"Commercial Book" is my eleventh collection of short fiction which was published in March 2024 by Psychofon Records. Each story is of exactly 1000 words in length and takes inspiration from the individual one minute songs on The Residents' "Commercial Album".
The contents are as follows:
Easter Woman
Perfect Love
Picnic Boy
End of Home
Amber
Japanese Watercolor
Secrets
Die in Terror
Red Rider
My Second Wife
Floyd
Suburban Bathers
Dimples and Toes
The Nameless Souls
Love Leaks Out
Act of Being Polite
Medicine Man
Tragic Bells
Loss of Innocence
The Simple Song
Ups and Downs
Possessions
Give it to Someone Else
Phantom
Less Not More
My Work is So Behind
Birds in the Trees
Handful of Desire
Moisture
Love is...
Troubled Man
La La
Loneliness
Nice Old Man
The Talk of Creatures
Fingertips
In Between Dreams
Margaret Freeman
The Coming of the Crow
When We Were Young
The back cover blurb is as follows:
A few years ago, award-nominated writer, Andrew Hook, wrote “O For Obscurity, Or, The Story Of N”, the definitive biography of The Mysterious N Senada, the Bavarian musician who influenced the early music of The Residents, drawn from material discovered in the band’s archives long after Senada’s death. Now – with the full approval of the band – Hook’s eleventh published short story collection, “Commercial Book”, is available from Psychofon Records.
As most people reading this will be fully aware, in 1980 The Residents released “Commercial Album”, a collection of 40 songs each of exactly one minute in duration. Using these songs as the springboard for fiction, Andrew Hook’s “Commercial Book” presents 40 stories each of exactly 1000 words in length, therefore emulating the restriction which The Residents placed on their songwriting. With each story taking its title from each song and inspired by the music and lyrics, “Commercial Book” is a weird, alter-trip into the depths of the original record, a collaboration wholly in the spirit of The Residents and fully endorsed by them.
This is an Eyeball Museum / Psychofon Records Production.
With little to no exception, The Residents found the stories to be absolutely delightful.
- Homer Flynn, President, The Cryptic Corporation
They may be miniatures, but Andrew Hook’s globe-spanning, genre-hopping tales conjure entire worlds within 1000 words. His lonely, haunted characters are immersed in dreams and steeped in film and music. ‘Commercial Book’ is another essential collection from one of our most gifted storytellers.
- Tim Major, author of Jekyll & Hyde: Consulting Detectives
A dissonance of the near sinister thrums inside each beautiful tale - Eugen Bacon, twice World Fantasy Award finalist and British Fantasy Award winner
The book is now available here with a very limited edition available here.
