Speak Softly Among Icebergs
our hours, and other media melting fast - a (found) novel palimpsest
by R. P. Singletary
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Pub Date Apr 23 2026 | Archive Date Aug 31 2026
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Description
THIS IS NOT A SAD BOOK. IF YOU LOVE...WORDS.
... [ a lyrical marriage of Faulkner and McCarthy, with Melville's Hawthorne for good measure; -rob ]
... [ and then, there's the explicitness of Allison (Bastard) and Chatwin (travelogue). -roberta ]
... [ Oк, a little more than a 3-way but who's counting? -rob ].
"A man falls to pieces after a son's suicide, his own divorcе, and left to his devices embarks on time-travel, shape-shift, nearly every type of drug, and reminisce to heal. Which he does, bringing us along for all the pain, but oh the fun too."
An experimental love story of cross-genre format in word-loving shapes and sizes for all. An eco-friendly romp through strange-climate's time and place with an open-door's-policy coterie of characters! FUN!
A grief-wrought creature comes to terms with the suicide of his only child and a subsequent marital demise. He tries any and nearly every aid possible to buoy his sanity: drugs, sex, talk therapy and family gossip; travel near and far (real+imagined?), church and family traditions; other occupations and more schooling; literary therapy: writing to vent and better understand the world he wonders, wanders should he live in--
Recalling his own childhood, the man settles on those formative years with the lesbian/gf Berry--what nearly ended with a pregnancy unresolved. A child born and given away.
MEANWHILE, he happens upon an inheritance, a trunk containing a long-dead family member's unpublished travelogue: centering largely on that man's own secrets, we explore the dead relation's escapades in the former Constantinople, a continent-straddling city of many names and conflicting histories....IF "1" place can be so many, perhaps there's hope for me, our Main Man reasons in confession.
WHOEVER SAID (or thought) grief was to be so kind
OR SO LIBERATING.
#eco #environ #purlieus #climate #travel #ageless #timeless #love #scifi #fun #genreless #withoutboundary #limitsbegone #whoosh
###
A Note From the Publisher
Advance Praise
"Singletary’s work is a crushing rush of prose about grief and how to put a life together after tragedy blasts it apart....Treasures are found, adventures hallucinatingly had, and sanity is (or at least attempted to be) grasped." -Reno, Nev.-based literary magazine FEIGN (USA)
"There’s certainly a great deal of energy in the writing, the frenzied and experimental formatting is unique, and there’s definitely no other book around quite like this one. Even so, reading this requires too much effort and offers little reward, and it is unkind to ask readers to attempt it." -Kirkus Reviews
Oh, really? -someone (replied to both!)
Marketing Plan
GoodReads Giveway the June month of Pride, look us up there SOON (they're approving ATM)
- https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/18814039-r-p-singletary
- https://www.goodreads.com/giveaway
next up, RVA. that's Richmond, Va., for PrideLitCon where we'll be speaking on the Real Lives, Queer Identity AND Arts and Activism panels + tabling some pages. * JUNE 13-14. https://pridelitcon.com/
JUNE 15, WE'RE IN CHAPEL HILL, N.C. >> https://www.epiloguebook.com/events
WATCH FOR NEWS ABOUT KANSAS CITY soon.
I'll be at LAcon V: The 84th World Science Fiction Convention in southern Calif. Come along! https://www.lacon.org/
PAST EVENTS-----
JOIN US FOR A BOOK TALK the day before launch --- on Earth Day (April 22) -- it's free but seating is limited so please register if you can be in Atlanta: https://fulcolibrary.bibliocommons.com/events/6983b79e94297d3600a9ff4a
IF YOU'RE IN COLUMBIA, S.C. join us at All Good Books in 5 Points for a reading on April 27 >> https://allgoodbooks.com/events/4876720260427
IF YOU'RE IN NYC in early May, join us at what's billed as the largest LGBTQ+ book event in the U.S.A.: the Rainbow Book Fair on May 9 >> https://rainbowbookfair.com/
WE HAD A COOL promo (thank you) in Not A Pipe's Writers Not Writing aka Tilting at Windmills across several of their socials back in March:
- https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/tilting-at-windmills-chapter-7-the-lady-of-the/id1665406847?i=1000752771390
- https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5KUDJUkgoxeEgtDslPjcgXG5JZbsAsvn
COVER REVEAL - eve of Valentine's ... on Instagram by Reno, Nev.-based lit mag FEIGN >> https://www.instagram.com/p/DUtRxJNj3ED/?img_index=1
FULL-PAGE AD - 100subtexts (U.K.) - issue 43 published Feb. 26th >> https://100subtextsmagazine.blogspot.com/
************ thanks to all for their support; stay tuned for our next novel .. a tOOOOOOOOOOotally different work, both in story + narration. !@#$%^&*()
Available Editions
| EDITION | Paperback |
| ISBN | 9781961206298 |
| PRICE | $20.00 (USD) |
| PAGES | 440 |
Available on NetGalley
Average rating from 2 members
Featured Reviews
Tess H, Reviewer
I'm sad to say that I won't be finishing this book. It is an epic of poetry that echoes books like House of Leaves as a man searches for means of coping in the wake of his son's suicide.
I only got through about 10% of this book, which doesn't reflect poorly on it. I simply find books like House of Leaves and this to be unreadable. I read almost purely for my own enjoyment and curiosity. Books like this function more as an art piece that needs to be studied, preferably with a notebook to keep track of what's happening and the changes in the story. They just simply aren't made for readers like me.
When I requested this book, I expected less prose poetry and more traditional poems interspersed with letters/photos. This book seems like it will be nearly entirely prose poetry, broken up by other elements on occasion. Again, this book echoes House of Leaves, so it wasn't what I was looking for.
It's very obvious that the author is an extremely talented individual. The prose poetry I read was interesting to look at on the page and fascinating to read. I hope they are able to continue writing and find their audience with stories like these (or something else). It just simply wasn't for me, unfortunately.
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