Truth Speed

Philip Best writes: Yesterday I heard the desperately sad news that James Williamson, of Creation Books, has died. By way of tribute, and record, here’s the introduction that James invited Peter to provide for an annotated bibliography of the press. Peter knew James far better than me, and indeed introduced us at the Creation offices, back in the 90s. It was a fertile working environment, a laboratory of intoxicants and ideas, with frequent recourse to local hostelries; and all presided over by a man who had a vision of what writing, editing, and publishing could be in their purest, and wildest, form. ♰

James anthologized my books into four volumes and published them as limited edition hardbacks and more generally available paperbacks. Generally being relative by that time. On the spine of the covers, vary faintly, he put the letter C on the first volume and exponentially U and N and T. Looks silly if you don’t have all four on your shelf. Could have been his comment on the less general collecting audience just as well as his appreciation of my fine self, certainly.

Could better be a comment on the available content that featured news clippings and violent tabloid and highstreet come-ons. Might have been a sliding insult or brag at himself for publishing mark-up prurience for the bright levels playing low to its colorful apposite. Derek and Clive. Iggy Pop and Alex Harvey singling out audience cunts. Anyway, I don’t think it was just a cunt. Could be exactly the way he uses words as James Havoc. I don’t mind postmodern stabs as long as they’re all filthy then. There’s a precision to Havoc’s dirt. Speedy.

As in real, not bar amphetamine or redneck nerves. Can’t help the truth speed. Fucks you as it could. Too much room to breathe, maybe, but perfectly claustrophobic by endurant obsession. Chewing the simile, it’s a bit tight heading for tighter, worse.

And then, not many people probably care about the catalog numbers for the Rolling Stones albums on their boutique label that had the prefix COC. If you thought it might be just a puerile little coincidence, the cassette issues had the prefix CUN. That period, point of fact, was when The Rolling Stones were slithering back below the mainstream in much the same way Creation would. It starts, not ends, with Altamont. And Performance. And sex and murder, in my opinion, was where Havoc expertly slid.

There’s some deeply ugly Altamont bootlegs. Greater sleazy insults from the Performance concepts and arrogance. More excitedly sexual and burly and riled than cataclysmic or tragic. Maybe James reconnoitered there but skirred, effortlessly, to not retreat. Use CUNT as vivid continuum. Of course, he didn’t put COCK on the paperbacks.

The genre crap films and books and art that were being released during this important period just appallingly next to the ones that really mattered. Asocial research in folds and slop rather than lines and graphs and manipulatives.

James printed a little gun next to every page number in Predicate. This book caused his distributors to be threatened by Barnes and Noble cancelling their entire company contracts. He asked me to contribute a piece on Hamilton for an anthology he was designing around famous suicides. Genius to think of Hamilton. I turned it into a full book and let James edit whatever he liked into the chapter he wanted for Straight To Hell: 20th Century Suicides. James wanted to publish the full book on Thomas Hamilton’s Dunblane anniversary and timed it perfectly or terribly, depending on what side of the newspapers you’re on.

Havoc’s hybristophilia and hypersensitivity. Scatological when literal, the blunt part of upskirting and biker bulges and John Money assholed. Gilles de Rais as more Le Scouamec than Nasser. As Raism, relentless and needful. Possessive rather than possessed, the uglier interiors than the surrealist exteriors and their fawning apologies. The cruel difference between praying before or after masturbating.

James continued to publish me and, in fact, had to pull copies of the next book after Predicate from distribution when it ended up in the Georgia State Congress. The lawyer that initially filed suit was especially upset over the adcopy James wrote for the glassiers selling the “child porn star” contained therein. His phrase. I think. As apt. Sounds more like James than me. Sounds like I may be blaming him for marketing wiles and time repellent exploitations. I’m not. Cunt, it meant more than getting under idiots’ skin or separating them from their shekels. The logical more in lurid more.

The amount of layout work I asked him to do for Lordotics (for a minuscule amount of actually published copies) was quite possibly insane if not obnoxious but that which he completed beautifully. Selected a full bleed cover photograph that a closet case was too frightened to put his name to. James allowed me to do away completely with blurbs and adcopy for the backcovers of the reissues for three books to include only the words Peter Sotos Pornography. This was when the books would be stocked in proper bookstores that certainly didn’t have pornography sections. Of course, the distributors refused to take my books at all eventually. I don’t think I was ever demanding because I never felt like I had to. James knew what suited Creation best, only, and I prefer to think I was appreciative and flattered by any kind agreement therein.

The Havoc books remain in print. Most of the other books by authors not fit to fit, aren’t. The unsightly and lavish history of Creation is a perfect monograph of Havoc’s generous rigor and obdurate gluttony. Footnotes to his devoured view and exploding sex or re-sexed subject.

I saw some lights in the interests he mined for all his publishing projects but I was astounded by his personal books. Having had to read through the promises of Burroughs and Ballard and found them wanting, wretchedly so, I lined up with Havoc as one of the few perversely current writers who knew to tell exactly what was failing in other must-reads that never delivered faithfully. Havoc had the ability to deepen the themes and attractions and rusted greasy begs that fops used to front for daring while only keeping to the bluff and forge ginzo stalls. No one likes a Georges Battaile book after they’ve read it. Had dispensed with Lovecraft before I showed up at the Creation offices to buy the books I couldn’t find elsewhere. Guyotat was essential to understanding Creation but, I swear, fucking worthless outside of that.

I take what I write terribly seriously. Given the appreciation for it being released to a greater public; not so much. And, within the frame that Creation put over the books, my still writing what I want seems to suggest that I should have taken the latter more seriously than I still do not do. Oddly, that refusal to stop and my loathing for wider distribution makes some greater sense directly because of my luck from working closely with James and Creation from nearly the very start. James always did more for me than I could do for him and it’s a larger worry than any attempt to say, here, thanks very much, once again. Hope I paid all my rounds.

I was firmly part of a greater art created by Creation books. Truth is, and this is from the time, believe it or not, I liked being part of what James was pushing out into the world even though I despised most of the authors that he published. Knew about lousy embalmers and creative creepies because, I always figured, James was maybe as provoked by them for the same digressive reasons I would be initially. Only to be educated or disillusioned when the research was done.

Being part of his highly personal, unique and compelling oeuvre, rather than a haphazard and desperate zeitgeist, was clear and decidedly unhumble to me. Clearer even now, frankly but not essentially. The medium falls short and, typically, is shot through to holes of the kinds of lice that write books and want to be small movie stars. When the real job. Is over there.

Loud repeats of underachievers find market worth in dandying their destroying of language and narrative. Exposing lies. Exploring truths. Cleaning mirrors. Objectively and politely sniffing subrosas as driven to mission. Decades before they ever latched onto the cheapest ambitions nearest. I don’t know how many books were commissioned by Creation Books LTD but I’d suspect more than you would guess or the writers would admit. I also don’t know how many of these slips proffered books to an underground publishing house then failed to grasp the real reasons for an underground. Shame when you consider what Creation was offering them.

Sometimes I tried to figure out who was James writing under another name or just a writer miserably appropriating his style and personality. I’d ask him directly sometimes. Not sure I believed him sometimes. Knew that he’d have to create most of what he wanted and it’s phenomenally beautiful; more new sinew than old bones. Not the forensics and labeling and tracking but the better biting facts that come from constant collected, not collective, consistency. It’s not a taste. The subject is violence, irredeemable and unremitting. Not helpful or healing, not giddy or base or safe as twisted, nothing that couldn’t be damning if not more real.

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