No Evil is Wide

by Randall Watson

Overview

No Evil is Wide is the linear and violent story of an unnamed narrator, the prostitute he is tasked to “find,” and Carpenter Wells, the man that makes that return impossible. The remembrances of the narrator revolve around sexual awakening, family distance and dissolution—how they crumble to common and inevitable animalism. It is filled with philosophical epistles to the reader that concretize the themes of the work. The narrative that allows the reader purchase within the text begins with the narrator locating the unnamed girl while the world devolves into a chaotic madness of bombings and destruction not dissimilar to contemporary existence. This chaos serves as an uncanny reminder of the everyday violence we overlook.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781948692069
Publisher:	Madville Publishing
Publication date:	05/24/2019
Pages:	144
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.34(d)

About the Author

Randall Watson's first book, Las Delaciones del Sueño, was published in a bi-lingual edition by the Universidad Veracruzana in Xalapa, Mexico. His The Sleep Accusations received the Blue Lynx Poetry Award and his novella, Petals, (as Ellis Reece), won the Quarterly West Novella Contest. He is also the editor of TheWright of Addition, An Anthology of Texas Poetry published by Mutabilis Press. No Evil is Wide is a revised version of Petals, which received the 2006/07 Quarterly West prize in the novella, Judged by Brett Lott.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Red Dogs Under Her Regal Legs - There Is No End To It - What I Do - First Encounter - On Solitude

Chapter 2

Carpenter Wells - The One in the Many; The Many in the One - Her House, Her Home - Figures of Speech - The Way of the Bodhisattva

Chapter 3

New Year Zero: Saint Death - The Meeting

Chapter 4

The First Dream - Arrivals (I) - Arrivals (II) - The Idea of the Good - Saint Death and the Sacred Circle - One Form of Home - Sympathy for the Devil

Chapter 5

The Commentary

Chapter 6

Origins; A Bildungsroman

Chapter 7

Apocalypse of Memory: The Babysitter's House of Adult Intentions - The Social Contract - Origins II: A Kuntslerroman

Chapter 8

Poor Richard's Almanac - Our Father Who Art - The Mouth of Heaven - The Plot Thickens

Chapter 9

The Name of the Goddess

Chapter 10

Gossip and Dying - Getting To Know Her - Some of What I Said To Her: The Inheritance

Chapter 11

A Ripening

Chapter 12

Death. Just Death. (The Boat-Swollen River and Green)

Chapter 13

Bergson and the Gift of a Will-Timed Explosion

Chapter 14

What Night Brings - Meeting 3

Chapter 15

Giving Is A Way of Having

Chapter 16

No Ideas But In Things - Meeting 4: A Rising - Inequalities of Affection

Chapter 17

Kuntslerroman #2

Chapter 18

After Goya - Call - Let Be Be the Finale of Seem - Her Childhood Too - Meeting 5: Call Me, the Musica - Crossing To Get There

Chapter 19

April is the Cruelest Month

Chapter 20

The Triumph of Achilles - Who Can Help Us? - The Hopeless Look of the Sea Out of Which All Miracles Leap

Chapter 21

Studying Danger

Chapter 22

What A Man Gives, He Learns - What We Can Do - Origins - A Nerve Oe'r Which Do Creep the Else Unfelt Oppressions of This Earth

Chapter 23

Her Recovery

Chapter 24

The Ontology of His Desire - The Art of It - Interlude - In The News - Resolution and Independence - The United Nations

Chapter 25

How I Was Doing (The Road to Santiago)

Chapter 26

Messages for the Darkness - Old Blue Eyes - Madman Across the Water

Chapter 27

How You Know

Chapter 28

Musical Diminishment in a Major Chord - No Evil is Wide

Chapter 29

What Fear Can Do - Your Neighbor, Mine

Chapter 30

Poor Richard - The Fast Life

Chapter 31

The Brutality of Fact and Reason - Fine Old Friendships - Health Care - Twin Dangers

Chapter 32

The Bodyguard - Exchange Rates: He makes His Mark - The Waking - What It's Like Here

Chapter 33

Party Time - Be Here Now - A Great Whiteness - Administrator - A Revision of the Theme

Chapter 34

Sky Burials - What We Give Is Not Our Own - Today, At Least

About the Author

Editorial Reviews

just read [this] novella and loved it. gorgeous sentences. so lush even for all its darkness. something sort of noir-ish about it. i was so touched . . .

—Nance Van Winckel, author of Our Foreigner, Book of No Ledge, and Pacific Walkers

I would not have picked the winner I have were anyone to try and tell me what it was about, what it was like, what it was. And in a way I am still struggling to figure out how to describe [it] except to say it is a work of art. Sometimes reminiscent of Cormac McCarthy, sometimes Kem Nunn, there is to this work the kind of ambition, the sort of bravery and insight and quality of writing and mind behind it that all defy easy summation. The language to this, its pace, its architecture, its audacity and cruel bone-jarring brutality and the cold and loving and miserable and strong-hearted vision of it just blew me a way. Period. This was a meaningful, powerful, flat-out, go-for-the-throat read on all fronts. And what makes it especially strong is that throughout this dark dark dark story there is a strand of hope, unbeatable, undeniable, unquenchable hope, despite the ugly and graphic and deadly world the story inhabits.

—Brett Lott, former editor of Quarterly West, current editor of Crazy Horse

This is a fascinating read. Randall Watson is an award winning author and one of these awards was for Petals, which received the prize in the novella category from the 2006/07 Quarterly West. This book is the revised version of Petals.

The poetry of this book is astounding. It reads like a glorious symphony sounds, even triumphing over the cruelness of the world depicted within. The story is complex and not for the fan of light reading, for this reads much more like classical literature. Watson’s story centers around an unnamed narrator and his obsession with a prostitute in a world filled with evil. In-between the story of finding her, the author weaves the philosophy and beliefs of the narrator. The book will challenge you at every turn.

—Julia Picks 1

From the Publisher