When author Tony DuShane was a nervous young man struggling with being a Jehovah's Witness, his extremely religious father lost his mind and punched five holes in the wall above their living room couch. To hide these examples of his dad's breaking point, the already-disfellowshipped teenager plastered an Einsterzende Neubauten poster over the damage.

This is one of the minor scenes in a very funny, but also very mood-rattling novel by DuShane, whose "Confessions of a Teenage Jesus Jerk" came out from Soft Skull Press on February 2nd. It's marketed as fiction, but due to the author's own past and the curiosity those of us outside the cult have about the goings-on of all those extremely well-dressed young men and women who thrust crappy end-of-the-world literature at us downtown, it probably wouldn't hurt to consider it memoir.

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The Spectacular Saturday Series begins this Saturday at the Fantagraphics store in frisky Georgetown, starting with the press party for NEWAVE! The Underground Mini-Comix of the 1980s.

If you're a fan of graphic novels like Ghost World and wanted to see the raw cool beginnings of Daniel Clowes and his fellow "ink studs," this would be like releasing a DVD set of a mess of vintage Velvet Elvis and Paradox performances for Death Cab and like-minded band fans. The mini-comix and zine scenes back in the Reagan era were entwined around each other, filled with post-Robert Crumb surreal political protest and punk rock splattering and autobiographical bizarreness.

Clowes won't be at the event this Saturday, but a lot of his contemporaries are in this lavish, beautiful, hardcover ode to that berserk generation, and many of them will be at the store to celebrate: Jim Blanchard (a Roq La Rue gallery demigod whose depictions of celebrities and weird kids and meat are queasy-legendary and painstakingly rendered), David Lasky (who has a comic in The Stranger this week and is working on a GN tome based on the Carter Family with scribe Frank Young, for the Smithsonian), Dennis Worden (whose nihilistic Stickboy was a proto-grunge era favorite, as ubiquitous in coffee shops in Seattle as Tad records), and Michael Dowers, who will be giving a mini-comic demonstration and giveaway. It all takes place this Saturday, January 30, beginning at 6 PM and tapering off at 9. Music to be performed by iji, as a special treat.

After this, coming up through the top half of February will be a signing for Chocolate Cheeks by cruel children's tale satirist Steven Weissman. His books were big sellers at Confounded, when it used to exist in the same space as Wall of Sound on Cap Hill. He masterfully captures the dark side of kids' lives and the usually banal cartoons created for and by them, with nasty little brute characters and a chaotic mess of misadventures. His work is very accessible and trouble making indie-punks would probably feel his comics are more friendly than VICE's Johnny Ryan but not exactly Dennis The Menace either. This party will be held on Saturday, February 6, from 7 to 8 PM.

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2009 was an excellent year for book lovers, even if publishers became as entrenched about withering economic changes as much as the cowering music industry. And as May '68 prophet of speed Paul Virilio was quoted in a 2002 interview, "If there is one place where you're scared, it's a bunker."

Great literature and thrilling reads (and mixtures of both) still made it into the margins of the marketplace, where the best stuff always sticks. Even a couple of lofty but subversive tomes with hefty price tags bobbled up into the mainstream, the perfect gifts to impress print-stubborn smart uncles and shrewd aunts during the holidays. But if you've been famished yourself for some tasty writing, be it scholarly or humorous or woven through excellent art and design, what follows is a short list of lit I personally endorse. Take it with you to an independent like Elliot Bay Bookstore, Third Place, University Bookstore, or any other fine vendor in the Pacific NW or elsewhere.

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A couple of years ago Domino Records reissued five glorious double-disc treatments of The Triffids' obscure oeuvre, little known jewels from the one band every Australian post-punk music fan has heard of, and most haven't heard. Till then, it was hard to procure the less than a half dozen albums and smattering of EPs the group had painfully crafted for their similarly literate and pub-loving fans. Even Born Sandy Devotional, their most cohesive full-length and the one that gets slid in lists with monumental guitar-driven 80s rock as much as Crazy Rhythms, Porcupine, or Let It Be, languished in unlicensed limbo seemingly forever.

Such was the luck or theodicy-thwarted fate of Dave McComb, astonishing lyricist for and leader of the underground-endeared band, who passed away just over 35 in 1999, after using up two hearts, one given and one planted into him. McComb's voice reminds one of Ian McCulloch, with that handsome wavering tone of eternal Donnie Darko nocturnal rock. McComb often credited countryman Nick Cave and his Bad Seeds for inspiration into Scripture and sad blues songs as well as punk rock squall and drunken chaos, but besides heavy use of bass guitar, the mystery vibes of pre-Goth dance-driven Brit rock infuse immortal pleasures like "Jesus Calling," "Property Is Condemned," and "Bottle Of Love." If you dig your early alternative rock-era grooves moody and roots-mighty, lyrically mysterious but melodically twangy, The Triffids are the brother you never had.

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She's a young woman in the big city writing a column about sex. She learns a lot with her friends, goes through scandalous relationships and ambivalent infatuations, learns to love what she thought she hates and vice versa, and confounds her own presumptions along this path. 

No, it's not Sex in the City, it's sex in the city. 

"Reverend" Jen Miller holds her own in the gnarly Lower East Side, engaged professionally in the competitive art scene in a variety of confrontative performing capacities, and also happened to found ASS Magazine. Oh yeah, she's also the curator at a Troll Museum.

So no prissy ladies and guys named "Big" get written about in her work memoir, Live Nude Elf, just out from Soft Skull Press. It's a collection of scribed "sexperiments" that has all the drama and humor of an adult TV show but involves being tied to a cross in the middle of a crowded orgy and visiting an opium den. Adult babies, Tantric immersion, and regular heartbreak are part of the curriculum, all begun when Miller began as a live nude girl at "Wiggles" (hence the title, but it's not the last time she drops clothes in public in this book).

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This panel was of great interest to me since getting fiction published through McSweeney’s would be a dream come true, so even just hearing this authors, all first-time published fiction writers, talk about the experience of having Eli Horowirtz, McSweeny’s editor, work with them on their novels was a treat.

Bill Cutter, author of “Fever Chart,” claimed that he unflinchingly did pretty much everything Eli told him to. Meanwhile Jessica Anthony said that when editing a particular passage of her book, “The Convalescence,” Eli had her write six different versions and on the seventh she told him that this was her final draft (it was also the original text, before she had changed anything) and he responded that she nailed it. James Hannaham’s book “God Says No,” described the liberating feeling of cutting the first five chapters of his novel before even sending it into the Dave Eggers founded publishing house for consideration.

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Artist and author Zak Smith has a fascinating story. To be as inarticulate as possible, his work looks like the band X sounds. His first book, Pictures of Girls featured brilliantly colored images of women in his life, and treated them with a certain detached, sexy reverence. With the critical and detail-oriented eye of a graphic novelist, he illustrated the entirety of Thomas Pynchons's Gravity's Rainbow with spectacular results. The work appears to have elements of Ralph Steadman's quick line work and sinister feel, and is now permanantly housed at the Walker Museum in Minneapolis. Though most of his work is in paint and drawing, he is also a flesh artist. Smith also works under the name Zak Sabbath in the alternative porn industry. With his punk / D-I-Y aesthetic, there were most likely not many naughty pizza guys, cable guys, or plumbers involved in his films. It would appear as though he does the pornography for the art of it- the money he made from his first film, Barb Wire Kiss went entirely to the charity Food Not Bombs.

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Get over Alvin and the Chipmunks already, he bought a really nice summer home with the money he made off of it...He's a real mench for admitting it!

David Cross has been a major player in the comedy game since his days in Mr. Show. Since then, he's been a jack of all trades, dabbling in TV and movies, becoming a Grammy nominee recording artist (for the magnificent Shut Up, You Fucking Baby), serving as a voice talent for video games, and now has a book out called I Drink for a Reason. Starting his career as a stand-up comic at 17, he returns to his roots this fall, launching a tour with a stop at Bumbershoot. Cross has been a very busy man. He will be curating his own stage at All Tomorrow's Parties in addition to launching a Channel 4 UK television show entitled The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret, which, if God is merciful, will eventually come stateside without a terrible remake. Fans of "Arrested Development" hold out hope after hope for the magical words "In production" next to an IMDB movie credit, but tragically, there is no news to report as of yet.

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The last time I was really, really starstruck was in late 2005. I went to the Seattle Public Library to see my favorite living American writer, Joan Didion, read from her new-at-the-time memoir The Year of Magical Thinking. I was so nervous to meet my literary heroine that I'm sure I was shaking throughout the time standing in line and when I finally got to the front to have my book signed, I'm sure I couldn't mutter "it's nice to meet you and I love your writing". I'm sure I got through half of that.

The memoir was the story of how her husband, the writer John Gregory Dunne, and daughter Quintana both died within a very short period of time. Shortly thereafter, Didion adapted her book into a one-woman play for the stage and when it premiered on Broadway a few years ago, Vanessa Redgrave played Didion.

The Intiman Theater began showing their production of The Year of Magical Thinking on August 21 and it will run through September 20. I'm planning on seeing it Wednesday night, so I'll try to come back with a review after. In the meantime, the play is directed by Sarna Lapine and features the actress Judith Roberts playing Didion.

For more information, including purchasing tickets, visit the Intiman's website.

Just when I was thinkin’ that Pirates and Zombies have gotten enough love lately, this literary panel about Vampires and Robots at Bumbershoot caught my interest.

Kevin Emerson, drummer & vocalist for Central Services, is the creator of Oliver Nocturne: a series of kids books about a vampire boy who lives in Seattle (that I already find 100x more interesting than Twilight).

Daniel Wilson has written tons of great stuff including How to Survive a Robot Uprising and The Mad Scientist Hall of Fame – pretty much everything you’d need to survive an apocalypse.

Come listen to their creative genius and ask them everything you always wanted to know about bloodsuckers and metal menaces.

{The Vampires and Robots panel takes place at Bumbershoot on Monday, September 7 from 12pm-1:15pm at the Leo K Theater}