Tom Bradley (author)

Tom Bradley is an American novelist, essayist and writer of short stories. He is the author of The Sam Edwine Pentateuch [ [http://s232745871.onlinehome.us/corpse/archives/issue_14/poetick_kulchur/johan.html Exquisite Corpse - A Journal of Letters and Life ] ] , a five-book series, various volumes of which have been nominated for the Editor's Book Award ["The Spirit of Writing", Tarcher Putnam (NYC), 2001 (ISBN 1-58542-127-8)] , the New York University Bobst Prize ["The Edgier Waters", Snow Books (London), 2006 (ISBN 1-905-0052-02)] , and the AWP Award Series in the Novel ["Sudden Stories", Mammoth Books, 2003 (ISBN 0-9718059-5-4)] . His essays and short stories are anthologized extensively in America and in Europe.

Tom Bradley's nonfiction has appeared in such publications as Salon.com and McSweeney's, and is regularly featured by the 3.7 million-hit-per-month Arts & Letters Daily. Denis Dutton, editor of the site, "among the most influential media personalities in the world" [Time Magazine, 14 June 2004, U.S. edition] , writes as follows:

"Tom Bradley is one of the most exasperating, offensive, pleasurable, and brilliant writers I know. I recommend his work to anyone with spiritual fortitude and a taste for something so strange that it might well be genius. [back cover, "Fission Among the Fanatics", Spuyten Duyvil Books (NYC), 2007"]

His sixth book, [http://www.spuytenduyvil.net/fiction/fissionamongfanatics.htm "Fission Among the Fanatics"] , was named Non-Fiction Book of the Year 2007 by , with the citation, "a literary giant among pygmies". [ [http://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/3am-awards-2007/ 3:AM Magazine » 3:AM Awards 2007 ] ]

With the appearance of his prose in London's Ambit Magazine [AMBIT Magazine, Issue 189, Summer 2007 ISSN 0002-6972 (London)] , Tom Bradley has become associated with British transgressive writers and artists such as J.G. Ballard and Ralph Steadman.

The publication of his seventh book, [http://www.rawdogscreaming.com/lemur.html "Lemur"] , by Raw Dog Screaming Press [ [http://www.rawdogscreaming.com/authors.htm#tb Raw Dog Screaming Press ] ] staked him out a position in the new Bizarro fiction movement. According to The Advocate, " ["Lemur"] could do as much to raise the rainbow flag as two Stonewall Day parades." Furthermore, the novel has "introduced a type that seems new to the public eye, but has been there under our noses ever since alternative sexuality began." [ [http://www.advocate.com/exclusive_detail.asp?id=53510&page=1 The Advocate, review of Tom Bradley's "Lemur"] ] Tom Bradley has meanwhile contributed to the theoretical elucidation of the Bizarro aesthetic with his criticism [ [http://www.bizarrocentral.com/article_detail.asp?articleID=20 The Nab Gets Posthumously Bizarroized] ] [ [http://www.dharlanwilson.com/dreampeople/issue29/reviewpiecemealjune.html Dream People] ] and his interviews. [ [http://www.unlikelystories.org/katz0408.shtml Novelist Tom Bradley Interviewed at Unlikely Stories] ] [ [http://www.bizarrocentral.com/article_detail.asp?articleID=19 Bizarro Central, Interview with Tom Bradley] ]

According to Identity Theory Magazine-- [ [http://www.identitytheory.com/featauth/bradley.html identity theory | featured author - tom bradley ] ]

"Tom Bradley's fiction features such gentry as a harelip with a six-figure book advance, [ [http://www.jackmagazine.com/issue2/tomb.html The Stylist/Fiction ] ] a Palestinian abortionist, [ [http://www.eyeshot.net/mao.htm Eyeshot.net: The Epoxy-Resin Mao by Tom Bradley ] ] a seven-foot-tall banjoist losing his mind in the London tube, ["Killing Bryce", Infinity Press, 2001] a peyote-eating teen killer, [ [http://s232745871.onlinehome.us/corpse/archives/issue_7/ficciones/bradley.htm Exquisite Corpse - A Journal of Letters and Life ] ] a rent a-Frankenstein on Purple Haze, [ [http://www.bigbridge.org/issue6/tombradley.htm Big Bridge #6 ] ] a Chinese compulsive masturbator, [ [http://www.oysterboyreview.com/archived/16/fiction/BradleyT-RidingHorse.html Riding the Horse | Fiction | Tom Bradley | Oyster Boy Review 16 | Winter 2002 | Fiction & Poetry ] ] cannibal orgiasts in the basement of the Mormon Tabernacle, [ [http://www.wordriot.org/template.php?ID=332 Word Riot ] ] and Japanese schoolgirls conscripted to stir the vats in a poison gas factory. ["Kara-kun, Flip-kun", Infinity Press, 2000] "

Regarding the vexed question [Review of "Acting Alone: a novel of nuns, neo-Nazis and NORAD", Dr. Dalma Brunauer, Journal of Evolutionary Psychology, March 1995] of the extent to which his fictional alter-ego, Sam Edwine, is autobiographical, Tom Bradley has written-- ["...are you Sam Edwine?" "All Hands On", Elephant Rock Books (Chicago), 2004 (ISBN 0-9753746-05)] "

"Well, if you stood the pair of us side by side and told him to shut the fuck up, you couldn't tell us apart. His is the higher native intelligence, while I behave better. For example, I haven't sunk a shovel into the skull of a former Iran hostage in the basement of a Popish convent ["Acting Alone: a novel of nuns, neo-Nazis and NORAD", Browntrout Books (San Francisco)] ; nor have I kidnapped the Crown Princess of Japan and allowed her to perform a strange kind of verbal fornication on me outside a bathroom [ [http://s232745871.onlinehome.us/corpse/archives/issue_3/secret_agents/johan.html Exquisite Corpse - A Journal of Letters and Life ] ] . I did, once, however, like Sam Edwine, pass around pirated mimeographs of the Anarchist's Cookbook to an excitable bunch of grad students in Red China, resulting in at least one of them being shot in the back of the head point-blank in a public execution [ [http://www.thescreamonline.com/fiction/fiction4-1/substitutes.html "Substitutes" by Tom Bradley ] ] . But Sam cackled about it, and I feel like a horrible shit."

"I never ate way too many psilocybin mushrooms in the Oaxacan jungle, stumbled on a man dying in the road, and failed to remember my Spanish grammar [ [http://directory.eliterature.org/expand.php?rectype=work&eid=3d8ba1fe0c63a Electronic Literature Organization - Directory ] ] ,because, unlike Sam Edwine, I never had any Spanish grammar in the first place. In fact, he speaks a lot more languages than I do. But I write better--otherwise he'd be answering this question about me instead of vice-versa."

Biography

Tom Bradley attended kindergarten downwind of above-ground hydrogen bomb tests ["Acting Alone: a novel of nuns, neo-Nazis and NORAD", Browntrout Books (San Francisco)] . In later life he met Edward Teller, inventor of the latter device, and was told "We had arms limitation from the very beginning. It commenced already with the second detonation." [ [http://nthposition.com/asenseofnoplace.php nthposition online magazine: A sense of no place ] ]

An exile for most of his life [ [http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/jacketcopy/2008/08/the-literary-li.html Los Angeles Times, August 12, 2008] ] , Tom Bradley lived in the People's Republic of China for many years and lost friends in the Tiananmen Square Massacre [ [http://www.gadflyonline.com/8-20-01/FTR-madeinchina.HTML Gadfly Online ] ] . He was thrown out of China for political reasons [ [http://www.salon.com/books/it/1999/11/29/china/index.html Salon Books | Bathtub revolutionary ] ] .

As an "unsung nukee [ [http://www.nthposition.com/mypublicministryamong.php nthposition online magazine: My public ministry among the heathen ] ] ," Tom Bradley gravitated to Hiroshima [ [http://www.mcsweeneys.net/2001/01/02hiroshima.html McSweeney's Internet Tendency: Holiday in Hiroshima ] ] and Nagasaki [ [http://www.identitytheory.com/writing/bradley1.html identity theory | alphabet zen - "the bloodsucker of nagasaki" by tom bradley ] ] , "the most glamorous nuclear test sites of all [ [http://www.canopicjar.com/Canopic13/BradleyStory.htm INJURING ETERNITY by Tom Bradley ] ] ," where his books and articles continue to cause controversies of a political nature [ [http://s232745871.onlinehome.us/corpse/archives/issue_3/secret_agents/johan.html Exquisite Corpse - A Journal of Letters and Life ] ] [ [http://archive.salon.com/books/it/2000/01/24/japan/index.html Salon Books | Turning Japanese ] ] .

In the opinion of Israeli journalist Barry Katz, who writes for in Paris, Tom Bradley deliberately courts controversy in the Extreme Orient, often at his own personal peril--

"He does seem bent on leaving absolutely nobody unpissed-off. His venom’s no less ecumenical than gratuitous. He has braided a scourge of cords and is beleaguering folks in fanes of every denomination within reach. Take your pick: polygamist, popish or pagan..." [ [http://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/king-kong-vs-godzilla-tom-bradley-happy-fucks-osaka/ King Kong Vs. Godzilla: Tom Bradley Happy-Fucks Osaka] ] .

Rain Taxi Review of Books expresses the notion as follows:

"As proof of his leaving no one un-offended, he's been nudged out of every university where he has taught. For the past two decades he has lived the life of an ex-pat laugh assassin, tucked away in a volcanic mountain on the island of Kyushu" [Rain Taxi Review of Books, Vol.13, No. 2, Summer 2008] .

NPR commentator Andrei Codrescu's million-hit-per-day [ [http://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/necrophilia/ Mark Spitzer, "Necrophilia"] ] Exquisite Corpse Journal goes even further, referring to Tom Bradley's "megalomaniacal urge for public self-annihilation... [and] his unwholesome Christ complex." [ [http://www.corpse.org/archives/issue_3/secret_agents/johan.html Review of "The Curved Jewels"] ]

He claims paternal descent from a loose clan of very large Mormon handcart pioneers who were excommunicated almost immediately upon arriving in Deseret ["Fission Among the Fanatics", Spuyten Duyvil Books (NYC)] . It is from this lineage that Tom Bradley has inherited his "whole hefty metabolism" ["The Spirit of Writing", Tarcher Putnam (NYC), 2001 (ISBN 1-58542-127-8), page 46] and his remarkable height ["The Practical Writer", Penguin Books (NYC), 2004 (ISBN 0142004006, ISBN 978-0142004005), pages 190-191] . describes him as "sociopathically tall." [ [http://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/king-kong-vs-godzilla-tom-bradley-happy-fucks-osaka/ 3:AM Magazine reportage of a public performance in Osaka] ]

He is matrilaterally descended from an earlier Nagasaki expatriate, Thomas Glover, the "Scottish Samurai [ [http://www.identitytheory.com/writing/bradley1.html identity theory | alphabet zen - "the bloodsucker of nagasaki" by tom bradley ] ] ." Known as the Founder of Modern Japan, Glover's heavy industrial pursuits eventually attracted America's second atom bomb ["The Scottish Samurai", Canongate Books Ltd,1997 (ISBN 0862417465 ISBN 978-0862417468)] . It's been speculated that certain esoteric activities Tom Bradley has undertaken in Nagasaki are intended as atonement for this hereditary guilt [ [http://s232745871.onlinehome.us/corpse/archives/issue_14/poetick_kulchur/johan.html Exquisite Corpse - A Journal of Letters and Life ] ] .

External links

* [http://tombradley.org tombradley.org]
* [http://www.literati.net/Bradley/ Tom Bradley at Literati]
* [http://s232745871.onlinehome.us/corpse/archives/issue_14/poetick_kulchur/johan.html Profile-interview in National Public Radio commentator Andrei Codrescu's Exquisite Corpse]
* [http://www.identitytheory.com/featauth/bradley.html Featured Author at Identity Theory Magazine]
* [http://www.unlikelystories.org/katz0408.shtml Interview at Unlikely Stories]
* [http://www.bizarrocentral.com/author_detail.asp?authorID=41 Profile at Bizarro Central]
* [http://www.bizarrocentral.com/article_detail.asp?articleID=19 Interview at Bizarro Central]
* [http://www.rawdogscreaming.com/authors.htm#tb Profile at Raw Dog Screaming Press]
* [http://www.spuytenduyvil.net/authors/TomBradley.htm Biography at Spuyten Duyvil Publishers (NYC)]
* [http://www.jackmagazine.com/issue5/essaytbradley.html Lecture] at the [http://tracearchive.ntu.ac.uk/events/sorbonne/programme.htm Paris Sorbonne International Conference on Electronic Literature]

elected Books

* [http://www.spuytenduyvil.net/fiction/fissionamongfanatics.htm "Fission Among the Fanatics"] , Spuyten Duyvil Books (NYC), 2007
* [http://www.browntrout.com/books/product.asp?MGID=204&IID=2009 "Acting Alone: a novel of nuns, neo-Nazis and NORAD"] , Browntrout Books (San Francisco), 1995
* [http://www.rawdogscreaming.com/lemur.html "Lemur"] , Raw Dog Screaming Press, 2008

poken Word ["How to Give a Rousing Reading: Advice from an Amplified Author," "The Practical Writer", Penguin Books (NYC), 2004 (ISBN 0142004006, ISBN 978-0142004005)]

Four performances from The Sam Edwine Pentateuch ["...are you Sam Edwine?" "All Hands On", Elephant Rock Books (Chicago), 2004 (ISBN 0-9753746-05)]

* [http://www.nthposition.com/sounds/breakfast_with_streckfuss.mp3 Breakfast with Streckfuss]
* [http://www.nthposition.com/sounds/holiday_in_hiroshima.mp3 Holiday in Hiroshima]
* [http://www.nthposition.com/sounds/undecorated_dad.mp3 Undecorated Dad]
* [http://www.nthposition.com/sounds/professorial_types.mp3 Professorial Types] (podcast by London's [http://www.nthposition.com/author.php?authid=67 nthposition Magazine] , archived at the [http://www.bl.uk/ British Library] )

Two rants at the [http://directory.eliterature.org/expand.php?rectype=work&eid=3d8ba1fe0c63a Electronic Literature Organization]
* [http://literati.net/Bradley/stantaudio.rm Aerosol Guacamole]
* [http://thebluemoon.com/audio/HBomb.ram H-Bomb]

Live [http://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/no-brainer/ televisual performance] of [http://www.rawdogscreaming.com/lemur.html "Lemur"'s] [http://www.dharlanwilson.com/dreampeople/issue29/novelexcerptbradley.html second chapter]

Quotations

"Sam Edwine came to me, fully fleshed, one night in high school, long ago...With that sun-in-a-magnifying-glass concentration that only a fourteen-year-old mind can conjure up, I found myself at Shrewsbury, on the plain between Hal's camp and the rebels', and this big, fat, hilarious, cowardly, self-indulgent sot was standing over a corpse, saying "...if thou embowel me to-day, I'll give you leave to powder me and eat me too tomorrow."

"Having stabbed that already dispatched body...this entity billowed up before me and said, "...with a new wound in your thigh, come you along with me." And he took me up on his back, and away we went." ["ibid."]

----

"Writing is the pole around which my external circumstances are knotted like snakes. I could never hold anything together without writing." [Raw Dog Screaming Press interview, February 2008]

----

"To craft an object so seemingly blameless as a book, yet so packed with furtive abomination, to bring forth a small rectangular solid that is fuller of life than most big round gooshy people--what luck, what a privilege!" [ [http://www.unlikelystories.org/katz0408.shtml Interview at Unlikely Stories] ]

References