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![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.thebookbeat.com\/backroom\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/01_Beginnings-copy.jpg\")
The Beginnings<\/strong><\/a><\/h2>\nAntonio Moresco<\/strong> \/ translation by<\/em> Max Lawton
\nDeep Vellum<\/p>\nAs considerable as its avant-garde chops are, Antonio Moresco\u2019s The Beginnings <\/em>belongs in the European tradition of the sentimental journey from na\u00efve idealist to jaded realist, feeling less like contemporary autofiction than a fictionalized Bildungsroman. Its unnamed narrator goes from seminary school to political oratory to book writing. These are disparate devotions. Each has its own set of ideals, conventions, and modes of communication, and shared values among fellow travelers. The narrative asks what constitute knowledge and understanding, how they are transmitted, and to what ends.<\/p>\nThe Beginnings<\/em>\u2014a 500+-page novel\u2014is the first part in a 1,500-page trilogy. The jaded realism I\u2019m presuming has yet to arrive, should it arrive. In the meantime, this first volume has one of the damndest narrative voices I\u2019ve come across in some time. It pulled me along\u2014no doubt due in no small part to Max Lawton\u2019s translation\u2014wanting to know more. Even though at no particular point in the narrative could I say to myself, Oh, I get it now.<\/p>\nIf the narrator of The Beginnings <\/em>has a predecessor, it\u2019s Benjamin Compson from The Sound and the Fury.<\/em> Although The Beginnings\u2019<\/em> narrator is far more articulate than Benjy, he is just as unreflective\u2014though not due to a mental disability, one gathers\u2014forcing readers to make sense of the behaviors described for themselves.<\/p>\nA couple of scenes in the seminary, for instance, achieve the level of silent-movie slapstick: Two monks engage in fisticuffs during silent time, each trying to maximize the harm done to the other and minimize the sounds made when hit and hitting. Why is this happening?<\/p>\n
The seminary\u2019s relationship to its community, the point of the rituals the students perform in the seminary and in the community, what their curriculum consists of and what it seeks to engender\u2014none of that ever becomes clear. But that mystery kept me intrigued enough to puzzle through. Even the abrupt transitions from part 1 to part 2 and part 2 to part 3\u2014from seminary to politics to publishing\u2014I found myself willing to suspend disbelief: \u201cOh, OK, I guess he\u2019s in a different place now. Maybe we\u2019ll find out how and why.\u201d<\/p>\n
Maybe.<\/p>\n
Not here.<\/p>\n
The narrator\u2019s visual descriptions can also sound distorted in sizes and shapes, as if viewed through lenses that produce odd effects. However, reader beware: I also thought that of the narrator\u2019s descriptions, including, for instance, that of the car he drives when in his political phase\u2014until someone online posted a photograph of a Fiat 300 specifically in reference to this section of The Beginnings<\/em>. It is an impossibly tiny car, so I\u2019m left wondering if it\u2019s not the prose that\u2019s distorted but my way of seeing.
\nLooking forward to the second volume, Songs of Chaos<\/strong>, due for release in 2027.<\/p>\n“The Translator’s Voice: Max Lawton on Translating Antonio Moresco’s The Beginnings<\/em><\/a>” (Chicago Review of Books) <\/strong>Discusses Moresco’s place in Italian literature, the challenges of translating The Beginnings<\/em>, and Lawton’s philosophy of translation.<\/p>\nStorypod interview with Max Lawton (44 min.) <\/strong><\/a>A relaxed but substantial discussion centered on The Beginnings<\/em> and maximalist fiction.<\/p>\n
\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.thebookbeat.com\/backroom\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/02_Dutchman.jpeg\")
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Come in with the Dutchman<\/strong><\/a><\/strong><\/h2>\nWilliam S. Burroughs<\/strong>
\nGrove Press<\/p>\nWilliam S. Burroughs was an inveterate reviser of his books and stories, so that multiple editions exist of much of his work published in the \u201860s and \u201870s. The restored editions of Burroughs’s work that Grove has published in recent years\u2014Naked Lunch, Nova Express, The Soft Machine, The Ticket That Exploded<\/em>\u2014aim to create standard versions of his canonical works. The Last Words of Dutch Schultz<\/em>\u2014one of those works by Burroughs with multiple versions\u2014has been revised, reprinted, and retitled as Come in with the Dutchman.<\/em><\/p>\nIntended as a film script, the basis for the story was the dying words of Dutch Schultz, AKA Arthur Flegenheimer (1901-1935), a New York-area Jewish mobster during Prohibition who made his money in bootlegging and numbers running, until he was gunned down by goons from Murder, Inc., acting on orders from the National Crime Syndicate.<\/p>\n
Taken to the hospital with multiple gunshot wounds, delirious and receiving regular morphine injections, a parallel to Burroughs\u2019s own heroin addiction, Flegenheimer was flanked in his bed by police detectives during the 22 hours it took him to die, one of the detectives transcribing his every disjointed word and phrase, hoping for clues to the murderer\u2019s identity. (The complete transcript of Arthur Flegenheimer\u2019s statements made in the hospital may be found at Flegenheimer’s Last Words<\/a>.)<\/p>\nBurroughs saw the transcript of Flegenheimer\u2019s discombobulated speech as a real-life counterpart to the cut-up method he and the artist Bryon Gysin had developed. In the cut-up method, an existing text is arbitrarily cut up and its elements\u2014short phrases\u2014rearranged. Throughout The Soft Machine<\/em> and The Ticket That Exploded,<\/em> Burroughs inserts cut-up passages drawn from earlier and later sections of the same novel, giving portions of these novels a deja-vu-like quality.<\/p>\nThe structure of Come in with the Dutchman<\/em> is classical: Beginning in medias res<\/em> to pique the audience\u2019s interest, then showing how the protagonist got there, after which scenes alternate between the protagonist\u2019s past and present until the two meet, and a conclusion is arrived at. Here: The story begins with Flegenheimer already dying on a hospital bed, is followed by his birth, after which those two storylines coil around each other\u2014Flegenheimer in the hospital and Flegenheimer growing up.<\/p>\nThe most \u201ccut-up\u201d aspect of this film script is that it builds entirely upon scenes that, if filmed, would probably only range from 2 to 30 seconds each. Yet film is probably a better medium than writing for exploring the potential of the cut-up method, since moviegoers are long used to quick cuts, flashbacks and flash-forwards. And while the script\u2019s transitions may be quick and abrupt, there is often some element connecting the scenes to each other\u2014a spoken phrase, a look or posture\u2014giving the overall work a seamlessness.<\/p>\n
James Grauerholz, the script\u2019s editor, provides a helpful introduction to the story behind Burroughs\u2019s script, an essay that is part bibliographic history, part biography (of himself and Burroughs as it relates to the manuscript), and part bitchy insider score-settling. (Grauerholz was, for over 20 years, Burroughs\u2019s amanuensis, lover, and (eventually) adopted son.)<\/p>\n
That said, Come in with the Dutchman <\/em>is a sensationalist true-crime story in the service of demonstrating an aesthetic technique. Every character\u2014even the historical figures\u2014is delineated in stereotypical gangster tones from old James Cagney films. But Burroughs commonly used genre types in his books as contemporary archetypes to illustrate his mythologies of power struggles, which he was more interested in than delineating psychological urges.<\/p>\nOverall, Come in with the Dutchman<\/em> is a good introduction for newcomers to Burroughs\u2019s fiction, and long-time fans will be happy to see his script in print again, now in a definitive version.<\/p>\n
\nDeep Vellum<\/p>\n
As considerable as its avant-garde chops are, Antonio Moresco\u2019s The Beginnings <\/em>belongs in the European tradition of the sentimental journey from na\u00efve idealist to jaded realist, feeling less like contemporary autofiction than a fictionalized Bildungsroman. Its unnamed narrator goes from seminary school to political oratory to book writing. These are disparate devotions. Each has its own set of ideals, conventions, and modes of communication, and shared values among fellow travelers. The narrative asks what constitute knowledge and understanding, how they are transmitted, and to what ends.<\/p>\n The Beginnings<\/em>\u2014a 500+-page novel\u2014is the first part in a 1,500-page trilogy. The jaded realism I\u2019m presuming has yet to arrive, should it arrive. In the meantime, this first volume has one of the damndest narrative voices I\u2019ve come across in some time. It pulled me along\u2014no doubt due in no small part to Max Lawton\u2019s translation\u2014wanting to know more. Even though at no particular point in the narrative could I say to myself, Oh, I get it now.<\/p>\n If the narrator of The Beginnings <\/em>has a predecessor, it\u2019s Benjamin Compson from The Sound and the Fury.<\/em> Although The Beginnings\u2019<\/em> narrator is far more articulate than Benjy, he is just as unreflective\u2014though not due to a mental disability, one gathers\u2014forcing readers to make sense of the behaviors described for themselves.<\/p>\n A couple of scenes in the seminary, for instance, achieve the level of silent-movie slapstick: Two monks engage in fisticuffs during silent time, each trying to maximize the harm done to the other and minimize the sounds made when hit and hitting. Why is this happening?<\/p>\n The seminary\u2019s relationship to its community, the point of the rituals the students perform in the seminary and in the community, what their curriculum consists of and what it seeks to engender\u2014none of that ever becomes clear. But that mystery kept me intrigued enough to puzzle through. Even the abrupt transitions from part 1 to part 2 and part 2 to part 3\u2014from seminary to politics to publishing\u2014I found myself willing to suspend disbelief: \u201cOh, OK, I guess he\u2019s in a different place now. Maybe we\u2019ll find out how and why.\u201d<\/p>\n Maybe.<\/p>\n Not here.<\/p>\n The narrator\u2019s visual descriptions can also sound distorted in sizes and shapes, as if viewed through lenses that produce odd effects. However, reader beware: I also thought that of the narrator\u2019s descriptions, including, for instance, that of the car he drives when in his political phase\u2014until someone online posted a photograph of a Fiat 300 specifically in reference to this section of The Beginnings<\/em>. It is an impossibly tiny car, so I\u2019m left wondering if it\u2019s not the prose that\u2019s distorted but my way of seeing. “The Translator’s Voice: Max Lawton on Translating Antonio Moresco’s The Beginnings<\/em><\/a>” (Chicago Review of Books) <\/strong>Discusses Moresco’s place in Italian literature, the challenges of translating The Beginnings<\/em>, and Lawton’s philosophy of translation.<\/p>\n Storypod interview with Max Lawton (44 min.) <\/strong><\/a>A relaxed but substantial discussion centered on The Beginnings<\/em> and maximalist fiction.<\/p>\n William S. Burroughs<\/strong> William S. Burroughs was an inveterate reviser of his books and stories, so that multiple editions exist of much of his work published in the \u201860s and \u201870s. The restored editions of Burroughs’s work that Grove has published in recent years\u2014Naked Lunch, Nova Express, The Soft Machine, The Ticket That Exploded<\/em>\u2014aim to create standard versions of his canonical works. The Last Words of Dutch Schultz<\/em>\u2014one of those works by Burroughs with multiple versions\u2014has been revised, reprinted, and retitled as Come in with the Dutchman.<\/em><\/p>\n Intended as a film script, the basis for the story was the dying words of Dutch Schultz, AKA Arthur Flegenheimer (1901-1935), a New York-area Jewish mobster during Prohibition who made his money in bootlegging and numbers running, until he was gunned down by goons from Murder, Inc., acting on orders from the National Crime Syndicate.<\/p>\n Taken to the hospital with multiple gunshot wounds, delirious and receiving regular morphine injections, a parallel to Burroughs\u2019s own heroin addiction, Flegenheimer was flanked in his bed by police detectives during the 22 hours it took him to die, one of the detectives transcribing his every disjointed word and phrase, hoping for clues to the murderer\u2019s identity. (The complete transcript of Arthur Flegenheimer\u2019s statements made in the hospital may be found at Flegenheimer’s Last Words<\/a>.)<\/p>\n Burroughs saw the transcript of Flegenheimer\u2019s discombobulated speech as a real-life counterpart to the cut-up method he and the artist Bryon Gysin had developed. In the cut-up method, an existing text is arbitrarily cut up and its elements\u2014short phrases\u2014rearranged. Throughout The Soft Machine<\/em> and The Ticket That Exploded,<\/em> Burroughs inserts cut-up passages drawn from earlier and later sections of the same novel, giving portions of these novels a deja-vu-like quality.<\/p>\n The structure of Come in with the Dutchman<\/em> is classical: Beginning in medias res<\/em> to pique the audience\u2019s interest, then showing how the protagonist got there, after which scenes alternate between the protagonist\u2019s past and present until the two meet, and a conclusion is arrived at. Here: The story begins with Flegenheimer already dying on a hospital bed, is followed by his birth, after which those two storylines coil around each other\u2014Flegenheimer in the hospital and Flegenheimer growing up.<\/p>\n The most \u201ccut-up\u201d aspect of this film script is that it builds entirely upon scenes that, if filmed, would probably only range from 2 to 30 seconds each. Yet film is probably a better medium than writing for exploring the potential of the cut-up method, since moviegoers are long used to quick cuts, flashbacks and flash-forwards. And while the script\u2019s transitions may be quick and abrupt, there is often some element connecting the scenes to each other\u2014a spoken phrase, a look or posture\u2014giving the overall work a seamlessness.<\/p>\n James Grauerholz, the script\u2019s editor, provides a helpful introduction to the story behind Burroughs\u2019s script, an essay that is part bibliographic history, part biography (of himself and Burroughs as it relates to the manuscript), and part bitchy insider score-settling. (Grauerholz was, for over 20 years, Burroughs\u2019s amanuensis, lover, and (eventually) adopted son.)<\/p>\n That said, Come in with the Dutchman <\/em>is a sensationalist true-crime story in the service of demonstrating an aesthetic technique. Every character\u2014even the historical figures\u2014is delineated in stereotypical gangster tones from old James Cagney films. But Burroughs commonly used genre types in his books as contemporary archetypes to illustrate his mythologies of power struggles, which he was more interested in than delineating psychological urges.<\/p>\n Overall, Come in with the Dutchman<\/em> is a good introduction for newcomers to Burroughs\u2019s fiction, and long-time fans will be happy to see his script in print again, now in a definitive version.<\/p>\n
\nLooking forward to the second volume, Songs of Chaos<\/strong>, due for release in 2027.<\/p>\n
\n<\/p>\nCome in with the Dutchman<\/strong><\/a><\/strong><\/h2>\n
\nGrove Press<\/p>\n