essays and fictions brad phillips

Essays and Fictions by Brad Phillips

New York Tyrant

Brad Phillips ' collection of short stories adeptly walks a very thin line between taboo and propriety, with rigorous self-awareness and generosity. By confusing ideas around fiction and autobiography, Phillips writes with painful sincerity about shame, addiction, trauma, and the more troubling outreaches of sexual desire, with wit that is at odds with the subject matter.  

"Searingly honest, brilliant and disturbing . Brad Phillips peels back the skin and bone and stares right into the human soul." - Anthony Bourdain

"Brad Phillips says, at the beginning of this incredible book, that honesty eludes him. Obviously, that’s a lie. When you read Brad Phillips, you understand why nice women write love letters to men on death row." – Sarah Nicole Prickett

"Last week, Giancarlo Di Trapano turned me on to Suicidal Realism, a short memoir by the Canadian painter Brad Phillips. It’s not exactly an edifying book. Phillips’s main themes are drugs and sex, in that order: “People who like to get fucked up with other people are not people I like to get fucked up with.” But Phillips has a watchful intelligence and self-knowledge, and an impatient sincerity, that sneak up on you (or at least, snuck up on me). He doesn’t ask to be liked, even by his groupies, but he does want to communicate: “I’m not interested in the ones who are drawn to the creator of the work, I’m interested in the ones who are drawn to the content.” — The Paris Review

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9780999218648

Brad Phillips

Tyrant Books

29 January 2019

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• Print length 300 pages
• Language English
• Publisher Tyrant Books
• Publication date 29 January 2019
• Dimensions 12.7 x 1.27 x 20.32 cm
• ISBN-10 0999218646
• ISBN-13 978-0999218648
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• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Tyrant Books (29 January 2019)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Paperback ‏ : ‎ 300 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0999218646
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0999218648
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 12.7 x 1.27 x 20.32 cm
• 6,723 in Psychological Fiction (Books)
• 9,919 in Short Stories (Books)
• 12,173 in Psychological Thrillers (Books)

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Essays and Fictions Paperback – 29 Jan. 2019

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• Print length 300 pages
• Language English
• Publisher Tyrant Books
• Publication date 29 Jan. 2019
• Dimensions 12.7 x 1.27 x 20.32 cm
• ISBN-10 0999218646
• ISBN-13 978-0999218648
• See all details

Product description

About the author, product details.

• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Tyrant Books (29 Jan. 2019)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Paperback ‏ : ‎ 300 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0999218646
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0999218648
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 12.7 x 1.27 x 20.32 cm
• 13,284 in Psychological Fiction (Books)
• 19,192 in Psychological Thrillers (Books)
• 35,027 in Short Stories (Books)

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Essays and Fictions

• By: Brad Phillips
• Narrated by: Jon Leyden
• Length: 4 hrs and 37 mins
• 4.8 out of 5 stars 4.8 (17 ratings)

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"Searingly honest, brilliant and disturbing. Brad Phillips peels back the skin and bone and stares right into the human soul." (Anthony Bourdain)

Brad Phillips' collection of short stories adeptly walks a very thin line between taboo and propriety, with rigorous self-awareness and generosity.

By confusing ideas around fiction and autobiography, Phillips writes with painful sincerity about shame, addiction, trauma, and the more troubling outreaches of sexual desire, with wit that is at odds with the subject matter. Brad Phillips is a well-known Canadian artist. This book has blurbs from Anthony Bourdain and The Paris Review .

• Unabridged Audiobook
• Categories: Literature & Fiction

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What listeners say about Essays and Fictions

• 5 out of 5 stars 4.8 out of 5.0
• 4.5 out of 5 stars 4.6 out of 5.0
• 4.5 out of 5 stars 4.7 out of 5.0

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Audible.com reviews, amazon reviews.

• Overall 5 out of 5 stars
• Performance 5 out of 5 stars
• Story 5 out of 5 stars

• Amazon Customer

Brad Phillips messed me up with this. The good way. Jon Leyden's voice could not be more perfect. Another Talking Book Classic. Thank you both so much.

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Absolutely beautiful

One of the best books and also recordings I’ve read/heard in the last 5 years. No joke. Don’t sleep on this.

• Anonymous User

u should read it i really liked it very much 5 words remaining 2 words

• Jonathan Crossland

I read it, then I heard it.

A masterpiece of writing, it’s read in a way that is so fulfilling. The pace of this book made me fell anxious and put me in a place somewhere between tranced and startled. I walked around my town while I listened. I just loved taking this in.

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Essays and Fictions

• By: Brad Phillips
• Narrated by: Jon Leyden
• Length: 4 hrs and 37 mins
• 5.0 out of 5 stars 5.0 (3 ratings)

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"Searingly honest, brilliant and disturbing. Brad Phillips peels back the skin and bone and stares right into the human soul." (Anthony Bourdain)

Brad Phillips' collection of short stories adeptly walks a very thin line between taboo and propriety, with rigorous self-awareness and generosity.

By confusing ideas around fiction and autobiography, Phillips writes with painful sincerity about shame, addiction, trauma, and the more troubling outreaches of sexual desire, with wit that is at odds with the subject matter. Brad Phillips is a well-known Canadian artist. This book has blurbs from Anthony Bourdain and The Paris Review .

• Unabridged Audiobook
• Categories: Literature & Fiction

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What listeners say about Essays and Fictions

• 5 out of 5 stars 5.0 out of 5.0

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Audible.co.uk reviews, amazon reviews.

• Overall 5 out of 5 stars
• Performance 5 out of 5 stars
• Story 5 out of 5 stars

Beautifully written

Real, fantastical, and beautiful. Introduced to Brad Philips by TrueAnon podcast, very glad I listened, what an incredible collection

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Essays and Fictions

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A Conversation with ‘Essays and Fictions’ Author and Artist Brad Phillips

“Lying is an art, for sure, but it’s one I’m working hard to unlearn. Honesty is a mind-altering substance,” says Canadian painter and writer Brad Phillips.

Though he portrays a semi-real, semi-fictionalized version of himself in his 2019 short story collection, Essays and Fictions , honesty is what draws the reader in. What’s so intriguing about his stories of addiction and recovery is not whether or not they’re a factual retelling of events. It’s the unflinching way they invite readers into the mindset of someone at odds with their vices and mental afflictions. He’s not afraid to share gritty details or unsavory confessions—or at least he doesn’t show it. He writes with a frankness that’ll make you pause mid-sentence to catch your breath and say “whew.”

What might be most surprising about Phillips is that he didn’t realize he had the skills to be a writer until his 40s, long after he established himself as a visual artist. Much like his stories, his oil and watercolor paintings explore themes of drug addiction, sex, pop culture, and more. His artworks have been featured by galleries in major cities including Toronto and New York. In 2021, his exhibition, Grandpa Goes to Hollywood , showcased a combination of figurative and text-based paintings that formed autofiction narratives of their own.

We recently caught up with Brad Phillips to talk about Essays and Fictions , how much he enjoys designing shirts for his Threadless Artist Shop , and where Back to the Future ranks among his favorite ‘80s movies.

Your first book of short stories, Essays and Fictions , offers a glimpse into the psyche of an addict grappling with past trauma, mental illness, and patterns of self-destruction. Does writing about topics like these ever feel like a form of therapy for you? Or do you leave the brain massaging to the folks with degrees hanging behind their desks?

Brad Phillips: Hi Rafael, thank you for all of these thoughtful questions. I can’t really say that writing ever feels cathartic, no. I think though that I do get some sort of clarity by writing about experiences from my life. It lets me view them more as a spectator than as a participant, which I think can be helpful in some way that is difficult to articulate.

Your stories have touched many readers who can relate to the struggles of addiction and mental illness. You’ve also received high praise from the likes of filmmaker Bruce LaBruce and the late Anthony Bourdain. Has the reception of your book influenced how you approach your current projects? Do you feel any urge to defy expectations?

BP: I’ve been surprised by how successful the book has been. Three years after publication it’s still doing really well, and that definitely took me by surprise, and I’ve been super touched by how people have responded to it, who’ve reached out to me and said really beautiful things. Wasn’t expecting that. I don’t think that it’s influenced how I approach anything new, but the idea of defying expectations, yes, that’s real for me. I don’t like repeating myself, so since the book was fairly autobiographical and about the topics you mentioned, I’ve been writing a science-fiction book, because somehow that seemed like the exact opposite of my first book. I like to do whatever isn’t being done, whatever seems unlikely. I’m a contrarian, and I also like to challenge myself. If I don’t feel challenged, I get bored.

The ‘80s sci-fi classic Back to the Future comes up a few times in your book, particularly the Polaroid showing Marty McFly’s siblings fading away from existence. What makes this image resonate with you?

BP: I saw that movie in the theater with my mom and it was just a really nice experience that I remember clearly. I could bullshit you but I’m not sure what makes the image so appealing. I just really like it, the idea of…if you disappear in a photo from the past you disappear in the future—some oblique relationship to reincarnation, sci-fi, Buddhism…There’s a Mitch Hedberg joke I like, a guy says “Hey, you wanna see a photo of me from when I was younger?,” and the other dude says, “Hey man, every photo of you is from when you were younger.” There’s also a John Mulaney bit I like, where he talks about, with Back to the Future , why doesn’t anybody question why this teenager is best friends with a disgraced nuclear physicist…makes me laugh, a good point.

Where would you rank Back to the Future among your favorite ‘80s flicks? Do you have any special memories connected to it?

BP: It’s definitely in my top 100. I really like movies, so I’ve got a huge list. Yeah, like I mentioned, I just remember going to see it with my mom and sister in the theater, and going to the movies was a treat. It cost money for a single mom to take her kids to the movies, so it’s just a really sweet moment that I remember and am grateful for.

Whether it’s a piece of autofiction or a photograph you transform into an oil painting, much of your work appears to draw from real-life events, some of which are deeply personal. Has this approach ever led to any unintended consequences? How do you keep yourself from revealing too much?

BP: I think that I have revealed too much with certain writing of mine, and I’ve learned from the experience. With paintings, once they leave my studio, I don’t see them again. Writing is forever, it keeps circulating, so there are definitely a few things that, if I could go back in time, I would have made a bit more discreet.

Visual art and literature are two very different mediums. How did you discover you had a knack for writing prose?

BP: I really don’t know. It took me by surprise. When I moved back to the east coast in 2013, I started writing art reviews for magazines. I’d always wanted to be a writer far more than an artist, and one day I just started writing a story based around what I was dealing with at the time, and it felt very easy and natural. I shocked myself, at 40, realizing I could write.

In a photograph you titled Get a Real Job 2017 , you show a series of business cards that say you hold such titles as private investigator, associate editor at Penguin, and talent agent at Creative Artists Agency. These are all real jobs, but none you’ve actually ever had (to my understanding, at least). In what ways is deception an art form?

BP: I feel like the more interesting question, no offense, is to ask in what ways is art a deception, a lie…Visual art and con art have a lot of similarities. You create an object that has no real utility, no inherent value, and through, essentially, confidence and word of mouth, [it gets] validation from other abstractions not rooted in utility (galleries), and it starts to become more and more expensive. Lying is an art, for sure, but it’s one I’m working hard to unlearn. Honesty is a mind-altering substance.

As a multi-disciplined artist who’s had solo exhibitions in major cities including London and New York, is there anything you find particularly unique or exciting about showcasing your art on t-shirts?

BP: Yeah, I really love making these shirts. A lot of ideas I have aren’t particularly suited to becoming paintings, and they also aren’t writing, they’re just sort of sketches for things that never would have been realized, but then shirts became a great place for them to exist. And I also like that—art is so exclusive, expensive, etc—young people or people who don’t have a lot of money (like me) can own something that feels like art. I honestly don’t see a distinction between a painting I make and a shirt I make, they’re both artworks. Shirts are more democratic. A lot of people who like my work are young, and so I love that they can own something of mine that’s not as precious and expensive as a painting.

Has making apparel for your Threadless Artist Shop inspired you to be creative in ways you haven’t explored before? Or have you found that your style of art naturally lends itself to apparel?

BP: I think the way I work and think is just really suited to this model of shirts, etc. Text and imagery together, that’s always been what I do, so I think it’s just a different, very flexible medium I can use to hang ideas on. I’m very grateful for it.

You have a t-shirt that says “I just don’t know how people do it,” and the words “just do it” are highlighted in red. What advice would you give fledgling artists who are looking to reach a larger audience?

BP: Be confident (or fake it), don’t compare yourself to others, don’t pay attention to what’s “cool” or popular, embrace the ideas you think are the most ridiculous and make you the most uncomfortable, don’t look for outside validation, be generous, help other people without expecting anything in return, be humble, be open to criticism, be grateful, try not to live in fear, meditate, drink water, smile at strangers and say hello.

On your Instagram, there’s a picture of a hand-written sign that says “Don’t Stab People,” which should probably be fairly obvious to most folks. Is this one of those cases where one person ruined it for everyone?

BP: I laughed reading this. I don’t know, I think anyone who’s out there stabbing people, they gotta stop. For one person to ruin stabbing for everyone, that means that there’s a context where stabbing can be chill, which I just can’t see being true.

What inspires you to create new art today?

BP: Love, comedy, beautiful fonts and typography, the horrible gift of the internet with its endless wealth of strange imagery, trying to be light-hearted in a difficult time, trying to connect with other people who are all struggling to figure out how to get through life, being sober, keeping busy, sharing beauty and jokes and meaning with strangers and loved ones.

What’s on the horizon for you? Any shows coming up? What can fans look forward to in the near future?

BP: I have a show of Works on Paper online at James Fuentes Gallery in New York in June, and I have a show of oil paintings at de boer gallery in Los Angeles in the fall/winter. I’m finishing my first novel which is called Death of a Dipshit . I’m writing about the brilliant painter Richard Bosman for ArtReview magazine . Trying to stay busy. Jogging, push-ups, meditation, being in love, calling my mom, counting my blessings.

Thanks to Brad Phillips for taking the time for this chat! Follow him on Instagram and Twitter and visit his Threadless Artist Shop to find t-shirts, accessories, and more.

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Essays and fictions - softcover.

• About this title
• About this edition

Brad Phillips' collection of short stories adeptly walks a very thin line between taboo and propriety, with rigorous self-awareness and generosity. By confusing ideas around fiction and autobiography, Phillips writes with painful sincerity about shame, addiction, trauma, and the more troubling outreaches of sexual desire, with wit that is at odds with the subject matter.

"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.

"Last week, Giancarlo Di Trapano turned me on to Suicidal Realism, a short memoir by the Canadian painter Brad Phillips. It's not exactly an edifying book. Phillips's main themes are drugs and sex, in that order: "People who like to get fucked up with other people are not people I like to get fucked up with." But Phillips has a watchful intelligence and self-knowledge, and an impatient sincerity, that sneak up on you (or at least, snuck up on me). He doesn't ask to be liked, even by his groupies, but he does want to communicate: "I'm not interested in the ones who are drawn to the creator of the work, I'm interested in the ones who are drawn to the content." --Lorin Stein "Searingly honest, brilliant and disturbing . Brad Phillips peels back the skin and bone and stares right into the human soul." - Anthony Bourdain "Essays and Fictions navigates the never-ending work of undoing oneself, whether that be through drugs, sex, art making, or finding a connection with someone worth living for. Amidst the ugliness of the human condition, this book's beauty sneaks up on you." - Chelsea Hodson "One sign of encountering a great writer for me is envy. I'm envious of the way Brad Phillips writes. I'm envious of his honesty as a writer. I'm envious of his bone-dry turns of phrase and his sarcastic observations. I'm envious of the slack alacrity with which he attacks such morbid subjects as suicide, addiction, pain, and death. I'm envious of the utter fearlessness he displays. Writing is dead, but Mr. Phillips, decidedly, isn't." -Bruce LaBruce--Bruce LaBruce "Brad Phillips says, at the beginning of this incredible book, that honesty eludes him. Obviously, that's a lie. When you read Brad Phillips, you understand why nice women write love letters to men on death row." -Sarah Nicole Prickett--Sarah Nicole Prickett

About the Author

Brad Phillips lives in Scarborough, Canada

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• Publisher Tyrant Books
• Publication date 2019
• ISBN 10  0999218646
• ISBN 13  9780999218648
• Binding Paperback
• Number of pages 300

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Brad Phillips on Trauma, Memory, and the Myth of the Self

In conversation with brad listi on otherppl.

Brad Phillips is the guest on this week’s Otherppl . His new story collection, Essays and Fictions , is available from Tyrant Books.  The late Anthony Bourdain calls it: “Searingly honest, brilliant and disturbing. Brad Phillips peels back the skin and bone and stares right into the human soul.”

__________________________________

“ The only thing that’s immutable is that everything is changing constantly.”

Brad Phillips : It’s all relative to experience. In Syria, your tolerance to pain and suffering is a certain amount. Here in the west, my trauma or suffering definitely pales in comparison to, like, someone working in the diamond trade, but for me relative to what I know, I don’t really make the distinction. I shouldn’t have to complain because people are starving in Ethiopia . . .

Brad Listi : We all have our stuff.

BP : For us, it’s as real for someone who lost their kid in a drone strike. Obviously, objectively that seems more tragic, but my shit feels just as real to me.

BL : There is this absurdity and probably fallacy in grading or rating suffering.

BP : I remembered as a kid I wouldn’t finish my food, and my mom would be like, you need to finish your meal because there are kids starving in Ethiopia, and I was like, are you going to FedEx it to them? You know, this isn’t going to help them that I put some Brussels sprouts in the garbage. You’re not going to pick this up and send it over to them. I’ve had my own amount of trauma to selfishly look at news footage, like the Syrian gas attack, and feel that that’s horrible, and I think about that briefly and then go back to myself.

BL : The traumas you’ve been through, do you feel like they’re organizing principles in terms of your own sense of identity and that story you tell yourself about who you are?

BP : Yes, I do. I’ve been reading a lot of autobiographies. There is this idea of the self, so unstable and kind of inherently false, so the idea of who we think we are is really based on the narrative of what we build our lives, which is contingent on memory. Memory is so unstable and prone to nostalgia, so really what we have is an idea of a self instead of a self.

BL: The book you wrote really plays to all of that.

BP : I was reading a book about Alzheimer’s. If a person forgot the names of their kids, you’ll say that she’s not really herself today, but in a way she’s not herself because she doesn’t know the story of her life anymore. Who is she now? She’s not really the same person. Or when I think about who I was at twenty, I had the same vessel but everything has changed except maybe the residual effects of trauma. I don’t feel like the same person per se.

BL:  I can’t even remember.

BL : I can’t remember either.

You have these big memories that you hold onto or you keep retelling yourself: well, this is when this happened, and everything changed when I was twenty, or whenever it was, but the day-by-day is gone. It’s like a vapor. I suppose who I am now contains all the past iterations, but it’s always changing. You say it’s unstable, but . . . irrespective of that, it feels demonstrable. Where is the self? Is it your body? Is it your skin, or your brain?

BP : It’s not even a thing. People say that people can’t change. The only thing that’s immutable is that everything is changing constantly. What’s frustrating is that intellectually I can grasp this idea, but the past is not real and the future is not real. I’m still hung up in the past. I have this certain philosophical awareness, but it just doesn’t match up the way that I try to create a story about my life. I’m stuck in the past too much. I told my therapist, because she constantly talks about the inner child, I don’t constantly want to be mollifying this inner child. I want to slice its throat, curb-stomp it and throw it in the garbage, and be done with it. Why am I at forty-five being bossed around by a traumatized nine-year-old?

“ The minute I do a press release I’m starting to manipulate people or direct or limit their experience the work.”

BP : Because I’m writing about mental health and addiction, I think people see a self-help aspect, or people are like, you’re telling my story. I’m not; I’m just telling a story.

BL : But you kind of are. People don’t have the vocabulary or the time or inclination or the talent to put this stuff down. It comes as a powerful relief to people to have their own experience reflected back at them.

BP : I just don’t want them to see me. There’s a lot of projecting. Susan Sontag, in 1962, saying it’s a grave error to associate the author with the subject. For me, it’s also about the polysemic aspect. I did as little press release as I could for art shows because I thought that I made this painting and it means a certain thing to me. The minute I do a press release I’m starting to manipulate people or direct or limit their experience the work.

I would like to put the work out there as soon as it’s out of my hands. What I feel about it is irrelevant, and if people say this painting is good then it is good. If they say it is bad, then it is bad. It’s whatever they want. It’s whatever they see. That’s what I like about writing and art is that it is polysemic. It’s open to as many interpretations as possible, and I think it’s the birth of the reader. Everybody’s reaction is correct. My intentions are irrelevant once it’s out there, but the problem is I’m having trouble getting drawn back into the intention must be true. This must be a true story.

BL: It’s done. It’s yours. Take it.

BP : I’ll just never write a book again where the character is named Brad. Never.

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