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<\/a>Manuel Marrero<\/p><\/div>\n
Staying true to his populist vision, Marrero approached the press\u2019s pandemic survival as a chance to disseminate information for Expat\u2019s cultural moment \u2014 he made PDF\u2019s of every release free to download, which in turn moved the hard copies, which in turn assured the press\u2019s most successful year to date in spite of the industry\u2019s scrambling frequencies.<\/p>\n
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\u201cExpat felt like Grove Press to me when I first started buying the books,\u201d says Anthony Dragonetti, author of Confidence Man<\/i> (Expat, 2020). Dragonetti went from Expat fan, to Expat author, and is now part of its editorial masthead.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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\u201cI hate words like \u2018transgressive\u2019 or \u2018dangerous\u2019 \u2014 we\u2019re talking about books here, calm down. But what really drew me in was the philosophy of publishing what a bigger, more mainstream press wouldn\u2019t touch with a ten-foot pole. Expat has authors from all walks of life. What unifies them is they keep it real. Sometimes that vision is ugly. Sometimes it\u2019s inscrutable. It\u2019s often so honest that it hurts. That rawness is palpable with everything Expat releases. It\u2019s inspired a mad devotion, which is what any small press needs to survive.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Another way the press survived the pandemic \u2014 they began publishing new pieces of writing daily on their site from mostly unknown authors, proving in real time how wide their influence was spreading. Ever contrarian, Marrero considers Expat less of a publishing house and more of \u201ca playground, a stateless ghetto.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
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\u201cWe want to attract people cryptically, because that\u2019s how you get the most intellectually and otherwise diverse people, even if they don\u2019t all get along. The je ne sais quoi <\/i>is like an inkblot beacon bringing people to us. It curates itself,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
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And indeed, the surprises keep coming. Nothing could have prepared the public for the release of Fucked Up<\/i>, the 858-page debut tome by nihilistic queer author Damien Ark last November. It\u2019s not so much a novel as it is pure immersive trauma \u2014 a book that isn\u2019t read as much as it\u2019s experienced, for better or worse. Since Marrero is a master of language and style, the press releases he writes are a large part of Expat\u2019s manipulative seduction:\u00a0<\/p>\n
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\u201cFucked Up<\/i> is a relentless onslaught of brutality to stagger the fainthearted, an incomparable monolith, a testament to what is printable, a spectacular orgy of the gruesome and profane, of violence and depravity raw, uncut and unadulterated, eerily prophetic, bearing an uncanny resemblance to modern times.\u201d<\/p>\n
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It might read as hyperbolic, but I read Fucked Up<\/i> and it altered me \u2014 to the point where I must be mindful of the delicate sensibilities of those to whom I might recommend it.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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But this isn\u2019t to frame Expat as some kind of edgelord press. Some of their books find their strength in their focused subtlety, like James Nulick\u2019s The Moon Down to Earth. <\/i>An intimate eight-character close-up of a down-trodden American desert town, Moon<\/i> orbits around an affair between a black teenage pizza delivery boy and an older obese, unemployed white woman. It\u2019s a story so delicate, yet lodges itself firmly into your psyche, every word meticulous and haunting. Because Nulick may be the eldest, most experienced author on Expat (he studied under William T. Vollmann in the nineties) he acknowledges the press\u2019s vitality:\u00a0<\/p>\n
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\u201cManuel has a keen eye for finding young new talent,\u201d says Nulick. \u201cExpat\u2019s maximalist books house a barely containable exuberance that pretty much puts the final nail in the desiccated sad boy husk that is alt-lit<\/i>, thank God.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Another successful maximalist experiment is Nikolai Andreyevich<\/i> by Ted Prokash, a rowdy Midwest author of deceptively wide range. Prokash reinvented himself again here by re-creating the style and themes of classic Russian literature in order to prove \u201cthat all people, even when separated by hundreds of years of history, or thousands of miles of geography, behave about the same.\u201d<\/p>\n
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The most anticipated release of 2020\/21 would be Expat 4<\/i>, a thirty-author statement of intent through contemporary situationist prose. It would be a disservice to call it an \u201canthology,\u201d as its presentation creates an impression of a sustained sacred, confessional, sometimes mad text. At one point during its confrontational online promo campaign, Expat claimed its theme was \u201cfear.\u201d Surprisingly, nowhere in the book is that theme mentioned, besides the unraveling of the writer\u2019s works \u2014 the theme\u2019s subsequent removal creates a conspiratorial energy as you read it, an interactive paranoia suggesting the authors know something you don\u2019t. But the further you read, the more you\u2019re indoctrinated into its very \u201cnow\u201d madness. It\u2019s an inclusive move for Expat, aligning unknown writers with much more established ones. Yet, there are no author bios \u2014 no cluttering end credits of chest-beating resumes. Only clean, classy confidence of the work contained \u2014 another notch of an Expat author\u2019s self-reliance that adds to the mystery, the authenticity, of their canon.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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If authenticity is Expat\u2019s goal, the wildfire press may have met its incendiary match in Los Angeles outsider author Elizabeth V. Aldrich, known to friends as Eris. The German\/English\/Columbian 28-year-old has lived a whirlwind. Raised in a Japanese doomsday cult in the San Fernando Valley before moving to the Bay Area to become a peepshow girl at The Lusty Lady, she\u2019s now back in L.A. barricading herself in the sanctuary of her bedroom. Her debut novel Ruthless Little Things<\/i> is an Expat bestseller, only Eris wasn\u2019t present for its release last January \u2014 she was in jail for \u201callegedly\u201d stabbing someone.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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Expat pressed on with her scheduled release, further motivated to expedite the royalty checks to bolster her commissary, if not her legal funds. What else could they do, besides casually utilizing her incarceration to hype the release, promising a handwritten letter from LA County Jail with every book sold? The first pressing sold out within a couple weeks.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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Yet, it wasn\u2019t just jailbird sensationalism that made Eris an Expat bestseller. She\u2019s a notorious no-filter legend among the expanding \u201ccyberwriter\u201d community, her psycho-sexual drug-addled transmissions dropping on sites like surfaces<\/i> and Terror House<\/i> while often blurring into her real-time Twitter meltdowns.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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The term cyberwriter <\/i>is an in-joke among this post-alt-lit crowd, coined by Southern eccentric Jake Blackwood while Eris was in jail, the distinction quickly establishing itself into their collective lexicon. \u201cWhat the fuck is cyberwriting?\u201d she asked upon her release. \u201cIt\u2019s YOU, Eris,\u201d was the unanimous response. She represents a misunderstood generation of writers who spent copious time on public forums like livejournal, deadjournal, bleeding confessional diary pieces, trading voyeur\/exhibitionist roles, unbeknownst they were establishing their chops by compulsively oversharing. Now, cyberwriters have a world of proper online sites to submit to, yet they accept their work\u2019s terminal fate \u2014 read one day, forgotten the next. But that hopeless immediacy is the thrill of cyberwriting \u2014 you can almost hear the writer\u2019s heavy breathing accompanying their words, as if they were ramping up to their last fatal scream into the void.<\/p>\n
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In his press release for Ruthless Little Things<\/i>, Marrero recalls his encounter with Eris: \u201cGlamorous, painful, fearlessly honest\u2026 when I met her, she was ready to die and I believed her.\u201d<\/p>\n
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A month after her release from jail, I sat down with Eris to hear her side.<\/p>\n
<\/a>Elizabeth “Eris” Aldrich<\/p><\/div>\n
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\u201cIs there anything you don\u2019t want me to bring up?\u201d I asked her.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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\u201cJust try to make me uncomfortable. I dare you,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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\u201cI had just found out my girlfriend of seven years \u2014 who I met doing porn \u2014 died, so I was on the verge of suicide when I met Manuel. I was mourning but horny, writing a lot on social media. He thought my online expression was stellar and asked if I wrote outside of Twitter,\u201d she said. \u201cSo, I compiled all my shit, just gave it to him in a big file, totally unprofessionally giving him some of it by .txt file. That all became Ruthless Little Things<\/i>. I also gave him so many dark nights of the soul, he was really there when I needed him. And people talk about predatory editors \u2014 fuck that. I don\u2019t even know what \u2018grooming\u2019 is. When I was thirteen, I was scamming people on Stickam. William Bernardara Jr. called me the \u2018sexual predator\u2019 of alt-lit. I was so flattered. But I\u2019m just here, trying to make a difference in the world,\u201d she says with a humbled giggle.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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Eris is also a compelling voice, if not blunt critic, for those like her who struggle with Borderline Personality Disorder. \u201cBPD is awful,\u201d she says. \u201cYou just have to own it and accept it. Especially if you’re not gonna work on yourself and get better. Everyone talks about their crazy BPD ex, so it’s not like I have to be the first one to bring it up. I have a lot of crazy BPD ex-girlfriend stories and I’ve obviously been that girlfriend too.\u201d<\/p>\n
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What makes Ruthless Little Things<\/i> stand out from all the other Go Ask Alice<\/i> type-cautionary tales of at-risk youth? It accounts for every imperfection and dangerous impulse without succumbing to the ubiquitous and pandering redemption arc. The result is an exhilarating joyride through the eyes of a peepshow girl, driven with insatiable lust to feel good by any means necessary, even if it kills her. The reader is gifted the vicarious pleasures of her blurred, kaleidoscopic catharsis, the howling yet introspective suicide missions lived out by Eris as your seedy urban safari guide, so we don\u2019t have to disappoint our own parents firsthand. It\u2019s a rare glimpse into modern no-tomorrow hedonism. She\u2019s an endangered species in high heels stomping the glittery streets seeking to preserve misspent youth in whatever euphoric elixirs of immortality come her way. Because sometimes that\u2019s all we need to get from one page to the next.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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But in real life, what kind of fate awaits Eris, now that she\u2019s facing possible prison time? Her release from jail last January merely proved a taunting intermission for these stabbing charges, which she describes as an unfortunate result of fight or flight instinct. It\u2019s a complicated case for a complex girl, who somehow finds the strength to stay gallantly \u2014 and yes, defiantly \u2014 cheerful through it all.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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\u201cI think she feels consigned to a fate she can\u2019t abide. But she\u2019s the real thing, lives life on the edge of instinct and intuition, even if she\u2019s now living on borrowed time,\u201d says Marrero. \u201cThere\u2019s no other era where her and I could have discovered one another. I\u2019m glad the global village has welcomed her as the serious writer she is.\u201d<\/p>\n
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But words don\u2019t wait. Last May, Expat released the neo-pulp existential horror collection Bonding<\/i> by Maggie Siebert. It\u2019s urban Lovecraft, only tighter, less verbose; so the dread never overstays its welcome in the heart of our present-day malaise. It forces catharsis to our modern panic through unnamable nightmarish visuals that defy physics or logic, because these ugly, suffocated feelings we harbor must go out of our minds to be fully realized. With these quick bursts of anxiety and climax tailormade for the disinformation age, Siebert turns literary horror to high art, offering enduring parables for culture\u2019s inexplicable lust to hit brick walls. Even potential theater is conjured in \u201cAmmon\u201d and \u201cMarriage,\u201d where she explores a strict dialogue format \u2013 you can hear these particular pieces scream to be performed as one act plays, triggering voices in our heads, a private Greek chorus.<\/p>\n
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But what is tragedy without comedy? I was howling through the pages of Family Annihilator<\/i> by Calvin Westra, Expat\u2019s latest release from July. A sharp, clever, meta-Turducken of a tale, a TV show within a book within a couple\u2019s third mind that must break every wall to display its hidden tenderness. You could call it a wild card, an Expat curveball \u2013 but really, isn\u2019t it all?<\/p>\n
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Meanwhile, Marrero has ushered in another cruel summer by hosting a series of full-capacity readings at an undisclosed rooftop in East Village. \u201cIt\u2019s been a who\u2019s who, over a hundred in attendance. Many have traveled over state lines for them. E-celebrities have shown up. The readings feel powerful and momentous,\u201d says Marrero, offering a clear visual to these new huddled masses elevated against the New York skyline, one that seems comforting to view as a horizon with no limits.<\/p>\n
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PART 2: Self-immolation<\/b><\/p>\n
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The article you just read was actually rejected from the Prevailing L.A. Literary Site it was written for.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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It may sound haughty, but I see journalism as a viable way to engineer culture; to help steer it in the direction I want to see it go, even if just getting it out of the garage in some cases. Selfishly, I often scan my periphery for what I\u2019m about to deem \u201cimportant\u201d simply by the way its ripples resonate with me \u2013 and I prefer to highlight those who aren\u2019t getting the immediate credit they deserve.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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Shortly after I became an overnight fan of Expat Press last year, I immediately submitted some of my more hot-potato short fiction to Manuel Marrero. I began getting published regularly on the site, before becoming entrenched deeper into their orbit of authors because 1.) either I don\u2019t know boundaries or 2.) they occupy a space in indie lit I always hoped could someday exist \u2013 heavy on style, vision, erraticism, and punk ethos \u2013 so naturally, I was rejoicing in their fierce output and felt a genuine camaraderie. Because of this, I\u2019d be the first to admit my reporting wasn\u2019t objective, but compulsive.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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No one asked me, but I felt impulse to do something beyond the Lit Reactor interview I did with Manny in December 2020; to sort of give back, to shine an even brighter light on them. Despite their fanatical following, I saw an opportunity to break their story to a larger media outlet, where they might reach an even wider audience beyond the vast cult they had organically accrued. Since their L.A. author Elizabeth V. Aldrich AKA \u201cEris\u201d had just missed the release of her debut novel Ruthless Little Things<\/i> due to her incarceration, I saw the story as one with an even wider perspective of genuine pathos \u2013 perhaps an opportunity to give a voice to a drug addict with BPD, hopefully to smooth the bad influence Gillian Flynn\u2019s Gone Girl<\/i> had on our culture\u2019s compulsion to demonize BPD instead of understanding the millions who struggle with the condition. One could even argue our same broken culture that gives birth to the Borderline helps perpetuate it (I strongly suggest reading I Hate You \u2013 Don\u2019t Leave Me<\/i> by Jerold J. Kreisman, MD, and Hal Straus \u2013 an insightful no-stone-unturned clinical treatise on understanding Borderline Personality Disorder).<\/p>\n
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So, I was thrilled when my editor at The Prevailing L.A. Literary Site took the pitch \u2013 he agreed it would make for a compelling piece. A month later, I turned in the sprawling bullhorn expose on the breakout \u201ctransgressive\u201d publisher and their female author who was now facing prison time for last year\u2019s stabbing incident. In the piece, I present Expat as so aesthetically revolutionary, so literary daring that their books \u201ccontain enough inflammatory material to burn an art gallery down.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
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Ironically, my article also<\/i> contained enough inflammatory material to self-immolate in an unfortunate, but understandable zero-hour editorial critique and mass-redaction, reducing it to ashes.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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\u201cI\u2019m so sorry to say this, but I\u2019m afraid I can\u2019t run this article,\u201d my editor said. \u201cI feel it\u2019s exciting and important, shining a light on an emerging literary scene that deserves greater recognition, but as much as I hate the term \u2018triggering,\u2019 it will be so for a great many of our readers.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
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He made it clear he would prefer seeing it in its original form elsewhere rather than him neuter the piece. Clearly, his hands were tied \u2013 despite his senior editor position, the ripple effect could have undermined trust in his leadership. My brain quaked, split hemispheres \u2013 one side taking this all on the chin, since I plan to be in this game for the long haul; the other half crushed, angry \u2013 not at my editor, but the state of our ever-tightening reactionary culture he must adhere to.<\/p>\n
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Remembering an editor\u2019s responsibilities reach far beyond their red pen, I managed to stave off any delusions of censorship by calmly revisiting Arthur Plotnik\u2019s essential Elements of Editing<\/i>, Chapter 5: \u201cTroubleshooting,\u201d by lawyer Robert G. Sugarman:\u00a0<\/p>\n
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\u201cThe one editorial skill that even the most Philistine media executives can appreciate is the ability to sniff out trouble before it gets into print\u2026They learn how trouble can spring from minute or prodigious causes: a single careless word or a fundamental misunderstanding.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
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In other words, it was the right time, but wrong place for the piece. I could foresee the alternate universe where it ran, where my talented (and actually, very tolerant) editor\u2019s day or even week would get mired in angry emails, phone calls even staff distancing themselves from the organization. At that higher tier of media, it\u2019s the senior editor\u2019s duty to keep things moving, remaining on the path of least resistance. You could even say our culture\u2019s reactionary tendencies are just as adversarial to a transgressive writer as it is to a senior editor \u2013 both prefer their instinctual tasks don\u2019t become a Sisyphean chore.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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It may seem regressive to present an article with its own sub-commentary introduction, but fair warning: you may see this often at The Last Estate, considering we specifically started this site as a place for creative reporting and cultural critique \u2013 although little would I know my redacted Expat piece might have a wider conversation because<\/i> of its elimination. It\u2019s further testimony to many points I make within the article \u2013 and like all the greatest art, Expat continues to possess a singular energy liable to repel as much as it attracts. And Hell, this piece is already its own time-capsule of sorts partly because of that dynamism \u2013 their masthead and authorship shifted last summer, stemming from a rather dramatic mutiny \u2013 but this seems part of Expat\u2019s continued intent: to simply, though acutely, document moments in time.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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They\u2019re a publisher often known for blurring the lines of their own auto\/meta-fiction, and before I knew it, I was pulled in the strange tides of my own documentation, when Marrero invited me to read at one of their infamous NYC rooftop events like the one I described right where I left off of my original piece.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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So, I kept writing the article.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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PART 3: Introduction to Vyvanse<\/b><\/p>\n
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Expat\u2019s \u201cBlank Swan\u201d event, scheduled for November 13th, was to be their last of the year. Marrero expressed how exhausted he was after the late summer\/fall turbulence climaxed at Angelfest (which they co-sponsored) when the event was infiltrated by NYC Antifa. \u201cI have no idea, I guess Antifa just hates poetry or something? They looked like they wanted to kill us,\u201d he said, after I asked what they could have possibly wanted from Expat.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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\u201cReality and the internet got very close at Angelfest. They were making out, breathing down each other\u2019s throats, touching midrifts \u2013 hot!\u201d tweeted Scott Litts, Expat\u2019s resident \u201cethicist.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n