“Jay Marvin is a throwback to the hard, gritty, naturalistic writing of the ’30s and ’40s when characters didn’t spend all of their time doing lunch or seducing their students. He joins Algren, Wright, Conroy, Olson, and Cain.” ~Ishmael Reed

“Marvin writes like a maniac. He hears things that many of us miss. He puts those things on paper where they are exceedingly strange and evocative. His work is never short of stun gun sharp.”~Frederick Barthelme

“Jay Marvin dips his pen into warm blood & shattered bone and paints his unflinching view of how it is out there…. [He] is a product of the front lines: Border towns, porno theaters, wrestling auditoriums, radio stations, used car lots, mental hospitals, twelve hours on the surgery table, years in rehab … and all of it. His poetry is a testament to a life lived. Read him. Weep or laugh. But read him. Amen.” ~Tom Russell, singer/songwriter

“Superior to the tough language, or the harsh and bleak landscape is Jay Marvin’s capacity for capturing, then holding hostage, characterization & conflict. His voice is authentic, his experience visceral—in tandem they seem singularly enormous. A frenetic sense of obscure panic careens amok throughout his lines. Marvin’s poetry drives hard, hot & furious through the darkest shadows of the human psyche. Has anyone else written poetry noir? To my knowledge, no--not before Jay Marvin--as original an inventor of style as they come. Better take him seriously; Jay Marvin will generate a lot of imitators, but none who understand the genre to the depths that he does.”~ Michael Annis, HDP founder/senior editor

"I don't think I have ever recommended a book on Facebook before, but I am doing it now. I am reading Death Dance by Jay Marvin, published by Howling Dog Press. As hard to read as it is hard to put down--think Genet meets de Sade meets Kerouac; you're on the road, but it's a dark road indeed, crossing a landscape where the line between a dark thought and a dark deed is nonexistent. Marvin throws a lot of punches; he's Bukowski without the politeness, which makes Death Dance a bruising read. With stark and startling images by artist Jeff Kappel that, like the prose, get under your skin like a splinter and stay there. Marvin is more Rimbaud than Auden; there's no Augustan distance here; it's personal. (As an aside, this book is published by an independent press which I support greatly.) You may be disburbed by this read, but not disappointed."~Regina A. Walker, senior writer, REVOLUTION magazine

To order Death Dance, follow this link ..... http://issuu.com/howlingdogpress/docs/final_issuu_preview_death_dance3