I, No Other received a 4+ star review, making it an IndieReader Approved title.
Following find an interview with author Yarrow Paisley.
What is the name of the book and when was it published?
My short story collection I, No Other was originally published in 2016 by Whiskey Tit. As of 2025, it is being reissued in a slimmer, snazzier form—that rare 2nd Edition that REMOVES material, rather than adding more in. Nothing wrong with the excised pieces! Far from it, I love ’em all! But the integrity of the whole was improved by removing them…so I DID it.
(It was only after assembling my second collection, Divine In Essence (2024)—also from Whiskey Tit—that I realized how much BETTER I, No Other could be if I applied the pruning shears in just the right places.)
For the record, the full title is I, No Other: Narrations & Exaltations.
What’s the book’s first line?
“From an early age, I discovered that I possessed no skill or penchant, only my roving spirit and my wandering eye.” (From the story “Flâneurysm”)
What’s the book about? Give us the “pitch”.
I, No Other is a collection of ten short stories that you might hesitate to call “stories,” since they largely disregard the conventions of traditional fiction. Hence the fancy subtitle Narrations & Exaltations. (Far more precise! I don’t want to give the wrong idea!) Absurdity and surrealism abound. Do not expect “realism,” whatever THAT is.
A few pithy plot summaries to tantalize your fascination: A dandy strolls the boulevards of consciousness, where solipsism confronts desire. A prisoner endlessly revises his confession, and is in turn by it revised. An unhappy tenant fills the Universe with pipes to evade his nosy neighbors. A toddler encounters his first Cigar, a mode of transcendence, potency, and delight. Twenty years in a coma, a spirit rages against the flesh that will not release him, as well as his distorted memories of sensation and desire. A repressed college girl unlocks the chains of her libido to remake humanity.
I, No Other, as a title, provocatively contradicts Rimbaud’s famous dictum, “I is an other.” Given my work’s preoccupations with transgressing the boundaries of self, desire, gaze, and memory, this title emerged as the PERFECT conceptual scaffolding for the book. And that COVER! I was so lucky to have an amazing artist friend named Jeremy Hawkins who allowed me to use his gorgeous drawing, which so exquisitely embodies the simultaneous pathos and pathology of the stories in my book. (I should warn any readers: I, No Other is DEMENTED. If you’re at all triggerable, just steer clear! Scurry immediately back into Barbara Cartland’s loving embrace! Her antsy Pekingese will lick your cheeks adoringly, I promise!)
What inspired you to write the book? A particular person? An event?
Each story was driven by its own unique set of demands. As a corporeal being, I would nose about and taste things in my environment. To my alarm, some sort of image or idea would flash into being and catch my attention. Then I would LOOK at it intently and surrender my self, transforming flesh to symbol and back in relentless circuits of “Ecstasy,” a.k.a. “Terror,” a.k.a. “The Word.” When I finally looked away, I was NEW. I hope it’s the same for you!
What’s the main reason someone should really read this book?
You should read the book to challenge and thereby potentially dethrone your OWN life’s fascistic narrator. That nasally voice in your head that proclaims itself “I”—WHO DA FUCK IS THAT? Have you ever talked back? If you did…talk back…who would you BE then? Who’s talking to whom, exactly? Whoa! You NEED to be asking these questions… I, No Other is a great place to start!
What’s the most distinctive thing about the main character? Who—real or fictional—would you say the character reminds you of?
The narrators of I, No Other are all quite full of themselves. That’s kind of the point! At their best and at their worst—in all their glory and depravity—their wisdom and folly—their self-love and self-loathing—their raptures and afflictions—they ALL remind me of…MYSELF.