spirit of Laughter is a story about no longer accepting and enduring what Evil dishes out, but standing up and laughing in its face. So laugh, loud and proud, in the face of Evil, just as the children laugh.
A valuable antidote during this time when so many of our leaders are making toxic decisions.
-- DAVID MASSENGILL, Red Swarm
