The Exquisite Cadaver: A Semi-Automatic Novel - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 096436140X ISBN 13: 9780964361409

Publisher: Portmanteau Press, 1994

About this title

From the Publisher:

The Exquisite Cadaver was published as a fund-raiser for Friends of the San Diego Public Library. For each book purchased, FSDPL receives $7.55 with the balance covering production costs. This literary experiment had a limited print run.

From the Back Cover:

In 1925 a group of surrealist writer and artists gathered in a home at 54 Rue du Chateau in Paris to play a game. Without looking at each other's contribution, they composed a single sentence by adding to a growing string of written words. When complete, the sentence was revealed to read, The exquisite corpse will drink the bubbling wine. Now, using that episode as their model, 100 San Diego writers have composed an entire novel by contributing one page to a growing manuscript after having seen only the two pages immediately preceding their own. The results, accompanied by extensive background material and commentary, are published here as The Exquisite Cadaver: A Semi-automatic Novel.

"Fascinating! Inventive, playful, and revealing in many unexpected ways."
-- Temistocles Lopez, Writer/Director of the film Exquisite Corpses

"Meacham's experiment can be a valuable one for all writers. It sheds a unique light on the process of literary creation."
-- Bruce Woods, Editor of Writer's Digest

"Following the high-action antics of the surreally indefatigable Kim Davenport, while keeping score of the chance coincidences that occur throughout, makes reading this collaborative work a game in itself."
-- Leslie Green Editor of Surreal magazine

"A cadaver is a meatier, deader, heavier corpse. The cadaver produced by these 100 San Diegans evinces the following causes of death: television; paranoia about traffic; unending criminal suspicion; ambiguity about firearms; deeply-seated belief that blood is ketchup; obsessive speculation about money, screaming, and sex; inability to contemplate the landscape without attaching to it political significance; excessive or insufficient body fat. Max Ernst would not have found it surprising; Andr Breton would have nodded but not giggled; Artaud would have headed farther south; Desnos would have made more inquiries. I blurb it."
-- Andrei Codrescu, Editor of Exquisite Corpse: A Journal of Books & Ideas

About this edition

• Publisher: Portmanteau Press
• Publication date: 1994
• ISBN 10: 096436140X
• ISBN 13: 9780964361409
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 153