Paul A. Toth

Paul A. Toth is a fiction writer and poet ^[1] who lives in Florida. He is the author of four novels, Fizz (Bleak House Books, 2004) Fishnet (Bleak House Books, 2005), Finale (Raw Dog Screaming Press, 2009), and Airplane Novel (Raw Dog Screaming Press, 2011). Toth's short stories, poems, multimedia pieces, and other work can be accessed from (these links). His work has appeared in numerous publications and websites, including The Adirondack Review,^[2] The Plum Ruby Review,^[3] The Blue Moon Review,^[4] The Barcelona Review,^[5] Mississippi Review Online,^[6] Nuvein Magazine,^[7] and Blue Lake Review.^[8] Toth also served as an assistant fiction editor for storySouth, Small Spiral Notebook, and Mad Hatters' Review.

Biography

Born in 1964, Toth was raised in Flint, Michigan, a once-thriving "GM town" that was, by the time of Toth's elementary school years, beginning to disintegrate. Eventually, GM would provide less and less a basis for the city's existence, creating an economic void that has yet to be filled. Growing up in the Vietnam and Watergate era, Toth's earliest years involved bouts with the obsessional end of OCD as well as unexplainable depressions that intensified with age. These symptoms were often confused with bipolar disorder, leading to an array of approaches and solutions that inevitably failed. When college proved an intermittent and disappointing affair, Toth began traveling, eventually living in Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., Denver, and various locations in Florida. Through his late thirties and forties, Toth decided to complete his BA and then pursue an MA at Gonzaga University. Along the way, he found relief in the works of Jim Thompson, Samuel Beckett, J.G. Ballard, W.G. Sebald, William S. Burroughs, Henry Miller, and the Greek tragedians. His thinking has been influenced by the likes of George Bataille, Guy Debord, Henri Bergson, Montaigne, Marcel Duchamp, and many others. In addition, Toth’s “The Kind of Girl You Read About in New Wave Magazines” won an &NOW award in 2009 and was published in The &NOW Awards: The Best Innovative Writing. Toth also participated in the annual &NOW Festival of New Writing.

Early work

Toth's early work consists of short stories, over 150 of which have been published. His short fiction ranges from the absurd to a surrealistic noir that verges on parodying the genre. Themes include the persistence of self-doubt regarding identity, a sense of being lost amongst objects, and a clutching for reality that almost always fails. As Toth's work progressed, his themes broadened to incorporate sociological commentary that, while often "hidden" beneath the surface material, nevertheless portrayed a world in which the protagonist lives in what Toth calls a "tyranny of the senses." His stories also increasingly reflected a political aspect that was inflated to proportions rendering this element almost fantastic, thus eliminating the potential for his work to become dated once particular issues passed from public consciousness. Rather than writing political short stories that reflect current trends, Toth extrapolates from current events and trends to propose a "future" that already exists. Most of Toth's short fiction, as well as his nonfiction, poetry, and multimedia work, can be accessed via his web portal.

Novels

The first three novels Toth wrote, commonly known as the "F" novels, include Fizz, Fishnet and Finale. This trilogy follows three characters who each approach identity in different ways and in doing so reach far different conclusions or "accidental fates," as Toth would describe them. The trilogy is one in which characters from one novel may briefly appear in another, but time is not linear throughout the three books, which can be read in any order.

Toth considers his 9/11 work Airplane Novel the summation of his evolution as a writer. Airplane Novel serves as a witnessing of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks...but from the perspective of the South Tower. This allows for the ultimate perspective and one never before rendered in writing or captured on film or video. Toth embraced a cubist approach and insists that most of his research involved studying cubist paintings, as well as reading cubist theory and cubist poetry. His narrative technique is one that attempts to portray all events and characters in constant flux and instability but also moving through all potentialities. He was intensely influenced by Henri Bergson's Creative Evolution. His research included interviewing one of the original architects of the WTC, who worked with chief architect Minoro Yamsaki. The result is what Toth calls the 9/11 novel, insurmountable in its ambitious approach. The Airplane Novel Website features video and audio related to the project, as well as reviews like the following from New York Times and Newsweek journalist Dan Newland: "Airplane Novel is, without a doubt, the most extraordinary of all books published to date on the destruction by terrorists of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. His book tells a truly intimate inside story of the rise and fall of the Twin Towers that cuts through the hype and emotive rhetoric...Objective, clear-headed and big-picture focused, this is a book that will change the outlook of many a reader regarding the 9/11 tragedy."

In 2014, Toth dismissed the idea that politics exist. "What sounds like disagreement is a conspiracy of rackets."

References