two dollar radio - rights catalog - fall 2015

“A budding literary movement.”

Publishing Perspectives

Rights Catalog

Fall 2015

“Unimpeachable.”Flavorwire

“I marvel at [their] idealism.”Times Literary Supplement

TWO DOLLAR RADIO is a family-run outfit founded in 2005 with the mission to reaffirm the cultural and artistic spirit of the publishing industry.

We aim to do this by presenting bold works of literary merit, each book, individually and collectively, providing a sonic progression that we believe to be too loud to ignore.

“The hippest, most adventuresome publisher in the United States.”HTML Giant

“Incredibly creative people who love books, but who also love movies, and love making things, making things happen, trying something new.”

Virginia Quarterly Review

“[Publisher of] some of the finest works of contemporary fiction.”The Brooklyn Rail

“Aesthetically consistent, editorially adventurous.”Village Voice

“Trailblazing.”Brazos Bookstore

“Pioneering.”Tribeca Film Festival’s ‘Future of Film’

“Ambitious, far-reaching, and even visionary.”Full Stop

“Always eye-catching.”Library Journal

CRAPALACHIAby Scott McClanahan

NoN-FictioN | 978-1-937512-03-3

“[McClanahan] aims to lasso the moon.”—New York Times Book Review

Rights Held: WORLDRights Sold: Argentina; Audio

THE ORANGE EATS CREEPSnovel by Grace KrilanovichLiterary FictioN | 978-0-9820151-8-6

* ‘5 Under 35’ AwArd

* The Believer Book AwArd FinAlisT

“The book feels written in a fever; it is breathless, scary, and like nothing I’ve ever read before.” —NPR

Rights Held: WORLDRights Sold: Audio

THE DROP EDGE OF YONDER

novel by Rudolph WurlitzerLiterary FictioN | 978-0-9763895-5-2

* Time oUT new York’s#1 Book oF 2008

“The most hallucinogenic Western you’ll ever catch in the movie house of your mind’s eye.” —Bookforum

Rights Held: WORLDRights Sold: France, Germany; Audio

HOW TO GET INTOTHE TWIN PALMS

novel by Karolina WaclawiakLiterary FictioN | 978-0-9832471-8-0

“Reinvents the immigration story.”—New York Times Book Review

Rights Held: WORLD

I’M TRYING TO REACH YOU

novel by Barbara BrowningLiterary FictioN | 978-0-9832471-1-1

* The Believer Book AwArd FinAlisT

“A provocative novel... that blurs the boundaries between life and perfor-mance, dance, art, and viral video.”—Slate

Rights Held: WORLD

SOME THINGS THAT MEANTTHE WORLD TO ME

novel by Joshua MohrLiterary FictioN | 978-0-9820151-1-7

* o, The oprAh mAgAzine BesT Book oF 2009* sAn FrAncisco chronicle BesTseller

“Bukowski fans will dig the grit in this seedy novel, a poetic rendering of postmodern San Francisco.” —O, The Oprah Magazine

Rights Held: WORLD | Rights Sold: Italian

HIGHLIGHTS

righTs held: norTh AmericAn

“[Cavolo’s] bright and bold creations depict misfit characters in Frida Kahlo-esque folk art tones and bring ‘em into a contemporary context with cool details like glasses, tattoos, bikes and dope shoes.” —Huck Magazine

renowned ArTisT ricArdo cAvolo And scoTT mcclAnAhAn comBine TAlenTs in A dAzzling, eYe-popping BiogrAphY oF mUsiciAn And ArTisT dAniel JohnsTon.

LoNg a FaN oF DaNieL JohNstoN, the man and his music, internationally acclaimed artist Ricardo Cavolo illustrates Johnston’s colorful life, from his humble beginnings as a carnival employee to folk musician in Austin, to his rise to MTV popularity and persistent struggle with personal demons. McClanahan’s accompanying text brings the author’s unique zeal to Johnston’s tale.

DANIEL JOHNSTONgraphic novel by

Ricardo Cavolo & Scott McClanahan

graphic NoveLs | NoN-FictioN | Biography

Trade Paper Original,978-1-937512-45-3

US $16.99, JULY 20167.5” x 9.5”, 112 pages

SCOTT MCCLANAHAN is the acclaimed and award-winning author of Crapalachia, Hill William, and The Collected Works of Scott McClanahan: Volume 1. The Washington Post has called McClanahan’s work “the genuine article.”

RICARDO CAVOLO is a world-renowned Spanish artist whose artwork has been on display everywhere from Moscow to Montreal. He has completed artwork for Absolut Vodka, the Glastonbury Festival (UK), Urban Outfitters (France, Germany, England), Nike, FC Barcelona, and Fox Sports Mexico.

righTs held: norTh AmericAn, Film/Tv

herAlded in soUTh AFricA As “The hoTTesT novel oF The YeAr,” the ReaCtive is A cleAr-eYed, compAssionATe, And UnForgeTTABle deBUT.

Lindanathi is a young HIV+ man grappling with the sudden death of his younger brother, for which he feels unduly responsible. He and his friends - Cecelia and Ruan - make their living working low-paying jobs and selling anti-retroviral drugs (during the period in South Africa before ARVs became broadly distributed). In between, they huff glue, drift in and out of parties, and traverse the streets of Cape Town, where they observe the grave material disparities of their country. A mysterious masked man appears seeking to buy their surplus of ARVs, an offer that would present the three with the opportunity to escape their environs, while at the same time forcing Lindanathi to confront his path, and finally, his past.

wiTh BrilliAnT, shimmering prose, nTshAngA hAs delivered A redempTive, AmBiTioUs, And UnForgeTTABle FirsT novel.

THE REACTIVEnovel by

Masande Ntshanga

Literary FictioN | Mystery

Trade Paper Original,Gatefold

978-1-937512-43-9US $15.99, MAY 20165.5” x 7.5”, 212 pages

“A seminal work confronting [a] period in [South Africa’s] history.” —The New Age

“With a fine lyricism of style Ntshanga weaves a story both filled with ennui and weird purpose. And if that sounds unlikely, it is a feat he pulls

off with brilliance. This book is a breath of fresh air.” —The Sunday Independent

MASANDE NTSHANGA is the winner of the 2013 PEN International New Voices Award, as well as a Finalist for the 2015 Caine Prize for African Writing. He was born in East London in 1986 and graduated with a degree in Film and Media and an Honours degree in English Studies from University of Cape Town.


SQUARE WAVEnovel by

Mark de Silva

Literary FictioN | criMe | Mystery


978-1-937512-39-2 US $16.99, FEBRUARY 2016

5.5” x 7.5”, 382 pages

A grAnd novel oF ideAs and compelling crime mystery, about security states past and present, weather modification, and imperial influences.

carL stagg is a historiaN researching imperial influence in 17th century Sri Lanka, itself a security state, who makes a living as a watchman in a factionalized America where confidence in democracy has eroded. Along his nightly patrol, Stagg finds a beaten prostitute, one in a series of monstrous attacks he learns. Suspicious of his su-pervisor’s intentions, Stagg partners with a fellow part-time watchman, Ravan, to seek the truth. Ravan hails from a family developing storm-dispersal technologies, whose research is jointly funded by the Indian and American governments.

the watchMeN’s Discoveries put a troubling complexion on Stagg’s research, giving it new shape and impetus, just as the weather modification project begins to appear less about dispersing storms than weaponizing them.

squaRe Wave signAls The triumphant arrival of a young writer certain to be considered one of the most ambitious and intelligent of his generation.

MARK DE SILVA holds a PhD in philosophy from the University of Cambridge. Having served for several years on the editorial staff of the New York Times’s opinion pages, he now freelances for the paper’s Sunday magazine. His writing has appeared in The New Inquiry, The Paris Review Daily, and the New York Times.

“Square Wave is, above all, just excellent. Mark De Silva’s prose is simultaneously uncompro-mising and unassailable. The resulting work is kinetic with an almost wistful erudition that relentlessly but organically plumbs the inter-sections between art, politics, and our baser human qualities.” —Sergio De La Pava

righTs held: world, Film/Tv, AUdio

A BrilliAnT And viscerAl cinemATic novel ABoUT AUThenTiciTY And The AmericAn condiTion.

The Glacier is a speLLBiNDiNg work of fiction that re-imagines the American frontier of the late-nineties and early-aughts, a time when cookie-cutter developments stamped the countryside beige.

FoLLowiNg a caterer at a convention center, a surveyor residing in a storage unit, and the dazed and death-obsessed denizens of the burbs, The Glacier is a poetic rendering of the pre-apocalypse.

THE GLACIERnovel by

Jeff Wood

Literary FictioN | scieNce FictioN | thriLLer


US $14.99, SEPTEMBER 20155.5” x 7.5”, 152 pages

“Call Jeff Wood’s The Glacier what you will—a novel-in-screenplay-form; a prose poem on the themes of death, suburbia, and the cruel symmetries of cosmic time; a surreal prophecy from America’s anguished heartland—it will remain what it was always aiming to be, and

that’s one of the most indelible and visionary movies you’ve ever seen.”—Jon Raymond

JEFF WOOD is an actor and writer from Ohio currently living in Berlin. He is a founding member of the experimental film/art group Rufus Corporation and a Wallabout Oyster Theatre Player. His 10-year collaboration with Eve Sussman and Rufus Corporation produced the works 89 Seconds at Alcazar; The Rape of the Sabine Women; whiteonwhite:algorithmicnoir; and numerous international screenings including

the MoMA, SFMOMA, The Smithsonian, The Whitney, and the Toronto, Berlin, Thessaloniki and Sundance Film Festivals. He was a 2014 Fellow in Screenwriting with the New York Foundation for the Arts.


“[Ellingsen] is just starting what promises to be a major career, but already giving readers a unique and fascinating perspective.”

—Jeff VanderMeer

BraNDoN Leaves his BoyFrieND in the city for a quiet life in the mountains, after an affair with a professor ends with Brandon being forced to kill a research animal. It is a violent, unfortunate episode that conjures memories from his military background.

iN the MouNtaiNs, his new neighbors are using the increased temperatures to stage an agricultural project in an effort to combat globally heightened food prices and short-ages. Brandon gets swept along with their optimism, while simultaneously applying to a new astronaut training program. However, he learns that these changes – internal, external – are irreversible.

a suBLiMe Love story coupled with the universal struggle for personal understanding, Not Dark Yet is an informed novel of consequences with an ever-tightening emotional grip on the reader.

NOT DARK YETnovel by

Berit Ellingsen

Literary FictioN | scieNce FictioN


978-1-937512-35-4US $15.99, NOVEMBER 2015

5.5” x 7.5”, 212 pages

BERIT ELLINGSEN is a Korean-Norwegian writer whose stories have appeared in Norton’s Flash Fiction International Anthology, SmokeLong Quarterly, and Unstuck. She is the author of the story collection Beneath the Liquid Skin, and the novel Une Ville Vide, and has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and the British Science Fiction Award.

righTs held: world righTs sold: AUdio

Now a MaJor MotioN picture starring Sarah Silverman in her dramatic-acting debut, and Josh Charles, I Smile Back tells the affecting tale of Laney Brooks, a mother and wife on a self-destructive streak. She takes the drugs she wants, sleeps with the men she wants, disappears when she wants. Lurking beneath Laney’s seemingly composed surface is the impulse to follow in her father’s footsteps, to leave and topple her fam-ily’s balance in the process.

the FiLM aDaptatioN oF I Smile Back premiered at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival in the prestigious U.S. Dramatic competition. Silverman’s affecting dramatic turn in the lead-role has garnered praise in film trade reviews as “tremendous,” “terrific,” and “awards worthy,” and will inspire an onslaught of attention upon the film’s national theatrical release.

“Powerful. Koppelman’s instincts help her navi-gate these choppy waters with inventiveness and integrity.” —Los Angeles Times

“Koppelman explores with ruthless honesty a woman come undone.” —Bookslut

“Koppelman mostly writes from inside Laney’s disillusioned mind, ricocheting be-tween the quotidian details of wife and motherhood and big-picture musings, form-ing exquisite stand-alone tone poems.” —Elle

I SMILE BACKnovel by

Amy Koppelman

Literary FictioN | Movie tie-iN

Movie Tie-in Edition,978-1-937512-42-2

US $15, DATE TBD5.5” x 7.5”, 192 pages

AMY KOPPELMAN is a graduate of Columbia’s MFA program. Her writing has appeared in The New York Observer and Lilith. She lives in New York City with her husband and two children, and is the author of the novels, A Mouthful of Air, and I Smile Back. She adapted the screenplay for the film from her own novel.

Now a major motion picture starring Sarah Silverman!

righTs held: world, Film/Tv, AUdio righTs sold: Uk, French

“[An] astonishing portrait of American violence.” —Los Angeles Times

“A success... Haints Stay turns the Western on its ear.” —The Washington Post

Brooke aND sugar are killers. Bird is the boy who mysteriously woke beside them while between towns. For miles, there is only desert and wilderness, and along the fringes, people.

the story FoLLows the middling bounty hunters after they’ve been chased from town, and Bird, each in pursuit of their own sense of belonging and justice. It features gunfights, cannibalism, barroom piano, a transgender birth, a wagon train, a stam-pede, and the tenuous rise of the West’s first one-armed gunslinger.

hainTs sTay is a New Acid Western in the tradition of Rudolph Wurlitzer and Kelly Reichardt’s Meek’s Cutoff: meaning it is brutal, surreal, and possesses an unsettling humor.

HAINTS STAYnovel by

Colin Winnette

Literary FictioN | westerN | aciD westerN


978-1-9375123-2-3US $15.99, JUNE 20155.5” x 7.5”, 212 pages

COLIN WINNETTE is the author of Revelation, Animal Collection, and Fondly—which was listed among Salon’s Best Books of 2013. He is an associate editor of PANK Magazine, and conducts a regular interview series for The Believer ‘Logger.’ His writing has appeared on BuzzFeed, Electric Literature, and in The Believer.


iNez waNDers a post-paNDeMic world, strangely immune to disease, making her living by volunteering as a test subject. She is hired to provide genetic material to a grief-stricken, affluent mother, who lost all four of her daughters within four short weeks. This experimental genetic work is policed by a hazy network of governmental Ethics committees, and threatened by the Knights of Life, religious zealots who raze the rural farms where much of this experimentation is done.

wheN the Mother Backs out at the last minute, Inez is left responsible for the prod-uct, which in this case is a baby girl, Ani. Inez must protect Ani, who is a scientific breakthrough, keeping her alive, dodging authorities and religious fanatics, and trying to provide Ani with the chilldhood tha Inez never had, which means a stable home and an education.

“Breathtaking. A debut novel on par with some of the best speculative fiction of the past 30 years. It’s that good, and that important, and that heartbreakingly beautiful.” —NPR

“Fascinating... A heart-piercing tale of love, de-sire and acceptance.” —The Washington Post

CAROLA DIBBELL is a highly regarded rock critic whose fiction has appeared in The New Yorker, Paris Review, Fence, and Black Clock. Writing about books as well as music, Dib-bell was a Village Voice contributor for many years. The Only Ones is her debut novel.

THE ONLY ONESnovel by

Carola Dibbell



978-1-937512-27-9US $16.99, MARCH 2015

5.5” x 7.5”, 368 pages

the LaNguage oF the stars is the language of the body. Like a star, the anorexic burns fuel that isn’t replenished; she is held together by her own gravity.

with LuMiNous, LyricaL prose, Binary Star is an impassioned account of a young woman struggling with anorexia and her long-distance, alcoholic boyfriend. On a road-trip circumnavigating the United States, they stumble into a book on veganar-chism, and believe they’ve found a direction.

Binary sTar is aN iNteNse, fast-moving saga of two young lovers and the culture that keeps them sick (or at least inundated with quick-fix solutions); a society that sells diet pills, sleeping pills, magazines that profile celebrities who lose weight or too much weight or put on weight, and books that pimp diet secrets or recipes for success.

BINARY STARnovel by

Sarah Gerard

Literary FictioN


978-1-937512-25-5US $16, JANUARY 2015

5.5” x 7.5”, 182 pages

SARAH GERARD’s work has appeared in the New York Times, New York Magazine’s ‘The Cut,’ Paris Review Daily, Slice Magazine, The Los Angeles Review of Books, Bookforum, and other journals. She is the author of the chapbook Things I Told My Mother and a graduate of The New School’s MFA program for fiction.

“Rhythmic, hallucinatory, yet vivid as crystal.”—NPR

“The particular genius of Binary Star is that out of such grim material in constructs beauty. It’s like a novel-shaped poem about addiction, codependence and the relentlessness of the

everyday, a kind of elegy of emptiness.” —New York Times Book Review

righTs held: norTh AmericAn righTs sold: AUdio


“Kafka directed by David Lynch doesn’t even come close.”

—3:AM Magazine

“I very much enjoyed this weird, disturbing, sometimes effed-up novel about strange films, lost films, and the fragile faith in the difference between our fictions and our realities.”—Jeff VanderMeer, Electric Literature

iN the MiD-’90s a rare-film librarian at a state university in Pennsylvania mysteriously burned his entire stockpile of film canisters and disappeared. Roberto Acestes Laing was highly regarded by acclaimed directors around the globe for his keen eye, appre-ciation for eccentricity, and creativity in interpretation.

uNsure at First whether Laing is a pseudonym or some sort of Hollywood boogey-man, a journalist manages to track the forgotten man down to a motel on the fringe of the Wisconsin wilds. Laing agrees to speak with the journalist, but only through the lens of the cinema. What ensues is an atmospheric, cryptic extrapolation of mov-ies and how they intertwine with life, and the forgotten films that curse the lost librar-

THE ABSOLUTION OFROBERTO ACESTES LAING

novel byNicholas Rombes

Literary FictioN | Mystery | thriLLer


US $15.95, NOVEMBER 20145.5” x 7.5”, 162 pages

NICHOLAS ROMBES teaches in Detroit, Michigan. He is author of Ramones from the 33 1/3 series and the book 10/40/70. His writing has appeared in The Believer, Filmmaker Magazine, the Los Angeles Review of Books, n+1, and The Rumpus.


Leah’s LittLe Brother, JacoB, disappeared when the pair were younger, a tragedy that haunts her still. When a grown man arrives at the non-profit Leah directs claiming to be Jacob, she is wrenched back to her childhood, an iridescent tableau of family joy and strife, swimming at the lake, sneaking candy, late-night fears and the stories told to quell them.

ancienT Oceans Of cenTral KenTucKy is a wrecking-ball of a novel that attempts to give meaning and poetry to everything that comprises small-town life in central Kentucky. Listen: they are the ghost stories that children tell one another, the litter that skirts the gulley, the lines at department stores. A gorgeous, haunting, prismatic jewel of a book.

ANCIENT OCEANS OFCENTRAL KENTUCKY

novel byDavid Connerley Nahm

Literary FictioN | Mystery | thriLLer

Trade Paper Original,Gatefold & Deckle Edge

978-0-9832471-8-0US $16, AUGUST 20145.5” x 7.5”, 182 pages

DAVID CONNERLEY NAHM was born and raised in a small town in central Kentucky. Currently, he lives in the mountains of Virginia where he practices law and teaches Law and Literature at James Madison University. His short stories have appeared in Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet, Trunk Stories, Eyeshot, and on McSweeney’s Internet Tendency.

* One of the Best Books of 2014.—NPR, Flavorwire, Electric Literature

“Wonderful. While this isn’t a thriller, at least in any traditional sense of the word, it’s deeply

suspenseful. It’s impossible to stop reading until you’ve gone through each beautiful line, a beauty that infuses the whole novel, even in its darkest moments.” —NPR


reMy is a youNg girL who lives in a town that believes in crystal count: that you are born with one-hundred crystals inside and throughout your life, through accidents and illness, your count is depleted until you reach zero.

as a city eNcroaches daily on the village, threatening their antiquated life, and the Earth grows warmer, Remy sets out to accomplish something no one else has: to increase her sick mother’s crystal count.

aN aLLegory, FaBLe, touchiNg family saga and poetic sci-fi adventure, Shane Jones underlines his reputation as an inspired and unique visionary.

CRYSTAL EATERSnovel by

Shane Jones


Trade Paper Original,Gatefold & Deckle Edge

978-1-937512-18-7US $16, JUNE 2014

5.5” x 7.5”, 168 pages

SHANE JONES (b. 1980) first novel, Light Boxes, was originally published by Publishing Genius Press in a print run of 500 copies in 2009. The novel was reviewed widely, the film optioned by Spike Jonze, and the book was reprinted by Penguin. Light Boxes has been translated in eight languages and was named an NPR best book of the year. Jones is also the author

of Daniel Fights a Hurricane and The Failure Six.

“Jones demonstrates a tightrope-like eye for finagling between Pynchon-esque quasi-science-fictional feelings and the book’s physics, allowing almost anything to happen at any time, wrapped in a Wallace-like grip of childlike awe. The result is a novel that, paragraph to paragraph, is alive

with imagination. Crystal Eaters is the rarest of kinds of objects, one that replenishes its readers’ crystal counts by simply being read.” —Vice

eric oBenAUF

Editorial Director | Publicity | [email protected]

elizA wood-oBenAUF

Director of Brand | Copy [email protected]

mollY delAneY

Production Assistant | [email protected]

141 East Town St., Suite 200Columbus, OH 43215

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two dollar radio - rights catalog - fall 2015

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