I often think about resistance literature. Ideas for bizarro books of resistance frequently swirl around my mind. But when I brought this topic up on the bizarro discord a few months ago, the group could only list a handful of bizarro books that could be categorized as resistance literature. I aim to change that. This interview series, Bizarro Books As Resistance, will interview bizarro and bizarro-adjacent writers on their views of political resistance and resistance in their own work. I also want this to be a place where writers will be able to explore past examples of bizarro books of resistance and why they are important and relevant right now. I hope you enjoy reading these interviews. I hope we all learn from each other. I hope we continue to inspire each other to resist fascism every step of the way.
After I pitched this idea to Bizarro Central, I was asked to collect four interviews before this thing launched. To my horror, this included a self-conducted interview that would be the first of the Bizarro Books as Resistance series to be published. Below you will find Andrew J. Stone awkwardly interviewing Andrew J. Stone. So don’t let that fuckface ruin this series for you.
Every Tuesday a new bizarro author will share their views of political resistance with us. If there is a bizarro author you’d like to see featured in this interview series, please comment their name below. So stick around. And whatever you do, unite and fight the fucking fascists until we tear every last one down.
Andrew: Andrew J. Stone, first, would you please tell me a little about your background and how that has influenced your own writing?
Andrew J. Stone: Funny you should ask (ME). Growing up, my life revolved around skateboarding and church. I was born in Los Angeles, and despite being surrounded by diversity, including at my church, my life followed a rigid evangelical upbringing. My parents homeschooled me because our church claimed that public schools taught demonic lies like Evolution. Despite this, I never fully believed in the idea of a God, especially one that created our universe and damns us to Hell after we die if we didn’t correctly believe in and worship him on Earth. And I certainly never felt a spiritual connection to Christianity or any religion in general.
In my late teen years, a few texts cemented in my mind something that I had already felt: mainly, the idea that capitalism is detrimental to humanity. After reading Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath and Miller’s The Crucible, in addition to having studied the Bible throughout my childhood, I started to think about the world more broadly. I also started reading communist theory from as many revolutionaries as possible. Essentially, I became radicalized before I turned twenty, and not because my life was difficult, but because I read about and observed how the majority of the people on this planet are suffering and dying under various capitalist systems.
I didn’t start writing until I was seventeen, roughly a year before I began reading political theory in addition to fiction, poetry, and plays. Consequently, as I went through the struggle of finding my voice as a writer, I also started questioning the society that I had always been taught was superior (both morally and practically). My early days of writing were a way I could start to explore and confront the Christian and American ideals that I had always been taught were axiomatic in a relatively guilt-free environment.
In my twenties, the decade in which my first three books were published, my understanding of political theory grew. I spent time raising my twins, organizing, writing, and teaching bizarro fiction (at CalArts). My philosophy on writing and revolution has evolved continuously. And while my books as objects might not kill fascists (though I suppose it’s possible depending on how one uses them), I hope that the stories themselves will inspire readers to kill fascists.
A: Okay, so now that I better understand where you are coming from, can you tell me what political resistance means to you?
AJS: Political resistance is a lot of different things. First and foremost, political resistance requires action. Whether that be passing along communications, writing a book, maintaining joy in the midst of political misery, or direct physical action. Effective political resistance is dangerous and underground. The state will not tolerate it. While all political resistance is good and necessary, I also think it’s important to acknowledge the difference between canvassing and voting for a democratic socialist politician versus a militant liberation movement like the Black Panthers. If the state is aware of the resistance movement and feels threatened by it, the state will attempt to use all of its power to murder the movement and its members. If a person or organization’s mode of resistance is tolerated by the state, it will not succeed in liberating the oppressed from their oppressor. Revolutionary hope and joy are absolutely essential. All resistance is vital. But to truly change this imperialist country, whose roots are soaked by the bloodshed of genocide and chattel slavery, small acts of resistance like a joke, a smile, a poem, or a book, need to be a foundation for the evolution of bold forms of organizing. Ultimately, political resistance will create revolutionary changes to the structure of a repressive, for-profit society.
A: Do you see your own writing as a form of political resistance, or do you view your work as an author and your work as an activist as separate endeavors?
AJS: Oh god, I hope my writing could be considered an act of political resistance. I mean, I aim to inspire people to pushback against capitalist systems through my art. But writing books is a slow and arduous process for me. Publishing is slow. While political repression is swift and constantly evolving. So I struggle with how to divide my time between writing and organizing. Art is necessary. Art is a weapon. But art alone is not protecting the unhoused from police sweeps, it’s not fighting back against landlords who force families into the streets, it’s not putting fear into the face of the oppressor. Art is resistance, yes. But I am not on the ground fighting alongside the people when I am writing books.
A: How important is it to you to incorporate your politics into your writing, and how do you balance the story as its own standalone creature with the story as a tool of resistance?
AJS: Fuck, I mean, when writing books, I try to land just inside the line that differentiates art from propaganda. Writing a political pamphlet or communist theory sounds simultaneously too boring and too academic (and intimidating) for my brain. However, I read a lot of political theory, and everything from Marx to Nkrumah to my friend J. Moufawad-Paul inspires my work. But at the same time, when I write a book, there needs to be a definite purpose for why it is a book and not simply a political pamphlet. The story needs to thrive on its own, devoid of the underlying themes of resistance. For example, the story can be a marital drama in a dystopian world where humans live under the subjugation of a dominant House God government. Where humans host daily child sacrifices to satiate the stomachs of the all-powerful House God state. Where husband and wife take antithetical approaches in the struggle of taking power back from the House God regime. The story needs to exist because haunted houses are rad, and sentient houses who live off a steady diet of their human inhabitants is a playground for a lot of insane and psychedelic fun (and terror). Again, the story has to be able to survive and thrive on its own. Full-fucking-stop. But once that world is created, I try to write something as close to a political pamphlet as I can while actively working against coming off as proselytizing. I grew up listening to sermons in church. The least interesting thing a novel can do, no matter how well it’s written, is proselytize the reader. This is why I adore Huxley’s Brave New World but believe his response to that book, Island, his final novel, which doubles as a utopian manifesto, is lackluster as fuck. For me, socialist ideals give my work purpose, but there needs to be an entertaining story first that houses the themes within.
A: Since its inception, the bizarro genre has been viewed as underground, outsider literature. How do you think its counterculture nature (where just about anything goes) can inspire the genre into being an outlet where books of resistance flourish?
AJS: I think bizarro fiction is full of beautiful impossibilities. Bizarro is an excellent way to approach revolutionary and anti-capitalist themes in silly and unexpected ways. I hope this juxtaposition creates an environment that might allow people to engage in conversations about ideologies like communism in ways they might not have been able to imagine before. I mean, if we suspend our beliefs enough to accept that the MOTHERFUCKING SHARKS are real and will raise from the rain to eviscerate everyone we know and love, why shouldn’t we believe that had the townspeople listened to the warnings of the wacky and wayward salesman Crick, the people could have worked together and saved themselves from the looming threat of the MOTHERFUCKING SHARKS? Bizarro asks us to believe in things that we have been taught are impossible. Bizarro fiction makes the impossible real and relevant. And if approached from a radical perspective, bizarro fiction has the potential to cultivate beautifully strange resistance against all oppressors.
A: Thank you so much for your time and your insights. With those in mind, which bizarro books are your favorite examples of resistance literature?
AJS: Some of my favorite bizarro books of resistance include Winnie by Katy Michelle Quinn, My Fake War by Andersen Prunty, The Psychographist by Carson Winter, Elogona by Samantha Kolesnik, The People’s Republic of Everything by Nick Mamatas, and The Shelter by Amy M. Vaughn.
A: Lastly, why Winnie? How does Winnie act as a book of resistance?
AJS: At the risk of seeming ridiculous, I’m going to share a quote that constantly wanders around my mind:
“At the risk of seeming ridiculous, let me say that the true revolutionary is guided by a great feeling of love. It is impossible to think of a genuine revolutionary lacking this quality.”
–Ernesto “Che” Guevara
If we buy into the belief that genuine, radical resistance comes from a place of great love for the people, I cannot think of a more original, authentic, and compelling bizarro story than Winnie by Katy Michelle Quinn, which creatively and conscientiously explores concepts of love and acceptance as well as a radical reframing of the oppressive and fascistic nature of the United States of America.
Winnie is a woman, has always been a woman, but was born in the body of a gun, specifically a Winchester Model 1873. Colt, a self-identified good ol’ cowboy, purchased Winnie about a decade before we enter the story. We learn that Winnie and Colt love each other and Winnie has been everything Colt has wanted her to be, sacrificing her identity and her well-being to embody the ideal piece of property that Colt loves. But ten years can be an eternity. And Winnie can no longer repress her authentic self. So she begins to explore who she truly is–a woman currently confined to the body of a rifle. As Winnie bravely begins her journey of self-discovery, she finds her body simultaneously starts to respond with physical changes of its own. But once her body begins the transition from a Winchester to a woman, the ways in which Colt treats her no longer make her feel love. She feels misunderstood. Confused. Subjugated. After all, Colt loves his gun. He’s a cowboy. And cowboys need their guns.
From here, Winnie sets off for the unknown. She thought she had known love. But what is love? Does Colt love her? Or did he only love the image in his head he created of her? Is love, like beauty, found in the eye of the beholder? When we tell someone we love them, do we mean we love the perception of them we created for ourselves, which we hold dear in our mind? Or is it possible to love someone deeper than that? To love someone even when their authentic self doesn’t match our idea of who they are? Does our love evolve with the person we claim to love? Do we love the person, the personality, the essence of what makes them who they are, or is our love more superficial and only relevant when the receiver of our love is presented to us in a way that meets our personalized preconceptions?
If the foundation of resistance comes from feelings of great love, we must love people authentically for who they are and how they present themselves (which, like all species, like resistance, like revolution, is constantly evolving). We cannot love people only when they fit nicely into the image we hold for them. In order to struggle among the masses, in order to resist fascistic regimes, we must let true feelings of love for all of the oppressed peoples guide us in our defiance of capitalist systems. If we don’t love the people for who they are, why try to create a better world for people suffering under oppression?
Winnie invites the reader into these types of conversations while remaining a uniquely compelling and utterly bizarre story. Ultimately, Winnie is a celebration of queer and trans existence, love, and resistance. It’s a battle cry against all the “Colts” of this world, declaring that no Winnie is their property, and if their notions of love don’t evolve into something deeper than seeing their partner as their property, they will cease to be relevant.
In the end, Winnie leaves us with a simple message: Resist all oppressors through revolutionary love.
A: Thanks again, Andrew J. Stone. But Jesus, fuck, that was a lot.
AJS: I know, right? Didn’t you just love it?
A: It was at least interesting, I guess. I mean, it’s nice Bizarro Central allowed you to publish your literary manifesto on their site. But please don’t do this again.
AJS: Agreed. Admittedly, this was a weird experience for us. Let’s never interview ourself again. Next time, let’s try something crazy. Like interviewing another writer. We are looking forward to that. Check in next week to read more about political resistance from the beautiful and brilliant mind of KMQ.
If Andrew J. Stone were a dinosaur, he’d be an Apatosaurus. If he were a superhero, he’d be Marx. If he were to have a cat, her name would be Alice, and he’d be living in a residence that allowed pets. He is the author of the novellas The Mortuary Monster (2016), All Hail the House Gods (2018), and The Ultimate Dinosaur Dance-Off (2020). His short stories have appeared in Hobart, New Dead Families, and DOGZPLOT, among other places. His work has been translated into Spanish by the Colombian publisher Ediciones Vestigio. He lives in Los Angeles, surrounded by beauty and dread.
This post may contain affiliate links. Further details, including how this supports the bizarro community, may be found on our disclosure page.
