Coming Soon: UXA.GOV & Void Corporation

Information & a free subscription offer upon the upcoming release of my next two books, dropping 11/29 from Inside the Castle & Archway

On November 26, I have two novels coming out from two different places at the same time. One is a repackaged paperback release of Alice Knott, originally from Riverhead in 2020, with a new introduction written by me. The other is UXA.GOV, a new book I’ve been working on in various capacities for the last 14 years, which is actually the textual description of a film.

For those in NYC, there will be a dual release party on Friday Nov 22 at Powerhouse Books with a variety of readers - more info on that to come.

From now until the end of November, I’ll offer anyone who preorders / buys a copy of both books a free 90 day paid subscription to Dividual - just DM me proof of purchase either here on Substack or through my website or Twitter and I’ll verify you ASAP.

A bit more info below, along with some notes about the projects.

UXA.GOV - a novel published by Inside the Castle - 356 pp.

• order from Asterism - order from Amazon

"I once woke from surgery to find that a faulty spinal catheter had kept painkillers from getting into me: Blake Butler's UXA.GOV brought this memory back. The book's a shock to the system, a storehouse of what you'll see and hear when it's your turn to hurt and hallucinate-it's visceral, inventively so, and visionary and filled with a feeling of inevitability. I found it both soothing and sick, a palliative in reverse." - Derek McCormack, author of Castle Faggot

This text was composed and revised in fits and starts from 2010 to 2024, often in wildly different states, rooms, moods, modes, spirits, and epochs. It began as a response to John Zorn’s “Treatment for a Film in Fifteen Scenes” (composed in the 1980s; published in Arcana: Musicians on Music. Zorn, J. (ed), Granary Books, 2000, alongside work by Ikue Mori, Bill Frisell, Eyvind Kang, Marc Ribot, Mike Patton, etc.), a 7-page outline consisting of 254 ‘shots’ (or prompts) described by brief (1-12 word) lines of all caps text. As a novel, UXA.GOV is meant to be read as a film; perhaps the kind one might otherwise only be allowed to view through slits in a training helmet deep before being work-released into what remains of the land where America once was.

Void Corporation - republished in paperback by Archway Editions - 304 pp.

With its original title and a new introduction by the author

• order from Simon & Schuster - order from Amazon

“A bold and innovative existential mystery that moves us not towards resolution but deeper into the powerfully strange oceans of fractured memories, damaged love, and lost histories. This book is a thrill, a terror, a heartbreak.” —Laura van den Berg

“A strange and beguiling masterpiece, an immersive experience of psychic disorder that becomes ever more profound as you read on.” —Alexandra Kleeman

“[Void Corporation] is a thrilling, subversive novel, part fever dream, part high-culture acid trip, part dystopian masterpiece. A dazzling, dangerous book.” —Christopher Bollen

“Blake Butler is one of our most fearless insurgents against the numbing flow of contemporary life. With [Void Corporation] he’s created a Lynchian fever dream about the voracious march of capitalism and the vulnerable place of art in our society, with vividly crisp sentences and syntax that could cut diamonds.” —Catherine Lacey

“This book is an incantation—to read it is to be put under its spell. [Void Corporation] is ferocious, masterful, and truly unforgettable.” —Chelsea Hodson

From Archway’s description:

Published right as the world changed in early 2020, Butler’s riffs on art, technology, inequality and the conspiratorial impenetrability of our bureaucratic world are more prescient than ever. The recent spate of protest action involving art even seems inspired by the book—people have said as much online—and the resonances keep coming. Reclusive heiress Alice Knott’s self-imposed quarantine is reminiscent of our own, and the mystery deepens after she discovers her family’s world-class artwork collection destroyed and videotaped.

Void Corporation features Butler’s stimulating, immersive linguistic acrobatics, but in following Alice’s journey through a world of memory and conspiracy, he brings a looming clarity. After the artwork is destroyed, copycat incidents proliferate around the world, and she becomes the chief suspect in what may be an international conspiracy. With essential questions raised about the meaning of art and the ramifications of trauma, this definitive edition is a must-have for anyone who has read Molly or wants to discover the exceptional written universe of Blake Butler.

- review at New York Times
- review at The Nation
- review at The Observer
- review at Atlanta Journal-Constitution
- review at LA Review of Books
- review at zyzzyva
- review at Dead End Follies
- review at World Literature Today

I was going to write a little more about the making of each of these but I’ll save it for later in November. Thanks for reading!