Acacia, a Book of Wonders (Texas Review Press, 2023) tells the story of Petra Caldwell, the matriarch of Acacia, a new religious movement located in a densely wooded East Texas thicket. In this non-space of surreal and mystical happenings, the saints of Acacia worship vultures as prophetic emblems and prepare for a prophesied end-times event known as The Commotions. All the while, Petra wrestles against the wiles set for her by her predecessor, the Prophetess Mother Salome Nightingale. Acacia affords a unique vantage point in cult fiction: a narrative told by the group’s leader.

Praise for Acacia, a Book of Wonders:

"The tangle of nervous systems and fever dreams that pulse within Acacia reminds me of an old hymn dipped in technicolor and then broadcast through the speakers of a two-toned Lincoln Continental. Church is where you make it. Shall we gather within the ruination to practice resurrection? Acacia suggests that if we do, we might experience salvation on terms we never imagined. Vincent James has written a mesmerizing novel teeming with gorgeous sentences. It’s the sort of remarkable book that manufactures its own uncanny light by which to read."

—Selah Saterstrom, author of Ideal Suggestions and Slab

"Acacia, by Vincent James, is exactly what it claims to be, a book of wonders. Strange, moving, extraordinary, this is work built with serious brio and serious craft. James can spin a fabulous yarn and he can write a hell of a sentence: it doesn't get any better than that."

—Laird Hunt, author of Zorrie and Neverhome

“Acacia is an incantatory and perilous epic about lostness, about fear, about worlding outwards against the confines of treacherous boundaries. James’s lush language feels like a series of invocations, the reaching and desire described in the words, resonant and enacted by the gathering of energies, by the novel’s own visionary musicality. As I read, I can feel these words wanting to be recited, caught in my throat like spells. This book is magical and a revelation.”

—Janice Lee, author of Separation Anxiety and Imagine a Death

ORDER from TEXAS REVIEW PRESS

Swerve (Astrophil Press, 2021) is a dreamscape detective novel caught up in a multiversal calamity. Swerve jostles and hums. Swerve might be Galileo's cousin, Margaret Cavendish’s niece, and Stephen Hawking’s step-child. Swerve is a once in a generation book that tells the story of three distinct detectives who move across the United States and beyond, uncovering pieces of a mercurial puzzle spanning space and time. As each section unfolds and is interpreted through the others, the detectives’ stories begin to collapse, rewrite, and ultimately, illuminate each other.

By Vincent James, Rowland Saifi, and McCormick Templeman

Praise for Swerve:

“Smart, strange, funny, intense, wild, stylish, unsettling, sexy, surprising and just, basically, so great, Swerve by Vincent James, McCormick Templeman and Rowland Saifi is a must read for all fans of wildly inventive and gorgeously written ludic enterprise. Part Tlooth, part A Void, just that smidge of Ubu Roi, and plenty noir, Mathews, Perec and Jarry would have had a blast with this. I know I did. I can’t recommend it highly enough.”

— Laird Hunt, author of Zorrie and Neverhome

“Swerve is a semi-submerged, transdimensional, supra-observable novel-like structure, co-architected for your pleasure and contusions. Put on your octopus-shaped dress and snorkel jacket, and don't forget to refuse all clues. In Swerve, every fish is and is not a red herring. Come for the mermaids, stay for the $2.99 steak!”

— Joanna Ruocco, author of Dan and Another Governess/The Least Blacksmith: A Diptych

SWERVE IN THE WORLD >>>

“A Playlist for Swerve” - Largehearted Boy

“on the Authorial Flux of SWERVE: A NOVEL OF DIVERGENCE” - Review by Mike Corrao at Heavy Feather Review

“listening to the Will of the Work: a Conversation with Vincent James” - Conversation with Ryan Ridge at Juked

“excerpt from Swerve” - at Juked

ORDER from ASTROPHIL PRESS