Man Hating Psycho is the caustic new collection of stories from visionary writer Iphgenia Baal. Interrogating the disconnect between our public identities and real-life selves, Baal exposes the inherent duplicity of online communication.
Merced Es Benz is an account of a dysfunctional love affair, narrated via SMS, email, Facebook and Google search results. Events unfold against a backdrop of a barely-credible pre-Olympic London where Bow E3’s high-rises are no longer the Ends and east London’s awful art parties, populated by the debased progeny of the rich and famous, do little to dispel 90s rave nostalgia. Remnants of a ‘virtual’ conversation act as a body of circumstantial evidence, betraying a ‘real’ intimacy behind a messy social media scandal that spilled into tabloid coverage. Iphgenia Baal’s non-fiction novel balances at the jarring intersection of death, mourning and Facebook, as downward mobility proves to be a more intoxicating – if less fatal – drug than heroin. It is published as part of the Semina series, commissioned and edited by Stewart Home, that also featured books by Bridget Penney, Jarett Kobek, Katrina Palmer, Jana Leo and Mark Waugh, as well as Stewart Home himself. Following a career as a journalist, which came to no uncertain end in 2008, Iphgenia Baal is now a writer. Published prior to Merced Es Benz are the books The Hardy Tree and Gentle Art, assorted serialised ephemera, including The Seedless Grape and The Shiner. Some texts have been adapted for film, including Heavy Vibrations and Topshop Returns. She has contributed to the Nervemeter, International Times, the White Review, Schizm and others and is one half of publishing imprint AKA. Published as part of Book Works’ Semina series (No.8). Edited by Stewart Home.