Small presses have had a rough year, but as the literary world continues to conglomerate, we at Literary Hub think they’re more important than ever. Which is why, every (work) day in March—which just so happens to be National Small Press Month—a Lit Hub staff member will be recommending a small press book that they love.
The only rule of this game is that there are no rules, except that the books we recommend must have been published, at some time, and in some place, by a small press. What does it mean to be a small press? Unfortunately there is no exact definition or cutoff. All of the presses mentioned here are considered to be small presses by the recommending editors, and for our purposes, that’s going to be good enough. All of the books mentioned here are considered to be great by the recommending editors, too. If one intrigues you, consider picking it up at your local bookstore, or ordering through Bookshop.org, or even directly from the publisher.
Today, we’re recommending:
Pipe Dreams on Pico by Brent L. Smith
published by Far West Press (2021)
Three telepathic women blow up a bank on Venice Boulevard and peel out in a Mustang Cobra. A detective short on time and sleep is soon in hot pursuit as the crime spree escalates. Then the earth starts quaking and people start walking out of flames alive. Pipe Dreams on Pico seems like a fairly standard noir novel, but quickly bursts into something much more strange and dark: a paranormal horror where humanity is called to task for its sins on oily LA blacktop.
Smith’s book blazes by fast and hot, and scrambles the LA detective story: the motivations, methods, and logic of the three women slashing across LA shifts on an improvisational, nearly animalistic whim. Our hero, detective Mel Stokes, is always behind the ball. The pacing is horror-fast, especially as the three women are revealed to be less and less human.
It’s a novella that feels vintage in a lot of ways: there’s some ‘50s B-movie alien invasion in here, alongside hard-boiled LA noir and Steve McQueen movie, muscle car worship. But it’s also ripped from headlines Smith seemed to sense were coming: corporate executives are executed by raging vigilantes and LA is engulfed in oil-industry-fueled flames.
The style is spare and direct, and borrows a lot from the speed and grit of garage punk. Underneath the ripping flame and roaring engines are a stream of half-heard songs—Smith is constantly name-checking rock and roll tracks, and snippets of lyrics are sliced into found poems and littered throughout the text. The old Agent Orange lyrics, “Bloodstains, speed kills/fast cars, cheap thrills,” especially come to mind.
It’s not a perfect book—there are some potholes—but Pipe Dreams is short, propulsive, and doesn’t overstay its welcome, taking only oxygen and leaving only ash.
–James Folta, Staff Writer
