Chateau Wichman - Ben Pease
Chateau Wichman - Ben Pease
I NEED A WEEK ALONE WITH YOU DWELLING IN THE EVENING AIR
170 Pages
5.8 x 7.6
ISBN: 978-1-941985-07-6
Release: March 28th, 2017
Space. Drugs. Talk shows. Diagnosed as a “blockbuster in verse,” Chateau Wichman is the epic Saga of The Wichman, a reclusive-apartment-hermit-turned-internet-sensation who struggles to harness the god-like power of Celebrity. Inspired by Weinberger, Apollo & Daphne, Chayefsky's Altered States, the Apollo space missions, and that one Davis Foster Wallace essay about cruise ships, Chateau Wichman is a epic saga of rebellion and romance for today’s trying and exhausting digital times.
PRAISE FOR CHATEAU WICHMAN
"In Chateau Wichman, Ben Pease’s sprawling debut book of poems, the intoxicating absorption of consuming art and popular culture goes hand-in-hand with the blurred fantasy and reality of being gazed at in turn. The self-aggrandizing fantasies Wichman engages in are inescapably intertwined with the self-pitying realization that what is real can never match the dizzying kaleidoscope of his own imagination—a feedback loop that animates the Berryman-esque combination of bemused and resigned wit in facing down one’s own life. The name “Wichman” brings to mind the title character from the 15th century morality play Everyman. But Wichman’s salvation is not found in good deeds or Christian salvation, and not, as he - or the reader—finds, in a retreat into his own mind. Chateau Wichman is for those of us who found “Life of Walter Mitty” to be painfully sad.”
—Dan Magers, Partyknife