Critical Commentary
SAW -- Steve Katz
SAW is a milestone novel of the seventies. It is the first work of fiction ever to hide a hippopotamus. For the first time what has come to be recognized as a common modern neurosis, astronaut angst, gets full play in the fictional universe. For the first time anywhere in the history of fiction, in one of the most passionate encounters ever written, Eileen mates with a Sphere. Solid geometry finally has a face. The Cylinder is a nemesis, and its terrifying accomplishments roll on like a nightmare for this astronaut. This is a work of science fiction, geometric fiction, irrefutable fact, and gourmand fantasies.
Steve Katz, whose SWANNY'S WAYS won the America Award in fiction in 1995 was acclaimed for SAW by the New York Times Book Review as "... a witty fantasist who can homogenize pop detritus, campy slang and hallucination to achieve inspired chaos."
On Blurbs for Kissssss : a miscellany
Steve Katz comes off the loping forward rush of his latest masterful novel, “Antonello’s Lion,” with a collection of short pieces: acerbic, innovative, humorous. and above all, perversely engaging.
--Rudy Wurlitzer, author of Nog, Flats, Quake, Slow Fade, Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid, etc.
Steve Katz’s comic genius is subversive. Readers beware. You may die laughing.
--Walter Abish, author of How German Is it, Alphabetical Africa, Eclipse Fever, etc.,
Steve Katz is an American treasure: a delirious imagination in a major stylist. His 21006 novel, Antonello’s Lion, is an epic comic lament. Reading these stories you can imagine Flann O’Brien crossed with Nathaniel West. No one has chronicled the impact of the women’s movement more vividly and withy less bias. No one has performed more loving surgery on the international art scene.
--Wendy Walker, author of The Seat Rabbit, Stories Out of Omarie.
In my opinion, Steve Katz is the greatest living novelist in English,
and the one most likely to keep our hearts and minds in good-working
order, to keep us truly human in a world where brainless tech-loving
Moorlocks hog the sunshine, and thoughtful, life loving Eloi have been
driven underground.
--William Bamberger, Bamberger Books
Other comments on his work follow:
"Katz is the closest to being a jazz musician with language, using his gift for sound and circumstance to create dazzling improvisations."
-Jerome Klinkowitz in The Life Of Fiction
"Like Rimbaud, Steve Katz was formed of ice and polar nights, and as always he is much alive, hurt and hurting, loved and loving, a contentious knight of Hope out to do battle with the toothless electronic Dragon of Commerce."
- Michael Stephens on Moving Parts in American Book Review
"What Katz has done is open up another dimension of communication within the closed idea of what constitutes the novel. The book...shakes off the past like a heavy, dull stone...and gives hope to fiction..."
- Seymour Krim on The Exaggerations of Peter Prince
"One anticipates that with the publication of his recent masterwork, Swanny's Ways, critically acclaimed yet largely overlooked writer Steve Katz will receive the serious attention he deserves.
- Murray Shugars in The Sycamore Review
"Almost perfect in originality and purpose, The Exagggerations Of Peter Prince may be one of the most creative novels to be published in English since the twenties... It is brilliant with flawless beauty."
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Feature Parade Magazine
"According to me, the most important living American novelist...
- Bill Bamberger, Bamberger Books
"You've gotten so big, I can hardly get around you to get through the door. Michael Brownstein, author of World on Fire
(any questions call me (303) 832 2534 or email)
