Mark Katzman’s weird and wonderful Playdate looks like a poem and reads like a novel. Fast, ever so fast and on point, it hurtles you through its dizzying narrative and leaves you gasping for breath.

Mark Katzman, Playdate, Civil Coping Mechanisms, 2015.
www.markkatzman.net/


“Mark Katzman’s weird and wonderful Playdate looks like a poem and reads like a novel. Fast, ever so fast and on point, it hurtles you through its dizzying narrative and leaves you gasping for breath. What a book. Once you start, it’s impossible to stop reading.”—Paul Auster

“A weird wild ride with a protagonist that’s more sophisticated than Lester Ballard and more hysterical than Norman Bates.”–Jim Ruland

I have the house all to myself now.
Mother and father are here but they’re not talking. This will take all night. In the morning I shall finish the job. Perhaps after a game of pool. Yes, that’s how it will be. They’ll find me sprawled across the red felt with my little ass in the air.
Good. Settled. We can move on.
You look peaceful, mother. I’m going to touch you up a bit.
There.
I want you to look your best. Father too.
Family occasions are so rare.



Mark Katzman, I Russian Bride: A Novel in Letters, CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2011.

True love or complete deception? Herewith 140 emails from Ivana - masseuse in a small hospital in Tair, Russia - to an older American man. Is either who they say they are? (is anybody who they say they are?) "I perish without your love to edge of a planet, Ivana."

I Russian Bride tells the story of a Russian woman in love with an American man through a means only possible in our technological world. It is a story of true love and naivete underscored by the uncertainty inherent in a virtually-connected world. Ivana's emails to her beloved leave unanswered questions lurking about the honesty of relationships and the potential for deception in human interactions. A distinct distance from the outside world pervades in sometimes fairytale-like letters, while heavier letters recall modern struggles in Russia and the changes in interpersonal relationships brought about by asynchronous communication modes on the Internet."