Peter Sotos – Nine-Banded Books

Instead Indices

Richard Smith — Wed, 29 Apr 2026 22:48:13 +0000

7.44 x 9.68 | 348 pages | Perfect-bound softcover Coated interior Photo-illustrated ______________ JUNE 8 UPDATE: Despite rumors to the contrary, I have not mailed out any advance or gratis copies of Instead Indices. North American orders in receipt are on track to go out in a single bulk mailing on Monday, June 15, as initially announced. Reports of "early arrivals" almost certainly trace to international orders that were allocated to Amphetamine Sulphate and shipped at their discretion. My intention with this release has been to ensure that all advance orders handled through 9BB are received at approximately the same time. When the bulk transaction is scanned at the post office on Monday, purchasers will -- or should -- receive notification and tracking information through an automated email service. I'm using Pirate Ship for address management and verification, and I have flagged notes from customers indicating address errors to be corrected. For those who have asked, the books are securely packed -- first in a bubble mailer, then in a durable cardboard 10 1⁄4 x 8 1⁄4 x 1" Kraft Easy-Fold Mailer, then in a USPS Priority Mail cardstock mailer. I also have a certain number of copies on reserve to cover for loss or damage in transit. I regret that I have not been as responsive as I should with reference to email queries and correspondence. I will try to respond to everyone next week, following the big mail day. Thank you for your patience and understanding. MAY 17 UPDATE: I'm dropping the passive voice to give you a straightforward first-person account of where things stand with this release. First, a number of people have written to ask if Instead Indices is indeed "sold out." While I assumed that was the case, now that I have returned to my PC and looked under the hood, I see that I had initially set the sales limit too low. With apologies for the confusion, then, orders are again open, with ~50 more books available for purchase. Are there more? Will there be more? The accurate answer is that there are a few; but these copies are presently reserved for such contingencies that might require books lost or damaged in transit to be replaced. If any of these "insurance" copies remain after the smoke settles, I may dispatch them to Amphetamine Sulphate to sell at their discretion. This is speculative. Lest there be any confusion, I should clarify that my firm intention is to mail ALL of the orders in receipt on the date of release, which is June 15, 2026. I am enlisting a third-party service to see that this bulk dispatch is executed efficiently. International orders processed through Amphetamine Sulphate are being dispatched at their discretion. My below-referenced publisher's note ("Logic and Lemmata") will be made available here as a free download following the book's June 15 release. It may also be noted that Philip Best, having disclosed and expended his modest interest in this venture, has posted a pithily obliquitous commentary on something called a Substack. Look it up. I suspect a cipher. Finally, I should confirm that the allotment dedicated for overseas customers has been sold out. I have disabled the link. Thanks for your patience. Boxin' 'em up, boss. MAY 12 UPDATE: If you placed an order for this title using Venmo or PayPal and you did not receive an automated email confirmation, please rest assured that your order is in receipt. Also, if you recently contacted 9BB with a correction to a processed order or for another reason relevant to this release (other than to complain about the price), I will be getting back with you as soon as practicable. The initial spate of orders has ebbed as anticipated, but there are still copies available. I do expect this one to sell out, however, probably prior to the release date. Thanks for your patience, folks. UPDATE: We are now accepting advance orders for Instead Indices. The shipping fee for US orders is $15. For orders placed from Mexico or Canada, the fee is $40. Orders placed from outside of North America are being handled by Amphetamine Sulphate, with shipping and handling fees determined at their discretion. If you are placing an order from a continent other than North America, please click HERE [link removed] to be redirected to the Amphetamine Sulphate checkout page. Books will be shipped on or shortly after the June 15 release date. Please refer to the revised announcement below for additional information. Changes from the original text are charmingly indicated with strikethroughs and boldfacing. ________________ Announcement After a regrettably long hiatus, Nine-Banded Books is pleased to announce the upcoming publication of Instead Indices, a major new book by Peter Sotos. We will begin accepting advance orders for this title during the second week of May, 2026. The book will be officially released on June 15, 2026. Instead Indices is being published in a limited edition of roughly three hundred (unnumbered) copies. ~~Domestic orders~~ North American orders will be fulfilled exclusively by the publisher, while international orders ~~placed from outside the United States~~ not originating from Canada or Mexico will be directed to a trusted distributor. In response to prior customer feedback, purchases will be strictly limited to one copy per transaction. The book is $95. While this is a high mark for a premium softcover, the price fairly reflects the investment of time and resources entailed in the development, production, and efficient dispatch of the present volume. Short-run printings are invariably costly, especially for books of substantial heft and durable quality. It is worth noting that Instead Indices will not be available through traditional online retailers upon release, and subsequent printings are not contemplated. For reasons more mundane than ~~suggestive~~ insinuative, Nine-Banded Books has opted not to ornament the present announcement with “ad copy,” or such descriptive verbiage that conventionally functions to tease or promote a book’s content. Following the date-certain release of Instead Indices, however, this listing will be supplemented with an external link to a formatted text ~~tentatively~~ entitled “Logic and Lemmata” that may be of marginal interest to some readers. This document will consist of candid remarks by the publisher, primarily, if expansively, bearing on the book’s structural design and layout. ~~Thank you for your attention to this matter.~~ Memento mori.

Kee MacFarlane

Richard Smith — Mon, 18 Dec 2023 17:54:48 +0000

02/13/2024 UPDATE: If you placed an advance order for this title, chances are it's either in your hands or in transit. A few orders -- mostly international orders -- remain to be dispatched, however, and I expect to have these out by the end of the week. I apologize for the delay, which is largely due to some unanticipated setbacks affecting my workaday schedule. But it's getting done, and your patience is greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Format: 4.5 x 7 | 124 pages | Softcover

Notes: Limited edition of 200 copies; includes a separate pamphlet enclosure written by the publisher 01/31/2024 Update: Orders begin shipping today! US domestic single orders go first, followed by combined and larger US orders. International orders will then follow. I expect this to take a few days, so your patience is appreciated. Publisher's comments: This is Chip Smith of Nine-Banded Books, first-person-bombing the space where you would ordinarily expect to find some artfully contrived voice-of-god description of the book that grabbed your attention—in this event, a new one by Peter Sotos that you’re probably going to buy anyway, while supplies last, maybe to sell on eBay when you’re short for a fix a year from now (old joke, I know), regardless of what promotional palaver I might otherwise parse and place here, whether as a coy tease or as a gesture of semi-professional form or, let’s be honest, as a cataloging crib-sheet for wholesalers. I figure it hardly matters, since there won’t be wholesale options for this one. This book won’t be in brick & mortar shops, and it won’t be listed on other online storefronts. You can buy it here and here alone. The price is fair, I think, and the press run is strictly limited to 200 copies. Okay. So, what is it? It’s a pocket-size paperback—a slim volume that you really can slide into your pocket. Which is lovely, don’t you think? Just like in the old days. Except you probably shouldn’t put it in your butt-pocket if you plan to do the eBay thing. That’s rough on books. Warps the spine. Sure. But what’s it, you know, about? Oh, it’s about 120 pages. Har, har. Sorry. The book is "about" Vanessa Place. Sort of. That’s an oversimplification, of course, which should go without saying. But for present purposes I’d prefer that as our shorthand. Better not to muddy the waters. It’s about Vanessa Place. If you don’t know who Vanessa Place is, there’s probably an internet nearby. If you do know who Vanessa Place is, then you probably know two things about her—both of which, I promise, are salient in Sotos’ text. And for what it’s worth, this one is mostly text. But for a spare selection of bracketing images and graphic drops at the front and back of the book—all of which derive from my gum-chewing aesthetic sensibility, so you’ll know who to blame!—it could almost qualify as a scholarly monograph. Except for the jokes. Scholarly monographs don’t usually have jokes. And there are jokes in this book. Just like in Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader. So, it’s a joke book? Yes. It’s a joke book. A “joke book” by Peter Sotos. Go with that. It’s not true, not really. But it’s a fun rumor. If it seems I’m being too glib for the occasion, I should also mention that I have written more elaborately—and I hope, more thoughtfully—about the present release (and matters tangential) in a short zine-like pamphlet enclosure that will be included with every order. That’s where I talk about my embarrassing role in the book’s origin, and more candidly, about my personal history as Peter Sotos’ friend and occasional publisher. And that’s where I try to explain, contrary to this display of ill-advised anti-promotional whimsy, why I think Kee MacFarlane is something more incisive and relevant than I'm letting on. Even if it doesn’t have an ISBN. Anyhow, my little pamphlet thing is factored in the price. Think of it as a glorified “publisher’s note.” Or just use it as a bookmark. Any other questions? If it’s a joke book about Vanessa Place, then why is it called— —Please. Read the room.

Missed. Better Still.

Richard Smith — Sat, 05 Nov 2022 19:24:10 +0000

Published by Amphetamine Sulphate in association with Nine-Banded Books, Peter Sotos' Missed. Better Still. is neither an anthology nor a collage, but a conceptually trained arrangement of previously published texts selected and sequenced by the author.

(start here)

Predicate
Comfort and Critique
Perfect Jason Swift
Lazy
Ingratitude
Index
Show Adult
Crows
Waitress
Tick
Selfish, Little
from Home
Missing Children
Repertoire
Kept
Desistance
Lordotics
Mine

(and finished there)

Lionel Maunz Peter Sotos

NBBDev — Fri, 12 Aug 2022 18:18:06 +0000

9 x 11.25 | 330 pages | Profusely photo-illustrated | Full-color | Hardcover 03/01/2022 NOTE: A small number of autographed copies that had been held in reserve are now being made available for purchase. Act quickly.

Possessed by a galvanic intensity rarely encountered in contemporary art, the work of Lionel Maunz is exhibited in discursive arrangement with Peter Sotos’ thematically expansive commentary in this ingeniously layered collation. Whether it is approached as an archival showcase of Maunz’s viscerally assaulting gallery portfolio, or as an exegetical key to the personal histories and refractory obsessions that inform and inscribe an overarching psycho-aesthetic confrontation with suffering, violence and desire, Lionel Maunz Peter Sotos is an immersive and uniquely disquieting fusion of text and imagery. The forum is sick, the conversation corrupted by the audience. Co-published by Amphetamine Sulphate and Nine-Banded Books, this full-color, large-format, limited edition hardcover features 187 color photos and illustrations by Lionel Maunz and a 63,000 word text by Peter Sotos. Copies ordered in advance of the December 1 release date will be individually autographed by Lionel Maunz and Peter Sotos.

Ingratitude

NBBDev — Tue, 09 Aug 2022 23:34:09 +0000

8.5 x 11 | 320 pages | Limited Edition ---- Through the revisitation of a kept file of newspaper clippings, Peter Sotos blends formative personal history with an exacting analysis of criminal and victim case reports to render a pornographically freighted disquisition on sexual compulsion and desistance. Ingratitude is also a study of restitution set against and the perpetual churn of memory. “It’s so easy to think you’re worse than you are.” __________ Publisher’s Note (April 7, 2021): During a recent stock inventory, we discovered an unopened box of Ingratitude (15 copies). While supplies last, these remaining copies are made being available for a moderately increased price. One book per customer, please. Thanks.

Desistance

NBBDev — Mon, 08 Aug 2022 17:24:42 +0000

In this prismatic and obliquely appreciative study of Antoine D’Agata’s photography, Peter Sotos arraigns the fraught vocabulary of gallery apologists — and of D’Agata himself — to locate a “finer definition of pornography” beneath the exigent demands of desire, transgression, and art. From the text: Not an argument with Antoine. What he says makes sense to me. Antoine can try. To articulate the lives, or his. Not enough like mine or how one should learn by now to mope. My choice to reduce his vague, perfectly desperate responses to even less isn’t done to pinpoint prurience or laud the banality of contradictions and intellectualized sexual honesty. I think he should be placed in art rather than pornography, since, honestly, one has to choose, label, sell, mutter. Having a place to go where the level isn’t boastful but conciliatory is a better place to have. The arguments are most often with those that need to blame the offer; who usually opt for the same slimy conclusion as me. Important to them to find expansion, humanity, a lean reason instead of bulk obsession. Failure, shrug-marketing and limp frightened objects performing jobs. Sex is tacky, central, but mysterious as long as the mystery is highlighted. Condemn the pain on one side while indulging it on the other. Pick bravery and introspection rather than impulsive divestiture and repetition. Point to the pain, reference a cause, track back but don’t return. Don’t progress unless it’s to be overwhelmed. From the text: Some will misunderstand it as pornography, yes? Reduce your introspection to their dogging level. The forum is sick, the conversation corrupted by the audience, the need for contextual references, the historical over the esthetic, diminished by lifeless answer rather than stiff ignorance. This, sucker, is where you become as lousy, easy, as the pornographers you seek to sound less like. Your tolerance, coming before your sale, is defensive. Your bravery given to you inconveniently by those who call you a coward. A rule of thumb, easily employed, only ever silently, my darling, is to substitute the word “adult” over every catcall of “coward.” “Thought” over every “need.” Repulsively, “product” over “art.” And it’ll help you to insist on “desistance” over “desire.” From the text: I like to think that the work I’ve done has forced me to look forward as an old dying man from the very first time I saw it. From when I was younger, not that I would have wanted to stay there. Drippy nostalgia, grief, that I have. But the questions, for example, that Antoine D’Agata bats off, come from him first. He convinces them before they open their selling robot french mouths. Might think they’re asking questions they’ve thought up. And you start talking about progress. The lack of it. The medication to escape. The desire to have desires that don’t lose yourself in desire. That’s for him. I don’t think the art stands up to the complimentary mock attacks but you don’t turn around and say that you just want to be happy. Or even learn to enjoy the pain.

Tool

NBBDev — Tue, 02 Aug 2022 16:37:41 +0000

In 1985, Peter Sotos was arrested. He was charged with obscenity for publishing a magazine and was later convicted for possession of child pornography. After his trial, he kept a low profile. He worked for a meat distribution company and struggled to pay down his legal bills. He underwent mandatory counseling. Then, in the late 1980s, he began writing a manuscript that, once published, would signal the mature arrival of one of the most disquieting and original voices in English literature. That manuscript was called Tool. Opening with an excruciating set piece inspired by the crimes of Ian Brady, Tool unfolds through a sequence of vivid metafictional narratives that rain hard light on the blackest recesses of a Sadean abyss, limning a ferocious tableau vivant thronged with victims and whores and jaded cops, with grief-stricken mothers, writhing AIDS casualties, and abased gloryhole habitués. In one deeply resonant chapter, Sotos renders a coruscating account of his fateful arrest and interrogation. Written in lean, exacting prose, Tool stands as a deftly structured, pornographically sifted psycho-literary inquest, a pneumatic masterpiece marked by preternatural acumen, stark verisimilitude, and implacable emotive gravity. Originally published by Jim Goad in the 1996 omnibus, Total Abuse, the text has since appeared in the Creation Books collection, Proxy. This is the first stand-alone edition. It is presented with a publisher’s introduction and a new closing essay by Peter Sotos.

MINE

NBBDev — Tue, 02 Aug 2022 16:27:24 +0000

Against a densely imbricated skein of documentary fragments and confessional annotation, Mine advances a sustained, interlocutory investigation into the ulterior etiologies and malignant narcissism of underground pornography. “How dare you cling to the idea that there’s something to be understood.” An excerpt: I have to pin the words down, cut them out and place them as far as possible from the dunce economy. I’m not an exegete. But I take the words and ideas and stutters and stick them somewhere far more successful. You’ll understand this, finally, when I demean myself enough to tell you what I do with the words that these mouthy pigs just repeat often enough to tell you that they stand behind them. It’s not what I take, or who I take them away from. But where I put them. Not rewrite them. Not change or charge the context. I identify them. I don’t, idiot, masturbate with them. I can’t imagine wanting to do anything without having these words fully included. I wouldn’t even consider doing anything without them. The cunts that make cartoons out of their ideas. Little collages and signatures and slack versions. Strippers and songwriters and female’d max factors. I live all over them. I write through them, use them, come away with little more than a dangling possible. … What I do is inescapable. __________ Peter Sotos is one of those rare writers who can say, ‘The words I write are me,’ or at least as close as anyone can come to communicating who they are in words. —Thomas Ligotti We do not find in Sotos the customary delusions about childhood misery and wounded lives. For this latter-day homo sacer, wounds are not to be healed but poked and worried until they bleed. Sotos is literature’s outcast, carrying stigma like a rat carries plague. —Mikita Brottman

Selfish, Little: The Annotated Lesley Ann Downey

NBBDev — Fri, 29 Jul 2022 18:46:19 +0000

In this unnerving book, cult author Peter Sotos examines the brutal murder of Lesley Ann Downey at the hands of British “Moors Murderers” Ian Brady and Myra Hindley. With frank, inimitable prose and self-deprecating wit, Sotos interweaves numerous accounts – culled from tabloids, memoirs, and television specials – of the sensational crime and its devastating aftermath with analogous excerpts from recent headlines, explicit erotic fantasies, and graphic descriptions of degrading, often-anonymous carnal encounters. Sotos persistently seeks the truth where others are afraid to look, and discovers an implicit pornography in the public lamentations of Downey’s grieving mother, media coverage of lurid sex crimes, and journalistic forays into the private lives of sex offenders. Replete with autobiographic tales of sexual excess, telling interviews, and thoughtful musings on crime, art, and pornography, Selfish, Little is a surreal “smorgasbord of unabashed vulgarity.”

Comfort and Critique

NBBDev — Mon, 11 Jul 2022 22:08:50 +0000

Peter Sotos recounts the abduction and murder of 8-year-old Sarah Payne, a crime that stunned England and spawned an aftermath of reactionary outcry and violent protest. Through news bites and tabloid clippings reassembled in reverse chronology, Sotos examines the media apotheosis of Payne’s parents in the wake of her disappearance, scrutinizes the hidden motives of reporters and citizens driven to hysterical excess by grief, vengeance, and opportunism, and illumines the insatiable lusts that govern the actions of sexual predators. Punctuated by philosophical overtures and self-deprecating quips, Comfort and Critique is a brutal meditation on fantasy and desire set against a backdrop of media banter and illicit back room activity in bars and underground sex clubs. Supplemented by over 100 photos, this volume is possibly Sotos’ most revealing and multi-faceted work to date. Originally released in clothbound limited edition in 2005, this Nine-Banded Books paperback is published by arrangement with Void Books and features a new cover design by Kevin I Slaughter.