In this episode we welcome Gabriel Levinson, founder of ANTIBOOKCLUB, a tiny, indie publishing house. ANTIBOOKCLUB works tirelessly to bring readers “the wild, the stunning, the essential since 2011.” This conversation was recorded in December of 2020.
Gabriel Levinson started ANTIBOOKCLUB by himself, publishing about one book per year. While working for Make Magazine in Chicago and Penguin Random House (among other day jobs) Gabriel has spent his nights, weekends, and any money he can scrape up to make the books he believes need to see the light of day (or the light of a reading lamp).
Here are some of ANTIBOOKCLUB’s accolades, according to their website:
“Beautiful Gravity was named an ALA Stonewall Honor Book of 2017 and was a Lambda Literary Awards finalist (it was also rated one of the top book cover designs of the year by Electric Literature and The New York Times Book Review); The End of the World was adapted into the Academy Award-nominated film World of Tomorrow; and the surreal, subversive “shock novel” The Diesel has an entry and essay in The Global Encyclopedia of LGBTQ Literature. Many of our titles have been taught in universities and high schools across the United States.
We are a small but dedicated crew who count world-renown authors, translators, and designers among our ranks. We are here to shatter and shape your literary sensibilities, one book at a time.”
ANTIBOOKCLUB recently published a collection of never before published works by Terry Southern, entitled The Hipsters. It was a decade-long project that Gabriel worked on closely with Terry Southern’s son, Nile.
Also recently published is Silver Skin, a coming-of-age novel written by Spanish author Javier Calvo, “an elegy to the transformative powers of art, imagination, and the imagined other.”
Gabriel and ANTIBOOKCLUB are responsible for the publication of LJT’s powerful, fictionalized memoir, Practical Blasphemy – the center of Episode 3 of this podcast.
In Part One of the Degenerates, Gabriel and Calvin talk about: the beginnings of ANTIBOOKCLUB; working for Penguin Random House; money and morals; what it’s like to publish as a small, indie press; some of the issues with surviving as an artist in today’s America; The Hipsters; publishing translated works; the sale of Gabriel’s beloved collections to fund the publication of his titles; and much more.
You don’t want to miss this conversation with Gabriel Levinson, a brilliant, frustrated, dedicated, bitingly funny renegade publisher.
Find ANTIBOOKCLUB on Instagram @antibookclub.
EPISODE CREDITS:
Produced, Engineered, and Edited by Calvin Marty
Music written, produced, and performed by Calvin Marty