Spout Hill Press have republished Gerald Locklin’s classic novella, The Case Of The Missing Blue Volkswagen, originally published in 1984, republished in 1999, with an introduction by John Brantingham that views its post-modern style and structure as a means of having a conversation with the reader about the limits of fiction. It is a fruitful way into the work that is at once playful, funny and greater than the sum of its parts. Locklin’s casual style functions effectively on many levels and is very funny.
Spout Hill has also published Locklin’s lost novella’s Last Tango in Long Beach and Come Back, Bear to present the original trilogy for the first time. If you have never read any Locklin, the best introduction is to say that he entertains and provokes in equal measure in a beguiling way. A central figure in Los Angeles writing since the Seventies, these beautifully produced novellas are at the heart of his social satire.
Locklin’s Deep Meanings: Selected Poems 2008-2013 from Presa Press contains some of his best recent poetry. As Edward Field writes, ‘The male spirit in him remains honest, bighearted, sentimental, generous, gentle, vulnerable, but sassy in the face of adversity…’ I have always thought that he is the male equivalent to that other brilliant maverick Camille Paglia. Both are always worth reading.
