Book Review: “Pure Cosmos Club” by Matthew Binder
A Satisfying Satire
Sometimes, authors or publicists reach out to me to review a book based on something I’ve written in the past. The logic goes that, “If you’ve positively reviewed Book X, then you’re bound to love my new work, Book Y.” And so, from time to time, I come across books and authors that I would have never otherwise heard of or been exposed to. Such is the case with Matthew Binder’s divine forthcoming book Pure Cosmos Club. He reached out to me and asked if I would have a look, and, curious, I said yes. I said yes because the publicity materials for this suggested that Binder is the American Haruki Murakami. I’m not so sure about that — if anything, Pure Cosmos Club reads like what you’d get if you crossed the droll humour of Kurt Vonnegut with the vulgar Charles Bukowski, maybe on a day when the latter was not drinking. Still, this is an enjoyable and entertaining novel, and I was quite surprised by its quality as it comes from an American publisher I’ve never heard of before. Usually, the case with small presses is that they’re the breeding ground for either work that is super experimental or was rejected by major publishing houses for not being commercial enough. Pure Cosmos Club is a book that could have been published by, say, Penguin Random House. It is quite well-written, even if it rambles and doesn’t have a conventional plot, per se. (And that’s not a criticism. This book is just not structured in a typical way.)
The book is focused on a 37-year-old New Yorker named Paul. He has just lost his girlfriend, and is on the verge of losing his apartment and that’s because he doesn’t have a job. Instead of working, he tries his hand at being an unconventional visual artist. Through his art gallery connections, he meets a woman named Orsi and sleeps with her despite the fact she’s married. It turns out that her husband, James, is the leader of a quasi-religious cult called the Pure Cosmo Club. Paul desperately tries to become a high-ranking member of this group, willing to even sabotage his friendships and working partnerships to do so. To this end, the novel questions how far a man would be willing to go to sacrifice everything that he has for the name of religion. But it also asks questions about personal responsibility and skewers the idea that those working in the realms of both high art and high fashion — one of Paul’s friends is trying to launch a collection of backpacks made from the bodies of cats (yikes!) — as people who are willing to forgo any sort of attention and care to looking after themselves (and others).
The book shares some eerie similarities with the recently published No One Left to Come Looking for You by Sam Lipsyte. Both are subversive novels about artists who live in filth and squalor, and both books have dollops of ribald humour. The only difference is that Lipsyte’s book is about musicians and Binder’s book is about sculptors, painters, and fashion designers. Still, I’m sure that one can read each book and find something to appreciate in either one — they both are on the same level and essentially say things about the need to be compassionate about other people. Interestingly, Binder’s characters are extremely self-absorbed, though possibly well-meaning. Things are a little different in Lipsyte’s book, as the ending from what I can recall is more touching when it comes to relations with friends. However, this is probably something of a digression as Pure Cosmos Club is an ambitious work that’s original in its own right. If you think hard enough about it, you can probably see that there are some loose ends left dangling at the end — I could mention one or two that comes to mind, but I would ultimately risk spoiling this novel’s conclusion.
All in all, I think it was Ian MacKaye of Fugazi who once said that if you want nutritious, good food, you have to be willing to walk a little further down the block and find an independent butcher or food store to get fresh meat and produce that’s of higher quality than what you might find at a supermarket. The same goes for Pure Cosmos Club. This is a very good book — not a book of perfection, but a very good one — that you might have to put a little more hustle into in terms of finding a copy once it’s published. You’re probably not going to find this novel in a big-box store that retails books such as Barnes & Noble or Indigo. You would have to first find out about it through reviews such as this and maybe then waltz over to an independent bookstore to see if they have a copy or can order it for you. (There is also probably Amazon, but it’s always good to try supporting the little guy first as much as you can.) If anything, Pure Cosmos Club helped me confront my biases about small-press publishing. This is a book that proves that worthwhile fiction and literature are being published on the margins that are worth searching out and supporting when you can. If you’re willing to take the risk, books like Pure Cosmos Club are welcome examples of work being done on the fringes. So, if you’re looking for a little more adventure in your book-consuming diet, you might want to give a book such as this one a try. It may just surprise you. In the end, Pure Cosmos Club is a worthwhile addition to the world of arts and letters, and here’s hoping that it gives its author enough attention to garner interest for his next novel from major publishers — if that’s what he wants. Or, at the very least, one hopes that enough reviews like this one lead to Binder having enough money to pay the rent for a month. Fingers crossed.
Matthew Binder’s Pure Cosmos Club will be published by Stalking Horse Press on May 15, 2023.
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