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Something to Do with Self-Hate: A Novel
Following a summer’s worth of drug abuse, epic alcohol benders, and promiscuous sexual misadventures, you cope with your impoverished living arrangements while mourning the senility of your beloved grandmother, the destructive idiocy of your only two friends, and most importantly, the devastating loss of your free-spirited lover. There are things to consider, of course, and it’s real tough to think sometimes. [Pre-order the paperback at HOUSEOFVLAD.BIGCARTEL.COM]
- GenresFiction
92 pages, Kindle Edition
First published June 11, 2017
7 people are currently reading
93 people want to read
About the author
Brian Alan Ellis
34 books126 followersBRIAN ALAN ELLIS runs House of Vlad Press, and is the author of several books, including Sad Laughter (Civil Coping Mechanisms, 2018). His writing has appeared at Juked, Hobart, Monkeybicycle, Fanzine, Electric Literature, Vol. 1 Brooklyn, Funhouse, Heavy Feather Review, and Queen Mob’s Tea House, among other places. He lives in Florida, and tweets sad and clever things at both @brianalanellis and @HouseofVlad.
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
November 13, 2017
This one gets 4.5 stars for its effusive self-hatred alone! Here, enjoy some Morrissey gifs:
July 9, 2017
Somewhat of a grim and claustrophobic departure from Ellis' fragmented and ambivalent style. I was definitely not expecting something so earnest and heartfelt from someone who walks the line of cynicism with such limber precision. SOMETHING TO DO WITH SELF-HATE is a weirdly impersonal novel about heartbreak, which is ironic because it's exactly what Nickelback songs are too. Weirdly impersonal and often about heartbreak, but Brian Alan Ellis goes to deeper, darker and more painful places and doesn't want anything to do with redemption. Somewhat destabilizing if you're used to Ellis' work, but not unpleasant at all.
April 1, 2017
This book is more soulful than I'm used to from Ellis, a little more on the touching side than the humorous. It's still that distinctive Ellis, but it's somehow more tender in its vomit stained used mattresses. It lingers too, much more than I was expecting. The hurt is more tangible on the page, and it comes across strong through the words into the reader's skin. Nice stuff.
May 30, 2017
Always a wildass, muffler-less ride with BAE! 'Something to Do with Self-Hate' is another beauty! I'm a fan. Here are some quotes from this exquisite wreckage:
"The world is a shell of something."
"Maybe sameness worsens as time moves forth."
"The sun must've had as rough a night as you did: it called in sick."
"There is no light; only an obscenely dark room, quite possibly the perfect room to die in, which you think about while Dio chews burnt matches from off the floor."
"...your family, the lot of them: rotting, limping fruit hung like ornaments from some gutted Christmas tree. All celebrating."
"And the walls will laugh–those panting white walls with tiny nails driven into them like they're Christ."
It's a deep and forever LOVE! READ!!
"The world is a shell of something."
"Maybe sameness worsens as time moves forth."
"The sun must've had as rough a night as you did: it called in sick."
"There is no light; only an obscenely dark room, quite possibly the perfect room to die in, which you think about while Dio chews burnt matches from off the floor."
"...your family, the lot of them: rotting, limping fruit hung like ornaments from some gutted Christmas tree. All celebrating."
"And the walls will laugh–those panting white walls with tiny nails driven into them like they're Christ."
It's a deep and forever LOVE! READ!!
November 7, 2017
Brian Alan Ellis has pumped out a lot of writing in last few years. Really slugging it out in the fetid swamps of Florida. For this he deserves our respect. Our respect and our deepest suspicions . . .
Something to Do With Self-Hate is a real humdinger of a bummer trip. Heartbreak, hangovers, and hopelessness abound. Everybody's nostrils are stopped up with cheap coke. And don't worry, the legacy of BAE's forefathers in depravity (Bukowski, H. Miller, et al) is done due justice. There's no looking away from the gratuitous descriptions of sloppy sex with the crapulent and deranged, the hideous fouling of undergarments and the unending bouts of self abuse. (Keep it in your pants, freak! For more than a taste you'll have to buy the book!)
Ellis is a good writer. And it takes something . . . maybe even guts to keep up such a relentless pace of soul crushing comedy. On the flip side of the comedy, as always, there is tragedy. In this case our protagonist hangs on the cross for a lost lover. It's an old story, but I guess it never feels old for the one who's up on the cross, now does it? Over the course of this short but dogged novel, you'll wonder if our boy is really mourning the loss of his lover, or just the mess he's perpetually compelled to make of himself. You'll wonder what the hell you're doing with your own life, anyway. And what's the point of it all? Like I said, be wary.
Something to Do With Self-Hate is a real humdinger of a bummer trip. Heartbreak, hangovers, and hopelessness abound. Everybody's nostrils are stopped up with cheap coke. And don't worry, the legacy of BAE's forefathers in depravity (Bukowski, H. Miller, et al) is done due justice. There's no looking away from the gratuitous descriptions of sloppy sex with the crapulent and deranged, the hideous fouling of undergarments and the unending bouts of self abuse. (Keep it in your pants, freak! For more than a taste you'll have to buy the book!)
Ellis is a good writer. And it takes something . . . maybe even guts to keep up such a relentless pace of soul crushing comedy. On the flip side of the comedy, as always, there is tragedy. In this case our protagonist hangs on the cross for a lost lover. It's an old story, but I guess it never feels old for the one who's up on the cross, now does it? Over the course of this short but dogged novel, you'll wonder if our boy is really mourning the loss of his lover, or just the mess he's perpetually compelled to make of himself. You'll wonder what the hell you're doing with your own life, anyway. And what's the point of it all? Like I said, be wary.
June 24, 2018
I read this book in a day. It was sad as hell but relentlessly funny. I was impressed with how Brian Alan Ellis managed to convey a boredom or dissatisfaction with life that was inherently optimistic. The narrator is at once bored, optimistic, frustrated, downtrodden, wise, foolish, aware, unaware, and always wanting to be in love while feeling like there is nothing to love or that loving leaves him with nothing. Even though the book is filled with so much self-hate—really funny, smelly, bloody hate—it is vulnerable and raw and beautiful and palpable. Something I can do with self-hate is read about it over and over again.
August 13, 2017
I've read the novel and listened to the audiobook of Something to Do with Self-Hate, and they're both uniquely entertaining experiences. Ellis' cleverly self-deprecating prose is heightened by Mary Moore Dalton's performance, which was an unexpected but welcome voice of narration, that made some of the more gut-churning descriptions more palatable. This is a brisk, visceral novel, with a romantic core. Great for the morning commute.
August 28, 2018
I've read a decent portion of Brian Alan Ellis' work this month and even though he's a certifiable miser, he's also totally a guy I can imagine myself being friends with. He might hate himself but I don't so maybe we'll just meet somewhere in the middle?
May 27, 2018
In this book, Brian Alan Ellis manages to capture that voice that not everybody knows, but if you know it, if you hear it every day, this book is for you.
Written in second person, narrator's name unknown, and not following the conventional structure of most books, Something to do with Self-Hate is an easy, quick read loaded with those heavy sentences that shoot straight through the reader like bullets. It maintains a balance of dark humour, satire, and depressive/depressing ruminations.
Although it starts with the protagonist's break-up, this is not a break-up book. This is the nothingness, helplessness, and uselessness that a lot of us feel every waking moment in modern day life, regardless of circumstances, burdened by the absurdity of being, with nothing to do except hang out with people just as helpless as yourself, working a dead-end job, and hating the person you see in the mirror. Not many authors know how to do this well, not the way Ellis does.
Personally, this is the book equivalent of BoJack Horseman*, filled with perfectly written phrases that I will forever quote. Some noteable examples are:
"usually, if you don't catch the name of the person you're in bed with, you catch something else."
"There's just too much of that stabbing emptiness when it comes to being an individual."
"You'll wait for anything at this point [....] maybe the Nobel Prize in ineptness."
"You knew from an early day that to get through life you'll have to rely solely on imagination because everything was so disappointing."
The only thing is, I wish this book were longer. Other than that, it's a 5/5 from me.
*a perfect depiction of depression and anxiety without being too corny.
Written in second person, narrator's name unknown, and not following the conventional structure of most books, Something to do with Self-Hate is an easy, quick read loaded with those heavy sentences that shoot straight through the reader like bullets. It maintains a balance of dark humour, satire, and depressive/depressing ruminations.
Although it starts with the protagonist's break-up, this is not a break-up book. This is the nothingness, helplessness, and uselessness that a lot of us feel every waking moment in modern day life, regardless of circumstances, burdened by the absurdity of being, with nothing to do except hang out with people just as helpless as yourself, working a dead-end job, and hating the person you see in the mirror. Not many authors know how to do this well, not the way Ellis does.
Personally, this is the book equivalent of BoJack Horseman*, filled with perfectly written phrases that I will forever quote. Some noteable examples are:
"usually, if you don't catch the name of the person you're in bed with, you catch something else."
"There's just too much of that stabbing emptiness when it comes to being an individual."
"You'll wait for anything at this point [....] maybe the Nobel Prize in ineptness."
"You knew from an early day that to get through life you'll have to rely solely on imagination because everything was so disappointing."
The only thing is, I wish this book were longer. Other than that, it's a 5/5 from me.
*a perfect depiction of depression and anxiety without being too corny.
August 7, 2017
really enjoyed this one.
July 2, 2023
You know when your friends drag you out and you don’t really wanna go but you end up having a good enough night anyway and you wake up the next day feeling like you got kicked in the teeth and need to shower for an hour to get last nights filth off and you run into those friends and tell them how good a time last night was and you can’t wait to do it again tonight and you think that was just lip service but when the time rolls around you find yourself back at it. That’s what this book felt, sliming around with the group of friends you don’t brag about, when you know you’re gonna wake up with equal parts good times and regrets.
August 18, 2025
bits had me grinning I will say, hard to even write a concise statement about this book, but I do think there's something to the writing that feels so unique and incisive and great.
May 1, 2017
More of this.
More - http://www.changeyourlifethiswill.com...
More - http://www.changeyourlifethiswill.com...
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews