Autobiography of the [Undead]

<p><em style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(31 31 31 1)>Autobiography of the [Undead]</em><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(31 31 31 1)> is an autobiographical mosaic a memoir reconstructed from a mirrored myriad of textual fragments from other books movies songs articles web pages inner thoughts personal conversations/correspondence etc. all parsed and deconstructed then reformulated and collaged in a new light. For has not every sentence already been said? How vital is context and subtext the framed phrasing coming before and after? Does Marguerite Duras own the four words I want to write? Can no one else besides Ocean Vuong write I want to make my words deliberate? Anyone can play three chords or a sequence of tones but what about the rhythm tempo key timbre dynamics harmonics or accent? Or the instrument the notes are played on the natural-born tone of voice?</span></p><p></p><p><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(31 31 31 1)>With thoughtful reverence Emilio Carrero appropriates and reshapes these fragments of sea glass and twists and spins them into a collaged kaleidoscope unique to his own sad brown Puerto Rican life. Does he not have the right to sing along with Gillian Welch when she croons I want to do right but not right now? In </span><em style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(31 31 31 1)>Before Midnight</em><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(31 31 31 1)> when Ethan Hawke says that is a good line I want to use that in a book someday are the screenwriters the only ones that can take such lines and reuse them in books? Is not every book an ever-morphing Ship of Theseus riding on the shoulders of those that came before us?</span></p><p></p><p><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(31 31 31 1)>With the dexterity of a surgeon stitching together a new Frankenstein from hundreds (704 in fact) of others dead and undead (for as Carrero writes (quoting Marquis Bey) once the work is out of their hands the author dies a little death) the author compiles this cacophony of sound bytes into a holographic chorus of voices a quantum superposition of tethered threads woven into a textured tapestry that blurs the boundaries of fiction/nonfiction appropriation authorship and literary license reviving the words into a new life form all it's own.</span></p><p></p><p><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(31 31 31 1)>This is an autobiography from/in/as [the graveyard] and it will unsettle you. As we all need to be for such an unsettling brings us to each other; it brings us to the graveyard-who knew it was so so full of (our) love of our yearnings. We can live there in the graveyard in a non-possessive undead coalition. Emilio Carrero gives us an exquisite meditation on gritty love honest togetherness and a forceful consideration of what it means to live with for and as the [un]dead.-Marquis Bey</span></p><p></p><p><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(31 31 31 1)>Maybe the only part of a life that can be written honestly is the crisis. Fearlessly grounded in the aspirations and cringe of a single life </span><em style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(31 31 31 1)>Autobiography of the [Undead]</em><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(31 31 31 1)> nevertheless burns through the narrative and ontological expectations of both living and writing. Carrero lights a citational fever through a vast archive of texts voices and moments and like Clarice Lispector creates a fleeting flame that lets us see an eternal presence. As long as we live the crisis is us.-Farid Matuk</span></p><p></p><p></p>