Narcisa left me feeling the sting of a brass-knuckled hook to the jaw. The pain comes on like a storm. But masterfully. At the precise point I can’t bear any more, it tackles me with a beautiful kiss. It’s a winderful feeling of pain and beauty that screams and sings to me at the same time.
-Bryan Ray Turcotte (Author of Fucked Up and Photocopied and Punk Is Dead: Punk is Everything)
Reading NARCISA: OUR LADY OF ASHES is like sliding into the world your parents warned you about. Jonathan Shaw’s had his knife on the pulse of the underworld for over thirty years. Now he’s cut it open, for all to taste the filth. Wanna be thrown against a brick wall of words? Crack this book…
-Howie Pyro (The Blessed, DGeneration, Danzig. Author of Confessions of A Rat Fink with Ed “Big Daddy” Roth)
ALTHOUGH THE BOOK SOLD OUT ON AMAZON IN THE FIRST NINE MINUTES OF ITS RELEASE, IT IS STILL AVAILABLE ON HEARTWORM’S WEBSITE.
REMEMBER THERE ARE LIMITED COPIES, SO HURRY UP AND GET IT!!!!
ALSO, IF ANYONE KNOWS WHERE ELSE TO BUY IT OR HAS SEEN IT, PLEASE LET US KNOW!
WE WILL BE POSTING A LIST OF SELECTED BOOKSTORES WHERE IT CAN BE FOUND SOON.
NARCISA IS NOW AVAILABLE ON HRTWRM’s WEBSITE
CLICK HERE TO BUY YOUR COPY
CLICK HERE TO PURCHASE THROUGH AMAZON
“Jonathan Shaw’s passionate descriptions of the surreal, paranoid jungle he inhabits capture the haunting poetry of his soul…Scabvendor is an original and compelling work…” -Hubert Selby Jr. 2003, Author of Reqiuem For a Dream and Last Exit To Brooklyn
HERE IS THE FIRST INSTALLMENT IN OUR NEW WEEKLY SERIES OF EXCERPTS FROM JONATHAN SHAW’S UPCOMING NOVEL “Narcisa: Our Lady of Ashes”–
That fateful night I found her after her long disappearance, standing in the rain outside that low-end whorehouse at the rat’s asshole end of Copacabana. At first I thought it odd to even see her there.
Where was the old prideful Narcisa, the one who was always too good for the life of a low class street hooker?
How the Mighty I Am had fallen from the exclusive top-shelf call-girl joints down the beach to this.
Only seeing was believing that shit.
Narcisa?
There she was alright, filthy, homeless, in burnt tatters.
But still carrying an equally filthy, tattered Louis Vuitton bag that looked like it had been excavated from King Tut’s fucking tomb, along with its owner.
Where was Louis Vuitton now?
Ashes.
Ashes.
Ashes.
Narcisa.
Narcisa.
Narcisa.
And may Jesus help me, when I was broke, unable to buy her all the clothes and shoes and fucking spangles and baubles and gimcracks and whim whams she wanted, she’d just light into me with all the haughty indignation of some pampered, overfed Ipanema matron.
Narcisa.
One day we were walking down the street in this fancy neighborhood, don’t ask why…
Suddenly she froze up like a dummy, right in front of this showy pretentious gingerbread designer boutique.
I looked at her and her eyes were glazed over like she’d just taken a big hit of Crack, staring like one of those crazy drooling bird dogs at the shop display.
I looked where she was looking. A simple purple dress. Nothing special.
What’s up?
I think she mostly liked it because the window mannequin was tall and skinny like her and looked about twelve years old.
Narcisa.
“Buy me that!”
What?
“The mannequin?” I joked.
“The dress, Cigano.”
I thought she was kidding.
For a second.
Then I remembered.
Narcisa didn’t kid.
I started to patiently explain that I’d spent all my money on her last devastating run .
I was so broke now I could barely pay attention.
She left me standing alone talking as she tore off into the store.
While she tried on stuff inside, I wandered off down the street.
No choice.
That dress cost more than a year’s wages for the average Brazilian.
I barely had enough money in my pocket to buy a pair of dead man’s shoes from the garbage-picker sidewalk vendors of Catete.
I kept walking.
When she caught up with me I got to hear all about it.
“You the so big the Jew, Cigano! I say you I wan’ it the dress an’ you gone ‘way. Jew! Jew! Jewish!! You more worst than even real Jew. Is true, man! I know! When I e’stay the New York together my husban’, he never refuse for buy it to me any little thing I wan’. Never! In the New York City, I use-ed have it the whooole closet only for the Narcisa, all ’spensive dress and thing and sooo many the e’shoe! More than e’fifty differen’ the kind the e’shoe. Now you so complain same like big fucking Jew because I wan’ only you buy it to me these cheap Made in Brazil shit. Jew!”
Blaa Blaaa Blaaaa. And where was all that great fucking treasure now?
Ashes.
Blaa Blaaa Blaaaa.
What part of broke doesn’t she understand?
Blaaaaaaa…
I tuned out the noise and kept walking.
Sometimes that’s all you can do.
It would be pointless to remind her that every present I’d ever given her hadn’t lasted a week with her special Midas touch.
Everything Narcisa ever touched was quickly and efficiently converted to ashes.
Everything.
Her infallible affinity for the destruction of material things.
A perverse need to create conditions of total blight around herself.
And then complain.
Narcisa was so attached to her stupid little self-imposed Born to Lose identity, whenever she got anything nice, it suddenly became like this big threat to her whole self image, her very existence. So she just had to destroy it.
Immediately.
If for no other reason than a pretext to keep her endless fucking Pity Party going.
She loved to talk the talk of wise philosophers and poets, forever citing Nietzsche or Sartre or Bob Marley to back up a useless argument, win some inane petty dispute.
Narsica could talk all the talk. When it came to walking the walk, though, she usually fell flat on her face…
Copyright Jonathan Shaw 2008. All Rights Reserved.
NOTIFIÇAO: Os eventos neste site são contos de ficção - registrados na Biblioteca Nacional com todos os direitos autorais revertidos ao autor, Jonathan Shaw. Os personagens mencionados são interamente ficticios. Certos eventos, personagens, lugares e relatos foram baseados em fatos reais, porém qualquer semelhança a qualquer pessoa vivo ou morta se trata de pura coincidência.
As vários fotografias apresentadas se encontram com o rosto distorcido para preservar o anonimato das modelos que representam personagens fictícios.
Welcome to Scabvendor, website and blog of world famous tattooist and author Jonathan Shaw. As Jonathan wraps up his novel NARCISA: OUR LADY OF ASHES, the press is rolling in. Check back for clips from the feature article in the Folha De São Paulo, written by Mayra Dias Gomes, author of Fugalaça. They will be up soon, along with pictures of some of Jonathan’s best tattoos and excerpts from NARCISA. Jonathan is currently in Rio De Janeiro until the beginning of April when he will return for a small US book tour. Stay tuned for more!
Check out Jonathan Shaw on myspace: www.myspace.com/jsfuncity
