A Masque of Infamy Promotion

The Kindle version of A Masque of Infamy is free until 5/21.

A Masque of Infamy is a horrific and raucous story of teenage rebellion. But instead of "What d'ya got?" fifteen-year-old Louis Baudrey knows exactly what he's fighting against…

After moving from Los Angeles to small town Alabama in 1987 with his father, his younger brother and this guy Rick, a friend of the family, Louis tries to fit in at the local high school, but the Bible-thumpers and the rednecks don't take too kindly to his outlandish wardrobe and burgeoning punk attitude. At home, he defies the sadistic intentions of Rick, who rules the household with an iron fist. As Louis begins to lose all hope, he stumbles upon indisputable proof that will free him and his brother from Rick's tyranny. But just when he thinks his troubles are over, he's locked up in the adolescent ward of a mental hospital, where he must fight the red tape of the system to realize his dream of being a punk rocker.

"A Masque of Infamy captures the screaming, up-from-the-toes intensity and torment of the United States of Adolescence. No one who reads this book will be left unchanged by its savage and unforgiving beauty." – Jerry Stahl, author of Permanent Midnight

"The overwhelming rawness of Kelly Dessaint's story about children attempting to navigate a world completely fucked up by adults is like a punch to the chest." – Davida Gypsy Breier, Xerography Debt

"Kelly Dessaint twists the horror of growing up in a highly dysfunctional American family into a hilarious tale of survival. Detailing the trauma of being institutionalized as a teenager after having taken revenge against an abusive father figure, A Masque of Infamy is a story about stubbornly overcoming the odds to live long enough to tell the truth about just how shitty it is to be a kid in this country." – Lydia Lunch

ONE LAST HURRAH!

ONE LAST HURRAH!

by Kelly Dessaint

That night, after we gave the social workers the stack of Polaroids, which was all the proof they needed to put the old man and Rick in jail, we sat around the house, twiddling our thumbs. Without a single distraction to take our minds off the uncertain future, we could only worry about what would happen next.

“You know what would be really cool right now?” I pondered aloud. “Some Super Mario Brothers.”

“Yeah.” Joey sighed. "Too bad it's locked up."

“I mean, if we’re gonna take off anyway,” I said thoughtfully. “I don’t see why we couldn’t have a little fun before we go.”

“What are you talking about?” 

“Follow me.” I walked to the bedroom he shared with Rick and pointed at the footlocker where Rick had stored the VCR, the cable boxes, the phone and the Nintendo along with his BB guns and knives. “I wonder what it would take to bust that lock?”

We contemplated the silver braided Master. 

“Pick it?” Joey suggested. 

“What do I look like, a fucking locksmith? Nah, there’s only one way into that footlocker.”

“Smash it?”

“Now you’re thinking, Johnny! Get the hammer!”

It only took one blow, but I gave the lock another for good measure. We hooked up the Nintendo and put a six-pack of Dr. Pepper in the freezer to get cold fast. We each ripped open our own bags of Doritos and shared a box of Russell Stover. 

Once the sugar rush took hold, we grabbed Rick’s BB guns and started taking pot shots at the crap on his dresser. I made a bull’s-eye on the wall and we took turns practicing our aim until we ran out of BBs. Then we switched to the knives. After the bedroom walls were full of holes, we moved on to the rest of the house. 

I stood at one end of the hallway and tried to see if I could hit the kitchen wall. I missed, but took out a lamp. Joey was a better shot. On his first throw, the blade pierced a cupboard door. 

We howled with delight at the destruction. For hours, we went from one room to the next, leaving our mark. We emptied the kitchen cabinets onto the floor and smashed Rick’s Nintendo into tiny fragments of plastic, wires and shards of motherboard. 

I took out Rick's Polaroid, the very camera he'd used to document his perverted crimes, and snapped some shots of us in the midst of the rubble.

It was a beautiful mess.

As we surveyed our handy work, we laughed until our sides hurt. I got a magic marker and scrawled “FEEL THE WRATH OF THE INNOCENTS!” in giant letters on the living room wall. I knew that would fuck with their heads. 

Big time. 

— from A Masque of Infamy

SUCKS, ALABAMA

SUCKS, ALABAMA: 

The Unexpurgated Adventures of 

Louis Baudrey in Small Town Alabama

Part One of A Masque of Infamy

By Kelly Dessaint

Louis Baudrey is a teenage metalhead who moves from LA to small town Alabama in 1987. At Saks High, he tries to fit in, but the rednecks and the Bible-thumpers don't take too kindly to his outlandish wardrobe and burgeoning punk rock attitude. At home, it's even worse, as Rick, his father's "friend," tries to coerce him into conforming to something even more insidious than the social mores of high school. 

Only available as an eBook free from the Apple iBookstore or as a PDF from Scribd.

Before I left California, all I knew about the South was what I’d seen on TV: The Dukes of Hazard,Roots, Deliverance… So that’s what I expected: racist, good ole boys, playing banjos and speeding around the countryside in souped-up muscle cars, murdering and sodomizing strangers. Despite the old man’s assurance that I shouldn’t believe everything I saw on TV, my enthusiasm waved from one moment to the next. But the truth was, I was ready for a fresh start. 

I wasn’t leaving much behind in Rosemead. Just bad memories and the rest of my crazy family. I figured I could write my own ticket in a podunk Alabama town. Nobody needed to know that I was born in the crappy part of a crappy suburb on the wrong side of Hollywood. But while Rosemead was nothing like the Los Angeles depicted in movies and television, I looked totally LA. It was 1986. My style was an amalgam of punk and heavy metal. My hair was long and my pants were tight. My ears were pierced three times in my left and once in my right. I wore the same Iron Maiden shirt almost every day and never left the house without at least one bandana tied around my ankle. 

How could I not ride into town and just take over? 

Shit, in my mind, as soon as these bumpkins in Alabama got a look at me, the guys would idolize me, the girls would lust after me and all their parents would fear me.
I would finally become the person the audience in my head had always cheered for.
All the way across the country, as I sat in the backseat of my father’s low-rent Cadillac, alternately picking fights with Joey, talking back to Rick and zoning out to the soothing sounds of heavy metal on my Walkman, I felt it in my gut, a rising excitement that everything was about to change. 

For better or worse, once I fulfilled my destiny, the name Louis Baudrey would be synonymous with infamy. 

– from Sucks, Alabama

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A Masque of Infamy

A Masque of Infamy is a horrific and raucous story of teenage rebellion. But instead of “What d’ya got?” fifteen-year-old Louis Baudrey knows exactly what he’s fighting against…

After moving from Los Angeles to small town Alabama in 1987 with his father, his younger brother and Rick, a friend of the family, Louis tries to fit in at the local high school, but the Bible-thumpers and the rednecks don’t take too kindly to his outlandish wardrobe and burgeoning punk attitude. At home, he defies the sadistic intentions of Rick, who rules the household with an iron fist. As Louis begins to lose all hope, he stumbles upon indisputable proof that will free him and his brother from Rick’s tyranny. But just when he thinks his troubles are over, he’s locked up in the adolescent ward of a mental hospital, where he must fight the red tape of the system to realize his dream of being a punk rocker.

“A Masque of Infamy captures the screaming, up-from-the-toes intensity and torment of the United States of Adolescence. No one who reads this book will be left unchanged by its savage and unforgiving beauty.” – Jerry Stahl, author of Permanent Midnight

“The overwhelming rawness of Kelly Dessaint’s story about children attempting to navigate a world completely fucked up by adults is like a punch to the chest.” – Davida Gypsy Breier, Xerography Debt

“Kelly Dessaint twists the horror of growing up in a highly dysfunctional American family into a hilarious tale of survival. Detailing the trauma of being institutionalized as a teenager after having taken revenge against an abusive father figure, A Masque of Infamy is a story about stubbornly overcoming the odds to live long enough to tell the truth about just how shitty it is to be a kid in this country.” – Lydia Lunch

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