Terror Trickles Down

Raw Dog Screaming Press has released the collection Terror-Dot-Gov, the twelfth book from guerilla writer Harold Jaffe. This book of "docufiction" dissects the War On Terror to pin down not only its causes and effects on America, but its shortcomings and effect on the world at large. While other books of political analysis are dry, Jaffe's unique approach is both infinitely sad and hilarious.

(PRWEB) June 10, 2005 -- Raw Dog Screaming Press is proud to release Harold Jaffes most unflinching book to date, Terror-Dot-Gov, a collection of docufictions that dissect the nature of terrorism. Set in our own contemporary mediatized reality, these docufictions blend the facts deftly with fictional elements to chronicle our times more accurately than nonfiction ever could. This book is distributed
through Ingram, Baker & Taylor, Bertrams UK, and direct from the publisher.

The author will be making several appearances throughout 2005 in support of this release. Publicity began with a signing at Aztec Books in San Diego, May 3. Then, on June 7 and 8.

Jaffe participated in the Revolution and the Avant Garde event at San Diego State University, where he did a reading followed by a lecture and discussion. More speaking engagements will follow in the summer.

Jaffe is well known as one of the most prominent postmodernist authors in North America. Those who enjoy satire and progressive political literature will be attracted to what Terror-Dot-Gov offers. This book will be of special interest to fans of Michael Moore and Al Franken.

In addition to author appearances, Terror-Dot-Gov will also be promoted through display ads in magazines, banner ads, catalogs, direct mail, and interviews.

From the Back of the Book
As in Harold Jaffes two previous docufiction" collections, False Positive and 15 Serial Killers, the author of Terror- Dot-Gov selects then treats" his texts such that the reader is incapable of distinguishing between fact and fiction. That ambiguity permits Jaffe to cunningly tease out the contradictions and subtexts of official news" or information" and torque it into what it so often is fundamentally: jingoism, xenophobia and propaganda. Jaffes subject in Terror-Dot-Gov is not the everywhere-represented illicit" terrorism so much as licit," institutionalized terrorism, and he assaults his subject from multiple angles: razor-sharp satire, precisely cadenced rhetoric, faux reportage, and unsituated" dialogues (Jaffes term, referring to his trademark talking heads with perfect pitch). The result is virtuosic and paradoxical: a prodigious display of firepower-in the cause of peace.

Critical Acclaim for Terror-Dot-Gov
As Terror-Dot-Gov vividly demonstrates: We are spiritually imperiled by illusions masked as 'news. Omissions, slants, pallid editorials all testifying to servitude to a slavish, enslaving text. Harold Jaffe knows this by heart and has it right. He isolates the self-justifying words that demonize the enemy while cleansing the ongoing crime, the 'preventive strike. He encourages organized terror (our very own) to emerge white as new-fallen snow. White as leprosy. Everywhere in Terror-Dot- Gov is exemplary skill, faultless tonality. And courage, dont forget courage. In order to be healed, our illness must worsen. Thank you, Harold Jaffe." -Daniel Berrigan, SJ

Kill your TV. Terror-Dot-Gov will give you all the news thats unfit to print-reportage gone fictive (or is it vice versa?) Jaffes brilliantly constructed docufictions blast holes through the mediadrome to unmask the terrifying institutionalized rhetoric that passes itself off as business as usual." -Jan Ramjerdi

"Terror-Dot-Gov is a full frontal assault on our duct-taped minds. High velocity words fired with unerring precision, dancing feverishly on the page before zapping their target, which is nothing less than First World" war-mongering and the terror it invokes to validate itself." -Faruk Ulay
About the Author

Harold Jaffe is the author of 12 books, including nine fiction collections and three novels, including 15 Serial Killers, False Positive, Sex for the Millennium, and Othello Blues. His fiction has appeared in such journals as Mississippi Review; City Lights Review; Paris Review; New Directions in Prose and Poetry; Chicago Review; Chelsea; Fiction; Central Park; Witness; Black Ice; Minnesota Review; Boundary 2; ACM; Black Warrior Review; Cream City Review; Two Girls Review; and New Novel Review. His stories have been anthologized in Pushcart Prize; Best American Stories; Best of American Humor; Storming the Reality Studio; American Made; Avant Pop: Fiction for a Daydreaming Nation; After Yesterdays Crash: The Avant-Pop Anthology; Bateria and Am Lit (Germany); Borderlands (Mexico); Praz (Italy); Positive (Japan); and elsewhere. His novels and stories have been translated into German, Japanese, Spanish, French, Dutch, Czech, and Serbo-Croatian. Harold Jaffe has won two NEA grants in fiction, a New York CAPS grant, a California Arts Council fellowship in fiction, and a San Diego fellowship (COMBO) in fiction. Jaffe teaches literature at San Diego State University (San Diego, California) and is editor of Fiction International.

Terror-Dot-Gov by Harold Jaffe
156 pages, trade paperback, $13.95
Release date: June 2005
ISBN: 1-933293-09-8, distributed by Ingram

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