Rejection Letter from Cathode Ray Review
Dear Mr. Farley,
We’re going to pass on your nonfiction piece, “Tumescent Eyes.” We suggest that you familiarize yourself with our magazine and take advantage of the enclosed subscription form. Thank you for your interest in the Cathode Ray Review, and we would enjoy seeing your work in the future.
Sincerely,
Greg Arious, Managing Editor
Internal notes scribbled on the manila envelope:
NO- This piece gave me diarrhea. The first line was garbage. I wish I could go to this guy’s house, smash his computer with a hammer, and gouge out his eyes, so I’d never have to read this shit again. If he learned Braille, and somehow figured out how to use one of those Braille typewriters, I’d go back to cut off his fingers. Some good similes though, but nothing compared to the novel I’m working on. –Chad C.
YES- The personified furniture was interesting, and I especially appreciated how each inanimate object had its own voice—the hillbilly armchair with half the consonants dropped, or the phonetical spelling for the Jamaican sex-swing. If 90% of this was cut, the grammar fixed, and point of view shifted to an identifiable protagonist, this could be great. This opens up the hidden world of plushy culture. It’s Pynchonesque. –Angela M. (Chad’s novel sucks)
NO- This is not nonfiction. The alleged pictures of my niece are obviously pictures from a Target advertisement. The submission has been sprayed with something that smells like a whore dipped in dead mastodon. There is almost nothing about environmentalism, unless you count the pictures of trees drawn in the margins. But while researching this writer’s credentials, I discovered the genius of the Fluffy Muffin Maven. There’s a short story where the Lone Ranger and Gandalf are gay lovers who have to fight off the Power Rangers in a way that can only be described as Chekhovian. I want to ask for more work, not from Mr. Farely, but Mrs. Maven. Also, we should send him an application for our program because enrollment is down, and we need to generate some revenue from some false hope.
–Greg, Editor
Pynchonesque
1)Of, pertaining to, or in the style of Thomas Pynchon
2)Densely convoluted, verbose and full of allusion
I did not know that! Oh also, Chad’s novel does suck.