{"product_id":"bastards-paperback","title":"Bastards - Paperback","description":"\u003cp\u003eby \u003cb\u003eNate Lippens\u003c\/b\u003e (Author)\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eThe conclusion to Nate Lippens' Wisconsin trilogy: a book of losses, memories, and survival.\u003c\/b\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ci\u003eA full-on breakdown, wouldn't that be fabulously dramatic? Instead, I ended up in green gripper socks, sweatpants, and a T-shirt, a look like a California cult member or a suburban schlub (same thing) on a seventy-two-hour hold--a crack-up fortnight--until I started acting like myself. Well, not myself, because how would they know who that is? A facsimile of normal. I mimed coherence, the continuity of a person moving from room to room. I performed my sadness convincingly, pimped memories of Rudy, flensed my crazy down to thimbles of death, an understandable loss. \u003c\/i\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ci\u003e You win. I say it all the time to people. You win. You won. You're the winner. Congratulations. I said it when a boyfriend told me he didn't love me. I said it on the ward. I said it when I got evicted. You win. Good for you.\u003c\/i\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eRecently sprung from a stint on a psychiatric ward, the narrator of \u003ci\u003eBastards\u003c\/i\u003e works hard to perform at being a person while questioning the concept of identity and what it means to be an aging working-class gay man when the word \u003ci\u003equeer\u003c\/i\u003e has become so elastic and gentrified it's used to conservative ends. Struggling to survive, pay rent, and navigate a hostile world, he takes solace in art and his friends and measures what makes a life. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eBorrowing from the tropes of fragmented lyric essays, New Narrative, autofiction, and transgressive literature, Lippens is a bricoleur who creates a confected new form in his short novels. Queer pessimism in the age of affirmation. A search for something honest. An old queen's cackle.\u003ch3\u003eAuthor Biography\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003eNate Lippens is the author of \u003ci\u003eMy Dead Book\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eRipcord\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003eBastards\u003c\/i\u003e, and co-wrote the novel \u003ci\u003eBox Office Poison\u003c\/i\u003e with Matthew Kinlin. His fiction has appeared in many anthologies, including \u003ci\u003ePathetic Literature\u003c\/i\u003e edited by Eileen Myles and \u003ci\u003eSluts\u003c\/i\u003e edited by Michelle Tea, and he edited the zine \u003ci\u003eTruant\u003c\/i\u003e. His essays and short fiction have been published by \u003ci\u003eArtforum\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eDelfi\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eFrieze\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eFull Stop\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eSouthwest Review\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eTank\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003eThe Whitney Review\u003c\/i\u003e. He lives in Wisconsin.\u003c\/p\u003e\n            \u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eNumber of Pages:\u003c\/strong\u003e 160\u003c\/div\u003e\n            \u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eDimensions:\u003c\/strong\u003e 0.7 x 7.9 x 5.3 IN\u003c\/div\u003e\n            \u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003ePublication Date:\u003c\/strong\u003e September 29, 2026\u003c\/div\u003e\n            ","brand":"BooksCloud","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":67936137740655,"sku":"9781635902860","price":17.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0955\/2199\/7167\/files\/UYn6_49fsy9781635902860.webp?v=1793263840","url":"https:\/\/www.anerdwithabookstore.com\/products\/bastards-paperback","provider":"A Nerd with a Bookstore","version":"1.0","type":"link"}