My True Stories: Cherry Valley Ballads and Stories, Brenda Frazer
Book Specifications:
197 Pages
210 mm x 130 mm x 9 mm
Perfect Bound
Print run of 100
Publication Date: 15.05.23
ISBN: 978-1-7399499-7-6
£16.00
Credits:
Design: Lucy Wilkinson
Editors and contribution: Lucy Wilkinson, Gordon Ball and Joshua Jones
Printed and bound at Dean Print, Stockport, UK
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From the My True Stories collection:
Inside her 1999 journal entry, Brenda Frazer describes: “I had written regularly for several years, journaling and working on a manuscript about my time with poet husband Ray Bremser. I pushed myself to work and yet the more I forced the writing the less satisfaction I took in it. In fact, I came to the writing with a sinking feeling that I had wasted my time.” The final book in the collection My True Stories, Cherry Valley Ballads and Stories recounts the years from 1970-83, written in 2010-15. It is the last mention of her husband Ray, entering a new love which she embraces through a forbidden domestic situation. Through her analysis of her environment, her relationships, and self-discovery, the book recounts the most active development of character: Hers, of course. In Brenda’s own words, “trying but not really succeeding in being a strong woman.”
Including an introduction by Gordon Ball
Further reading:
My True Stories collection: Poets and Odd Fellows, Drug City, Artista, Cherry Valley Ballads and Stories. You can also purchase a limited edition collection of all 4 books in a slipcase here. We will be republishing Some American Tales in the summer of 2023. I also recommend Troia: Mexican Memoirs published by Dalkey Archives Press in 2002 now called Deep Vellum.
Reviews/Press:
'Finally Brought to Light: Brenda Frazer’s My True Stories' (2022) by Heike Mlakar in Beat News.
'Brenda Frazer' (2022) by Peter Hale (Allen Ginsberg Project)
Interview with Brenda Frazer by Nancy Grace
'Brenda Frazer's My True Stories' (2023) by Dawn Swoop in Beat Scene.
Biography
Brenda Frazer published her first book Troia in 1966. She has also appeared in The Portable Beat Reader (edited by Ann Charters, ) and A Different Beat (Richard Peabody), as well as multiple periodicals from the 1950s and 60s such as Fuck You: A Magazine of the Arts and Blue Beat. She was married to the poet Ray Bremser. She lived in New York City during the late 1950s and 60s and moved to Cherry Valley in New York in 1970, living at The Committee set up by Allen Ginsberg for poets, writers and artists to live communally. In 2020, death of workers whilst building skyscrapers published Some American Tales.
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