Thomas Iver Bradley (born March 17, 1954) is an American novelist, essayist and writer of short stories. He is the author of The Sam Edwine Pentateuch, a five-book series, of which various volumes have been nominated for the Editor's Book Award,The Spirit of Writing, Tarcher Putnam (NYC), 2001 () the New York University Bobst Prize,The Edgier Waters, Snow Books (London), 2006 () and the AWP Award Series in the Novel.Sudden Stories, Mammoth Books, 2003 () Tom Bradley's nonfiction is regularly featured by Arts & Letters Daily, and has also appeared in Salon.com, McSweeney's Internet Tendency, and Ambit Magazine.Ambit Magazine, Issue 189, Summer 2007 (London) He has been characterized as an "outsider" by the LA Times book blog.
His sixth book, Fission Among the Fanatics, was named Non-Fiction Book of the Year 2007 by 3:AM Magazine, with the citation, a literary giant among pygmies.3:AM Magazine » 3:AM Awards 2007 NPR commentator Andrei Codrescu called the book "the first appearance of a genre so strange we are turning away from naming it..."back cover, Fission Among the Fanatics, Spuyten Duyvil Books (NYC), 2007 The publication of his seventh book, Lemur, by Raw Dog Screaming PressRaw Dog Screaming Press is part of the Bizarro fiction movement.Bizarro Central Article on Tom Bradley According to The Advocate, "[Lemur] could do as much to raise the rainbow flag as two medium-size Midwestern Stonewall Day parades."The Advocate, review of Tom Bradley's Lemur Tom Bradley has meanwhile contributed to the theoretical elucidation of the Bizarro aesthetic with his criticismThe Nab Gets Posthumously BizarroizedDream People ; see also "Ovid Reanimated," Put It Down in a Book, The Drill Press, 2009, pages 3-19 and his interviews.Novelist Tom Bradley Interviewed at Unlikely StoriesBizarro Central, Interview with Tom Bradley His eighth novel, Vital Fluid, is based on the life, writings and performances of stage hypnotist John-Ivan Palmer and was published by Crossing Chaos Enigmatic Ink.
His twentieth book, Family Romance (illustrated by Nick Patterson), is forthcoming from Debra Di Blasi's Jaded Ibis Press, described by Forbes magazine as a "hotpoint where the novel is undergoing radical transformation to reflect its time."The 21st Century Novel: Jaded Ibis Sees a 'Mashup'
Biography Tom Bradley was born in Utah during a time when hydrogen bomb tests were still performed above ground.Fission Among the Fanatics, Spuyten Duyvil Books (NYC), 2007: page 5: "[Tom Bradley] was born downwind in Utah in the heat of the aboveground hydrogen bomb test era... [he] remembers in kindergarten peeking out the lunchroom window and seeing the sky blacker than midnight. " Later, he lived in the People's Republic of China for many years and lost friends in the Tiananmen Square Massacre.Gadfly Online
The author has stated that as an unintended victim of US nuclear testing,nthposition online magazine: My public ministry among the heathen he gravitated to HiroshimaMcSweeney's Internet Tendency: Holiday in Hiroshima and Nagasaki,identity theory | alphabet zen - "the bloodsucker of nagasaki" by tom bradley where he has written strident criticisms of the Japanese educational systemSalon Books | Turning Japanese In the opinion of Israeli journalist Barry Katz, who writes for 3:AM Magazine in Paris, Tom Bradley deliberately courts controversy: "He does seem bent on leaving absolutely nobody unpissed-off. His venom’s no less ecumenical than gratuitous."King Kong Vs. Godzilla: Tom Bradley Happy-Fucks Osaka; see also Critical Appendix 2, Put It Down in a Book, The Drill Press, 2009, pages 315-354 Rain Taxi Review of Books expresses the notion as follows: "As proof of his leaving no one un-offended, he's been nudged out of every university where he has taught. For the past two decades he has lived the life of an ex-pat laugh assassin, tucked away in a volcanic mountain on the island of Kyushu".Rain Taxi Review of Books, Vol.13, No. 2, Summer 2008
However, in composing the Critical Appendix for Fission Among the Fanatics, The Advocate writer Cye Johan arrived at a different conclusion: "I tell you that Dr. Bradley has devoted his existence to writing because he intends for every center of consciousness, everywhere, in all planes and conditions (not just terrestrial female Homo sapiens in breeding prime), to love him forever, starting as soon as possible, though he's prepared to wait thousands of centuries after he's dead".Critical Appendix, Fission Among the Fanatics, Spuyten Duyvil Books (NYC), 2007, page 289
He claims paternal descent from Mormon handcart pioneersibid., page 129 who were excommunicated almost immediately upon arriving in Deseret,The Evil Glee from whom he inherited his "whole hefty metabolism"The Spirit of Writing, Tarcher Putnam (NYC), 2001 (), page 46 and his remarkable height.The Practical Writer, Penguin Books (NYC), 2004 (, ), pages 190-191 3:AM Magazine describes him as "sociopathically tall."3:AM Magazine reportage of a public performance in Osaka He also claims to have descended maternally from an earlier Nagasaki expatriate, Thomas Blake Glover.identity theory | alphabet zen - "the bloodsucker of nagasaki" by tom bradley
Regarding the questionReview of Acting Alone: a novel of nuns, neo-Nazis and NORAD, Dr. Dalma Brunauer, Journal of Evolutionary Psychology, March 1995A Japan of the Mind (3:AM Magazine, Paris) of the extent to which his fictional alter-ego, Sam Edwine, is autobiographical, Tom Bradley has written that while the character is more intelligent and has had a great variety of experiences that he has not, they are essentially alike."...are you Sam Edwine?" All Hands On, Elephant Rock Books (Chicago), 2004 ()
Selected works
Nonfiction Put It Down in a Book, The Drill Press, 2009 Fission Among the Fanatics, Spuyten Duyvil Books (NYC), 2007 (Both recipients of the 3:AM Magazine Non-Fiction Book of the Year Award) Felicia's Nose (illustrated by Nick Patterson), Mad Hat Press, 2012 My Hands Were Clean, Unlikely Books, 2010 Epigonesia (with Kane X. Faucher), Blaze Vox Books, 2010 New Cross Musings on a Manic Reality (editor), Dog Horn Publishing, 2011
Fiction The Church of Latter-day Eugenics (with Chris Kelso), Bizarro Pulp Press, 2017 Family Romance (illustrated by Nick Patterson), Jaded Ibis Press, 2012 A Pleasure Jaunt With One of the Sex Workers Who Don't Exist in the People's Republic of China, NeoPoiesis Books, 2012 Bomb Baby, Enigmatic Ink, 2010 Hemorrhaging Slave of an Obese Eunuch, Dog Horn Publishing, 2010 Calliope's Boy, Black Rainbows Press, 2010 Vital Fluid, Crossing Chaos, 2009 Even the Dog Won't Touch Me, Ahadada Books, 2009 Lemur, Raw Dog Screaming Press, 2008 Acting Alone: a novel of nuns, neo-Nazis and NORAD, Browntrout Books, 1995; 2nd ed., Drill Press, 2010
References
External links tombradley.org Profile-interview in National Public Radio commentator Andrei Codrescu's Exquisite Corpse Featured Author at Identity Theory Magazine Lecture at the An Evening with Tom Bradley Like a Love-Sarong With No Zipper, at HTML Giant The Evil Glee, at 3:AM Magazine This Elevated Pitch, at Dogmatika Chuffed to Be Dunked in Duchamp's Pissoir, at Word Riot Bizarro is My God-Baby, at Unlikely Stories Neanderthals Sprinkling Their Dead With Flowers, at The Drill Press Tom Bradley and the Sam Edwine Pentateuch Tom Bradley Happy-Fucks Osaka