Finalist, Writers Trust Dayne Ogilvie Prize for LGBTQ2S+ Emerging Writers
I have just heard for the first time the expression “to make soup”: it means to mix the bottom-of-the-pocket drugs of everyone huddled in the club toilet stall, opened MD, ketamine, old dry speed, crushed e pills, to make big lines that will let us forget the past forty-eight hours that have been so difficult.
In Instagram-style vignettes that span Montreal, New York, and Berlin, our narrator — a doctoral student in medieval studies — leads us through the bathrooms and back rooms of clubs and raves as he explores the sex, drugs, and music that define queer nightlife.
Accompanied by Jacob Pyne’s full-colour illustrations, which perfectly punctuate the narrator’s occasional self-destructive melancholy, Scenes from the Underground delivers the fully uninhibited field notes of the club scene.
Finalist, Writers Trust Dayne Ogilvie Prize for LGBTQ2S+ Emerging Writers
I have just heard for the first time the expression “to make soup”: it means to mix the bottom-of-the-pocket drugs of everyone huddled in the club toilet stall, opened MD, ketamine, old dry speed, crushed e pills, to make big lines that will let us forget the past forty-eight hours that have been so difficult.
In Instagram-style vignettes that span Montreal, New York, and Berlin, our narrator — a doctoral student in medieval studies — leads us through the bathrooms and back rooms of clubs and raves as he explores the sex, drugs, and music that define queer nightlife.
Accompanied by Jacob Pyne’s full-colour illustrations, which perfectly punctuate the narrator’s occasional self-destructive melancholy, Scenes from the Underground delivers the fully uninhibited field notes of the club scene.
| Published By | House of Anansi Press Inc — Oct 4, 2022 |
| Specifications | 168 pages | 5.5 in x 8 in |
| Keywords | queer culture; clubbing; montreal; mile x; jordan tannahill; illustration; counterculture; hipster; erotic art; polyamory; canadian literature; creative writing; queer authors; |
| Written By |
GABRIEL CHOLETTE<\/strong> (@gab.cho) scours the New York, Berlin, and Montreal underground scenes for literary material, which he writes on using the codes of Instagram. He is also finishing a thesis on the commercial imagination in medieval French literature. <\/p>\n |
| Illustrated by |
Montreal artist JACOB PYNE<\/strong> (@cumpug) explores themes of sexual identity, relationships, and anonymous sex from a queer perspective. His intimate and erotically charged scenes are inspired by his personal experiences and desires. <\/p>\n |
| Written By |
|
GABRIEL CHOLETTE<\/strong> (@gab.cho) scours the New York, Berlin, and Montreal underground scenes for literary material, which he writes on using the codes of Instagram. He is also finishing a thesis on the commercial imagination in medieval French literature. <\/p>\n |
| Illustrated by |
|
Montreal artist JACOB PYNE<\/strong> (@cumpug) explores themes of sexual identity, relationships, and anonymous sex from a queer perspective. His intimate and erotically charged scenes are inspired by his personal experiences and desires. <\/p>\n |
Short-listed, Writers Trust Dayne Ogilvie Prize for LGBTQ2S+ Emerging Writers, 2023
“
Terse and vivid.<\/p>” —Boston Arts Fuse
“
An ode to queer nightlife … Within the evocative prose, there is no shame or fear of judgment … Cholette succeeds in reflecting the facets of queer nightlife through a pensive lens, allowing readers to dissect its subjects and figures on their own terms.<\/p>” —INTO more
“
The intimacy of being granted nearly full access to someone else’s life, during perhaps some of their most private moments, is captivating and engrossing, and makes Scenes from the Underground<\/em> difficult to put down.<\/p>” —Montreal Review of Books
“
Pyne’s erotic illustrations, depicting unabashed nudity, add to the book’s appeal and help center us further into the narrative that Cholette is telling. … The stories in Scenes from the Underground <\/em>give off a sense of endless exploration. … These blissful moments morph into faceless blurs and snippets of recollection. Affection is so fleeting, and Cholette finds this out the hard way. There is a looming quietness in the juxtaposition to all the chaos.<\/p>” —White Wall Review