Southern Gothic for the Z-Age
A Review of "The Double-Dealer, Issue Ten"
Once upon a time, The Double Dealer (originally styled as The Double-Dealer) was a literary journal based in the city of New Orleans. And as the great oracle of the terminally online Post-Liberal Integralists once put it, New Orleans is a city onto itself, with more linkages to the Mediterranean than nominal sister cities in the Southeast. The leisurely, Latinate civilization of the Big Easy has long been a refuge for literate types. So, in 1921, four friends from New Orleans—Julius Weis Friend, Basil Thompson, John McClure, and Albert Goldstein—established The Double Dealer as a home for all Southern writers engaged in Modernism. In its original run, the magazine published such luminaries as William Faulker, Robert Penn Warren, and Ernest Hemingway. Despite its many big names, The Double Dealer went belly-up in 1926.
Now, the name has been revived. The new imprint is run by a cadre of Twitter posters, some named and some anonymous, with connections to the ever-expanding world of dissident publishing. Most of these men come from the same right-wing milieu as the Passage Prize, the Old Glory Club, and the nebulous world of interconnected SubStacks. It is telling that the new Double Dealer does not feel radically different from its older namesake. The only difference being that the literary underground of 2023 leans more towards tradition and reaction than Modernism (Allen Tate and the other Fugitives notwithstanding).
None of this is to say that Issue Ten of the resurrected Double Dealer is a political screed or a thinly veiled piece of propaganda. It is not. It is a collection of short tales written by men, mostly Southern men, interested in spinning yarns. Editor J.L. Mackey lays this out in his “From the Editor” section by stating:
What follows is some of the best fiction that independent literature has to offer: work that isn’t focus grouped, sanitized, or otherwise the product of some Manhattan think tank.
Simple enough, but does the issue deliver? Is this really some of the finest fiction that independent literature has to offer?
The first story comes courtesy of Bizarchives veteran Paul Fahrenheidt. “Chapman’s Mill” does not have a beginning, middle, or end. It is a conversation between two members of the Army Corps of Engineers as they work their way through a road project in Virginia. The Sergeant is a plain-speaking man from the mountains of Tennessee. His superior, The Lieutenant, is a Yankee from New England. The Sergeant gives the Lieutenant a history lesson about Chapman’s Mill, the South, and why the woods around them smell like bacon fat. “Chapman’s Mill” is in keeping with Mr. Fahrenheidt’s folktale style, and it also retreads the familiar Virginia soil that the author calls home.
“The Straight and Crooked Path” by Aldo Jonsson is an altogether different type of tale. Set out West, “The Straight and Crooked Path” details a chance encounter between the narrator and himself during a June 2008 road trip from Salt Lake City to Albuquerque. The narrator meets his future-self without warning or explanation. There is no Rod Serling to set the stage. This is no pointless reference. “The Straight and Crooked Path” feels like something from The Twilight Zone, albeit with a different set of politics. The future-self tells the narrator about life in 2023, and from the vantage point of 2008, it all seems dystopian. America’s natural parks are overrun by foreign tourists either hawking wares or generally disrespecting the wildlife. Private vehicles, photographs, and other instruments of the once-common tourist trade are highly curtailed or regulated by the state. People are more cynical. Jonsson does a terrific job of emphasizing just how much America has changed for the worse in fifteen years. The story is not just a soapbox speech, though. Jonsson does much with the eternal human elements, such as the popular desire to know our own futures and to possibly change mistakes from our past. “The Straight and Crooked Path” feels no need to resolve anything, as the man of 2008 realizes both his fate and his inability to do much about it.
Shimmy’s “Behold the Man” wades into the world of religious fanaticism and the prevalence of non-conformist sects in the history of the South. Such topics have long been fodder for Southern Gothic novels and stories, but “Behold the Man” is more melancholic than melodrama. Caleb, one of the religious zealots following the Godman (who is considered the corporeal God), seems more bored than anything else. As for the Godman, rather than “God in human flesh come for the last time, at the thirteenth level of consciousness,” he is last seen smoking a cigarette while hiding out from his devotees. “Behold the Man” is about faith, the desire for transcendence in a ho-hum world, and, ultimately, the disappointment that comes from following mortal men.
Brad Kelly’s “More Than Just a Place You Live” is a strange one about a tourist trap town with one true townie. Said townie, Marshall, invites bookworm newcomer DB to a party. The party devolves into a brutal beatdown of an aggrieved neighbor incensed by the fact that nobody on the other side of the fence has ever bothered to say hello. “More Than Just a Place You Live” pairs well with Caleb Caudell’s “The Move.” Both stories showcase an aimless America—a country where people go from one dead-end job to another, and from one town to the next. Roots are only for plants, it would appear, and yet the main characters in both exude thoroughoing sadness. In Kelly’s account, Marshall embodies the tragedy of being the last and true man in a place without a soul. “The Move,” however, articulates the familiar feelings of disjointedness that all downwardly mobile Americans feel in cities and towns teeming with new faces from foreign places. As the down-on-his-luck Jimmy says in “The Move”:
“I don’t really care for how many different kinds of people there are in this damn apartment building. I mean, I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with them as individuals. But look at this place. There’s Asians and Muslims and Mexicans and White trash all running around everywhere. It’s too much. I don’t care what anyone says. I don’t believe people want to live this this.”
Pretty much every single story in Issue Ten is a deeply human story. Most are more meandering than clear, with frail human characters dealing with forces out of their control. In other words, these yarns read like real life. The same holds true for “Southern State” by Hamilton Wesley Ellis. However, this recounting of life inside of a cognitive care facility run by the cruel tyrant Emily Puckett at least has a decisive conclusion (hint: think something that is best served as a cold dish).
Out of all of the stories, the best of the bunch is T.R. Hudson’s “iTrial.” Hudson, whose science fiction novel Automaton has earned high praise since its release early last year, writes about a future New York City wherein all misdemeanors and petty crimes are handled by an AI program rather than flesh-and-blood lawyers. In the tale, the everyman John Krakowski is summoned to appear before the New York District Attorney’s office for the grave crime of littering. John learns upon meeting the chipper junior prosecutor Tad Peterson that his crime is not serious, but his refusal to answer several paper mailers is (note: the New York of “iTrial” is rife with scam mailers that residents are told to ignore). John’s illegal disposal of an EpiPen and his refusal to answers months-worth of mailers is fed into the Justice Department’s algorithm. It spits out a sentence. John must die.
John’s impeding death sentence sets off a series of increasingly Kafkaesque situations. In one, John meets with the AI’s developer, who promises him that his death sentence is a once-in-a-lifetime glitch. But rather than fix said glitch, the developer talks John into signing a document promising that he will not sue the company for the disastrous mistake. John does not even get money for his troubles. Instead, the developer pays him in sushi that he does not eat. And when John finally meets the D.A., the coffee-addled prosecutor throws up his hands and informs John that he has already wasted his life. The D.A. and others make it clear that a speedy execution is in everyone’s interest.
“iTrial” is a bleakly comical look at growing dehumanization and the race for increased efficiency. Nobody, not even John, behaves like a full human being. Everyone is a bureaucrat, everyone is following orders, and everyone thinks that the machine is preferable to the rage. John—poor, put upon John—accepts his unjust death after a few half-hearted escape attempts. Few stories capture the dismal quality of contemporary existence quite like Hudson’s “iTrial.” It is frightening to recognize just how believable such a future is, especially in a place so seemingly dedicated to self-immolation like New York.
The revived Double Dealer is not necessarily pulp, but it definitely swims in the same waters as The Bizarchives. Both imprints believe in the potency and power of fiction written by individuals unattached to and unloved by the mainstream. Issue Ten is yet another reminder that the only scene worth observing lies far underneath the ruble of Penguin Random House. The writers here are not perfect (typos, gents!), but their work has passion, energy, and most importantly, something to say about the unique textures of our current predicaments. This is a fine addition to the growing library of New American Literature.
Thank you for the great review and kind words!