Fourth World Books

Short Story of a Writer

You may know this guy as a friend, neighbor, relative, business associate or ad executive. Do you know him as a novelist and poet?

Sometimes it takes the better part of a lifetime for a literary writer like Russ Madison to a achieve recognition. His first novel "Victory Among the Insane" was an acclaimed literary success. He wrote the novel on cement bags while working as a construction laborer and apple picker in his hometown of North Haven, Connecticut. Admittedly a poor student in high school, he joined the army, then later graduated from the University of Connecticut where he became a campus legend for his "underground" experimental writing style; he won several top poetry prizes, and completed his first novel while still an undergraduate.

His writing has been compared to Melville, Twain, Thomas Pynchon, and Joe Heller. Madison's editor at Grove Press, Richard Seaver, now publisher of Arcade has called him "a master of the comic metaphor". He was nominated for a Robert Frost Bread Loaf Fellowship and in 1998 received a coveted Lannan Fellowship at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Massachusetts to complete a thirty year project, a fantasy-biography of Norman Mailer, "City in the Sky".

Madison types his books on rolls of paper towels, not with the computer. His manuscripts, books and letters are housed in Boston University's Mugar Memorial Library, in Special Collections directed by Dr. Howard Gotlieb. (Even his paper towels are there.)

Madison's latest novel, "The Man Who Watched Trash" is now available through the Internet, opening a whole new literary world for his work. The book is also available in cloth and paperback. Typical of the praise for his work, California literary agent, Wendy Zhorne, has said of "Trash": "This is the hardest book to decide on I have ever come across. It is highly original, unique, zany, weird, brilliant. Frankly, he is either one of the most gifted writers I have ever seen or his writing is absolutely nutty".

Madison is currently completing five other books, and a collection of poetry. Like most other unknown literary writers in America, he "works for a living." He and his wife, Gi, are creative directors in their advertising agency Lone Wolf Advertising Inc. located in Woodbridge, Connecticut. As a creative team they are recipients of dozens of awards for their campaigns.

Ordering information: "The Man Who Watched Trash" is available through
1stBooks Library, Amazon.com, and Barnes & Noble.com, or through local bookstores nationally.