James Reich’s sixth novel The Moth for the Star will be published by 7.13 Books in the summer of 2023.
Charles Varnas is a murderer who has forgotten his victim. Set in New York, 1930, five years after the killing in Cairo, Varnas and his androgynous partner Campbell exist in a glamorous paranoia, haunted by satanic intimations of their guilt, the specter of an Egyptian detective, and the suspicion that the limits of life do not apply to them. In the wake of the stock market crash, tormented by ambiguous memories, Varnas and Campbell must face their crime, and the essence of evil. The events of the novel also take place in the Venice and Oxford of the protagonists’ questionable recollections. The narrative shifts between the modern city and the mythic desert, between an alcoholic present, an unconscious past, and an apocalyptic future of environmental catastrophe that is contemporary and prescient. The novel is premised upon an aphorism from Carl Jung, and the title is derived from a poem by Percy Shelley.
More details soon.
