Welcome to the world, Demons of Eminence, the debut novel of poet Joshua Escobar (aka DJ Ashtrae + Little Piñata), winner of The Bo Huston Prize 2023. Demons of Eminence is the 16th book in the Fellow Travelers Series, an imprint of Publication Studio, edited by novelist Matthew Stadler. The Fellow Travelers Series also published Kevin Killian’s Spreadeagle, Nate Lippens’s My Dead Book, STS’s Golden Brothers, and books by Shelley Marlow, Travis Jeppesen, Aeliana Nicole, and Brekan Blakeslee, among others.
In Demons of Eminence a young travel nurse and self-described cumdump observes and sanctifies the friendship between an aging gay porn star and a goth chola dropout half his age, one that leads to them throwing endless parties in the industrial scrublands of SoCal’s Inland Empire at the height of the pandemic. The title is taken from a poem written by one of the characters. Set primarily in the IE at the height of the first COVID epidemic, the story also takes us to Portland, Los Angeles, San Diego, Oaxaca, and Mexico City.
“Hail the sad-boys, demon twinks, puppy punks, burly cholos, gurlie goths, marijuanos, gay tweekers, DL dudes, plaid vaqueros, circuit fairies, trans otters, lesbian-poet-theorists, and leathered manwhores who people Joshua Escobar’s inspired and lovingly rendered universe. Suspended between COVID stay-at-home orders and the strained capacity of a hospital’s ICU, a glitter-spangled affirmation blazes through suffering, loss, and loneliness in a euphoria of sex-parties and drug-fueled raves around Southern California’s Inland Empire. In hard-edged prose with an ear for the feverish poetry of gay banter and elective joto affinities, Escobar expertly captures the intergenerational ‘crossfire of pain and ambition’ as the festival of youth begins to fade into the night horizon between Fontana and Los Angeles.”
—Roberto Tejada, author of Why the Assembly has Disbanded and Carbonate of Copper
Joshua Escobar’s Demons of Eminence is a delirious and intoxicating off-road trip through the heady and sexed-up world of a young travel nurse at the height of COVID. He’s also a hornithologist on the make, undefended and open to experience, which includes hookups, friendships, and ecstatic states of being lost—to music, men, a nation’s insanity. Simultaneously wised-up and questing, full of wonder, sexual valor, and radical turns of mind, it’s a novel like no other.
—Nate Lippens, author of My Dead Book and Ripcord
Here’s the start of Chapter One: Blood Sport, which also appeared last Fall in Your Impossible Voice:
In 2025, Joshua will give readings from Demons of Eminence in Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, and LA in March, in Houston and New Orleans in April, and in New York and the East Coast in June, mostly at indy bookstores. At the end of last year, some of Joshua’s friends came together to celebrate the launch of the novel at a combo party-and-reading that gives a good taste of the book. During the launch Joshua talked about the places and parties that inspired the novel, Matthew Stadler talked about The Bo Huston Prize, and Patrick Kiley (who runs one of the Publication Studios that actually produce and distribute the Fellow Travelers Series books) talked about the art of printing and binding. Then each of the guests read a selection from the novel: Julio Acevedo/Lady J Monroe; Anna Moschovakis; Monique Quintana; Roberto Tejada; James Nulick; Brittany Menjivar; and Matthew Stadler.
The writing and production of Demons of Eminence was supported by The Bo Huston Prize, which honors the life and art of Bo Huston, author of four books of prose before his untimely death at age thirty-three. Diagnosed HIV-positive, Bo went to Zurich in 1991 to undergo an experimental treatment for AIDS. His essay, “Meditations in Zurich,” published posthumously in Thomas Avena’s anthology, Life Sentences: Writers, Artists and AIDS (Mercury House, 1994), is a nonfiction account of this experience. Bo’s novel The Dream Life is also part of the Fellow Travelers series, with an afterword written by his close friend and colleague, Rebecca Brown. This year’s winner of The Bo Huston Prize is Amercan prose writer and graphic artist Raegan Bird; she will complete her first novel, Hard to Say Not Knowing, to be published in the Fellow Travelers Series. More info about the prize here.
photo of Bo Huston in the early 1990s
Joshua Escobar is also author of the chapbooks Califorkya Voltage (No, Dear/Small Anchor) and xxox fm (Doublecross Press), and a full-length collection of poems, Bareback Nightfall (Noemi Press and Letras Latinas), that was a finalist for the 2021 California Book Award. He edits the student magazine, Open Fruit and lives in West Hollywood, CA.
Image of Escobar wearing a hand painted leather mask sold out of a gay bar in the French Quarter of New Orleans.
As a bonus for all you readers, here are some excerpts from Josh’s four-part poetry book, Bareback Nightfall (Noemi Press):
Check out the Instagram for the Fellow Travelers series for a Q&A with Escobar and Brittany Menjivar.
Check out Josh’s instagram for merch and ephemeria related to the book.
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p.s. Hey. Today the blog reconstitutes its red carpet function in order to do its part in ushering the first novel by the writer/poet Joshua Escobar into the cold, cruel world. But less cold as of today. Please eyeball the sample and related info re: this very fine, spanking new chunk of narrative prose and see if it seems like something you would like to gulp down in its entirety. Much gratitude to the venerable, never endingly admirable Fellow Travelers Series for the post and mostly for the exciting book. ** PL, Hi! Oh, gosh, I don’t know all that much about the Estate business or the workings of Matta-Clark, I wish I did know more. But I do have a friend who’s kind of a Matta-Clark expert, and I’ll shoot him a message and see if he would pony up some info or direct me to some extant source to pass along. Apologies for not having stuff to tell straight off the bat. I’m excited that you’re so interested in his work. ** Misanthrope, Hi, G. Yury’s doing A-okay. I hope your mid-week isn’t boring you to tears. ** James, Well, then for sure don’t look into the microscopic mites that apparently live in every pillow that everyone in the world sleeps on, and definitely don’t seek out microscopic photos of them, and, on second thought, I probably shouldn’t have even mentioned that, sorry. Thank you for braving the post in detail. I should hire you as the blog’s publicist or something. Interesting about even-steven. And somehow surprising that the name Steven existed as early as 1866. I’ve never used a Kindle, so I don’t know. For me it’s either books or pdfs. Wow, you are powering through the GbV oeuvre. You might even end up hearing the gigantic all of it if you keep that up. Favorite GbV album is very hard, as you can imagine. Historically, when people ask me that question, I often say ‘Under the Bushes, Under the Stars’. But I don’t know. Actually, their brand new one ‘Universe Room’ sounds thus far like it might be up their among their best. If you want to investigate Robert Pollard sans GbV, his album ‘Kid Marine’ is a masterpiece. Anyway, I should stop. I could blather about them for years. I hope English gave you whatever its warmest greeting would consist of. ** _Black_Acrylic, Bad times are already here, my friend. ** Dominik, Hi!!! That show sounds cool, naturally. Ah, PSB. Nice. That lyric attained its score without my even having to hunt. Hold my place, I’ll be back in no time, As I buy some drugs for this girlfriend of mine, Got my cash and I know where to find, Just the perfect gift for that girlfriend of mine, Only cash, but I know where to find, Just the perfect gift for a love that’s sublime, G. ** Steeqhen, Ha, what do you know! Gay rugby team, wow. But then why the hell not, I guess. I bet there’s no gay American football team. Wait, there probably is. I’m the worst at figuring out what gay guys like to do. Good news about the lack of gas. ‘Amazing’, it doesn’t get much better verbiage-wise than that. Cool. Uh, I don’t know the names of teeth. A molar, sort of midway back in my mouth. February has been relatively friendly. I’m way over the cloudy, gloomy, wet skies it has in tow however. I hope yours is being sparklier. ** Sypha, Hi! Yes, for the longest time there was some strange bug in the verification system that was keeping lots of people out of here, but it seems like it has finally magically been repaired at least partly because no one has written me to say ‘I can’t get inside your blog’ in a while, and I was getting those messages all the time. Nice, I’ll read your review. Everyone, Sypha aka the excellent fiction writer James Champagne has reviewed James Nulick’s novel PLASTIC SOUL, which was the previous walker of the blog’s red carpet, on goodreads, and that means here. ** jay, Hi, jay! So happy to add to your DVDs. No coffee, no problem. I hope you’re enjoying the great but unfortunately a bit nippy and drab at the moment Paris. “God Jr.’ to the rescue! If you guys find exciting nooks and crannies in the local environs, do pass them on. Hugs from across town! ** Tyler Ookami, I’m going to have to investigate that. How strange. What a fitting audience for Abramovic’s crapola. And The Chapman Bros. thing. Wow. If only that cult wrote experimental fiction. Poor Cattelan to have this whole, sometimes quite terrific body of work get dumbified by his little banana joke. Anyway, that sounds extraordinarily lame. Worse than I had even imagined. ** Steve, Based on my antibiotics use, you should start feeling just the slightest bit better today. Excellent concept for your album. Even, dare I say, potentially viral. I do understand artists not thinking they have anything original and sufficiently artistic to say about politics to put it in their work and thinking that’s something more important to relay to their followers in the work’s margins. Everyone, Steve has interviewed UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE director/actor/co-writer Matthew Rankin and actor/co-writer Ila Firouzabadi here. ** HaRpEr, I know that, at least with Bresson, there are all kinds of rights issues. And his widow is very, very controlling of his work. But she’s very old so … we’ll see. Yeah, Oklou is a real find. I wondered if people in London knew the Ben Wilson things IRL. I’m going to look at my shoes a lot the next time I’m there. So sorry about your mom. Complicated, no doubt, but stressful no matter what. Same with me and my parents. I used to try to pretend they were just our house’s hired security detail. ** Bernard Welt, Whoop! Blowing your considerable mind is a conquering Mt. Everest kind of thing. Yeah, curious about Brady Corbett’s unexpected fate. I can’t imagine seeing ‘The Brutalist’. I saw his first film only because Scott Walker did the score, and that was enough to ward me off. I’ll stick to following the charmingly wishy-washy futures of Billy Mumy and Butch Patrick, thank you. ** Darby☏, Hi! Your first comment actually appeared here a few days ago, and I responded then. Curious Twilight Zone moment there. Your thoughts on Rimbaud would be most highly prized. Verlaine was wild while he was fucking Rimbaud and then he turned into an alcoholic lump of a guy who sat around in cafes giving interviews about Rimbaud and signing autographs. Trip! Where? Have the most amazing fun! ** Bill, Given how many thematic art posts I do, the chances definitely are that Sampson has been here before, yes. I don’t in fact know Q. Hayashida. I like her name. Okay, on it, thanks, pal. And I hope you keep emerging. ** Right. Go back to studying the new novel placed before you today please? Thank you. See you tomorrow.
Now available in North America 