A visceral, surrealist tale of becoming, from the shamanic cult hero of contemporary queer poetry

Beguiling, outrageous, playfully morbid and frequently stunning in its surreal flights of imagination, The Book of Frank follows the eponymous figure as he grows from his troubled childhood into an adult travesty of the ostensibly straight family man in a male-dominated world. Along the way, he navigates a series of darkly comic situations, commits acts of grotesque violence, loses his soul in the post and debates boundary lines with a pig. Frank is one of the great literary creations: a man who can declare that 'however we seek another's weakness is our tyranny', as often touchingly innocent as he is monstrously cruel.

Called 'a contemporary masterpiece' by Thurston Moore, a 'desert island book' by Anne Boyer and 'this generation's Dream Songs' by Maggie Nelson, The Book of Frank is one of the crucial poetic works of this century so far. Now, on the 30th anniversary of the first Frank poems' appearance, it is published in the UK for the first time.

About the Author
CAConrad has been working with the ancient technologies of poetry and ritual since 1975. They are the author of numerous poetry collections, including The Book of Frank (2010), Amanda Paradise: Resurrect Extinct Vibration (2021) and the selected volume You Don't Have What It Takes to Be My Nemesis: And Other (Soma)tics (2023). They have received many grants and awards, including most recently the 2022 Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize. They regularly teach at Columbia University in New York City and at the Sandberg Art Institute in Amsterdam.

Reviews
I've heard it said that The Book of Frank is this generation's Dream Songs, but I think The Book of Frank surges ahead in experiment and lasting power -- Maggie Nelson, author of THE ARGONAUTS
This is not merely a desert island book, but a book for a desert world. The Book of Frank lilts through the strangeness, brutality, and beauty of our often terrible age. These are unsparing poems, and it has been a gift to be sweetly wrecked by them again and again, never quite knowing whether to meet the mythic Frank with laughter or with tears -- Anne Boyer, author of THE UNDYING
CAConrad's The Book of Frank enters like a Dixie tornado of nightmare surreality, the trash of USA demon seed consciousness assaulting the senses. CA's magic is his poetics, the transference of rotten hearts into crystal intellect, angel dreams, rhythms seeking love, and locating it in the essence of ritual and language. The Book of Frank is a contemporary masterpiece of radical prose in which the writer's soul sings across the page, rising above the indignities of Earthbound chaos, where humor and horror dance to the beat of the living dead -- Thurston Moore
I can never have enough CAConrad, like paprika or wisdom in disguise. Is he the Frank of the book? -- Bernadette Mayer, author of MEMORY



Book Information
ISBN 9781802062304
Author CAConrad
Format Paperback
Page Count 176
Imprint Penguin
Publisher Penguin Books Ltd
Weight(grams) 158g
Dimensions(mm) 197mm * 128mm * 15mm