Mad voices
Explore the Mad Voices reading list—a curated collection of visionary fiction. Dive into Gérard de Nerval's Journey to the Orient, Jason Bentsman's Mardi Gras in the Moment, and Flesh Unlimited, where unique voices and surreal narratives collide.
Book
Mardi Gras in the Moment
by Jason Bentsman
The world has waited decades for a new anti-hero in American fiction, a character who prophesizes the pettiness of American social life at the beginning of the twenty-first century. With Conrad Greyman, a social visionary arrives to illuminate the inequities and shallowness of our social lives now, as the Beats did for their generation.In a musty dorm room at an elite college in upstate New York sleeps Conrad Greyman. He sleeps all the time, in fact. Conrad is a casualty of postmodern malaise and bears hidden wounds he doesnt understand.Mardi Gras tells the fantastic story of Conrads spontaneous trip to the great Southern festival. He finds there, amid the infernal chaos of neon lights and Bourbon, a chance for unlikely redemption. Conrads journey through the mad streets of New Orleans becomes a modern hero-quest, and New Orleans an epic landscape. Conrads adventure is populated by holy fools who come to his aid, menacing frat boys, magical beads, and unadulterated American decadence. In the balance hangs the fate of an inward-looking soul trying to make his way through a fractured, carnivalistic world.
