Meet A.K. Swift, a working-class war veteran and family man who is haunted by visions of nuclear apocalypse. When matters of conscience determine that he can no longer support the State-sponsored institutions that create the machines that threaten the living, A.K.decides to stop paying. Trouble is, he’s not a very good tax resister. He forgets to attend the meetings and doesn’t bother to fill out the proper forms. Now he worries there may be consequences.
From the dustbin of Cold War protest literature, Bradley Smith’s The Man Who Saw His Own Liver emerges as a heartfelt meditation on the timeless problem of the individual against authority. Rooted in libertarian theory and the moribund tradition of American transcendentalism, it is the story of an accidental rebel trembling in comic defiance under the yoke of God and State, and before the faceless Leviathan of modern Bureaucracy.
Smith’s writing is animated by a crisp and laconic prose-poetic hum. His is a uniquely personal canvass in which storytelling and gently wrought polemics interweave, seamlessly, with turns of magical realism coming to rest in that frail, strangely familiar liminal space, where ineffable exaltation and terror transcend the political.
Originally conceived and performed for the stage in 1983, The Man Who Saw His Own Liver is presented by Nine-Banded books in novelized form. It is appended with Smith’s short story, “Joseph Conrad and the Monster from the Deep.” We hope you enjoy it.
To order by mail, send $15, postpaid, to:
Chip Smith, DBA Nine-Banded Books
600 Virginia Street West, Apt. C
Charleston, WV 25302
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02/01/01 UPDATE: The latest issue of Bradley Smith’s monthly journal, Smith’s Report, reprints my introduction to The Man Who Saw His Own Liver along with some reflections (beginning on page 15) by Bradley on the work’s previous incarnation as a one act play.
03/01/02 UPDATE: Dave Gross of The Picket Line, pens a short but thoughtful review of The Man Who Saw His Own Liver, while reserving more qualified praise for Bradley’s memoir, Break His Bones.
03/03/08 UPDATE: The Man Who Saw His Own Liver is now being carried by Germ Books in Philadelphia and Atomic Books in Baltimore.
04/19/08 UPDATE: The Lawnchair Philosopher posts a most thoughtful review of Bradley Smith’s The Man Who Saw His Own Liver. An excerpt:
The writing style is at the same time sparse, and elegant. This is no dry accounting, but a work of poetic prose, rich in metaphor and emotional content. Each reminiscence stood alone for me; which might be a drawback to the reader expecting a more linearly styled memoir. Doubly so for those who don’t like their diatribes leavened with subtlety, or self examination. Being the sort of fellow who likes to bury his head in the cat box at the mere mention of politics, extremist or otherwise, I was fairly taken aback upon delving into the author’s ‘infamous’ political predilections (addressed by Chip Smith in the introduction). It made me glad that I read the book first; I still haven’t ever read ‘On The Road’, and probably never will, because I made the mistake of reading the bios first, and can’t get past the fact of Kerouac being a total ass-wipe. Now, instead of picturing Bradley Smith as some cartoonish Art Bell reject with a penchant for paranoid conspiracy theories, I’ll always see him as a zen aspirant on his way to cracking that last koan. And how can you be mad at a guy who writes a line like this?…
I’ve always felt the urge to slip through desire, like an eel passing through nets cast out for bigger fish.
If you like great prose, written by a man just an epiphany or two short of emergence into a new, brilliant sphere, buy this book. There’s an innocent clarity here, as well as a surprising sense of humanitarian compassion.
4/20/08 UPDATE: Jack Malebranche, author of 9BB-recommended polemic, Androphilia, gives the nod to Bradley’s book here, though he mistakenly refers to it as The Man Who Ate His Own Liver (which might be a good title for a sequel).
