Synopses & Reviews
Joshua City is one of seven city-states in a post-apocalyptic alternate reality where water is scarce and technology is at mid-twentieth-century Soviet levels. As the novel opens, the Baikal Sea has been poisoned, causing a major outbreak of a leprosy-like disease called necrosis. Against this backdrop of increasing violence and oppression, a struggle for control of the city ensues.
Review
PRAISE FOR OKLA ELLIOTT'S THE CARTOGRAPHER'S INK:
"Okla Elliott possesses a capacious mind that here integrates his complicated and informative personal geography, philosophical investigation, a touching lyricism, and an attractive sense of humor. The result is a brilliant collection."
Kelly Cherry, former poet laureate of Virginia, author of Hazard and Prospect: New and Selected Poems
"This impressive first book ranges across memory, history, geography, and philosophy with a wider imagination than any poet writing today."
Andrew Hudgins, finalist for the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize
Review
"An epic tale of good and evil."
Kirkus Reviews
"The Doors You Mark Are Your Own is a dystopian masterpiece."
Kyle Minor, author of Praying Drunk and In the Devil's Territory
"The Doors You Mark Are Your Own is one of those intriguing, compelling books that defy description, or, the impact is a reflection of keen imagination, surprises, a new vision, but yet one that is rock-ribbed intriguing. All I can say is that you should read this and enjoy it, since it is a rare thing, a very rare thing indeed, when something new comes into the world."
Craig Nova, author of Wetware and The Good Son
"If Vladimir Nabokov and Phillip K. Dick had mated and produced a genius baby, that baby might well have grown up to write The Doors You Mark Are Your Own. Inspired, thrilling literary madness of the best possible sort."
Pinckney Benedict, author Dogs of God and Miracle Boy and Other Stories
Synopsis
The first in a trilogy of post-apocalyptic novels exploring an alternate reality where water is power and revolution is inevitable.
About the Author
Okla Elliott is currently an Illinois Distinguished Fellow at the University of Illinois, where he works in the fields of comparative literature and trauma studies. He also holds an MFA in creative writing from Ohio State University. His non-fiction, poetry, short fiction, and translations have appeared in
Another Chicago Magazine, Harvard Review, Indiana Review, The Literary Review, New Letters, A Public Space, The Southeast Review, and
Subtropics, among others. He is the author of a collection of short fiction,
From the Crooked Timber, and a collection of poetry,
The Cartographers Ink. He is also the co-editor, with Kyle Minor, of
The Other Chekhov.Raul Clement lives in Urbana, IL. His fiction, nonfiction, and poetry have been published in Blue Mesa Review, Coe Review, As It Ought to Be, and the Surreal South '09 anthology. He is an editor at New American Press and Mayday Magazine.