Trafford Publishing: Anywhere & Anything

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Anywhere & Anything

by David Axe

104 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #01-0032; ISBN 1-55212-630-7; US$19.50, C$22.50, EUR16.00, £11.50

No money. No change of clothes. 4400 miles from home. Teller has been in Paris for 128 minutes.

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about the book      about the author      sample chapter      catalogue info

About the Book

Three thousand dollars. It was more money than Teller had ever seen. And it was enough to get him to Europe and back. His dreams were realized when he stepped off the airplane and onto French soil. Two hours later, a mugging left him penniless and hopeless. The grand tour of which he had dreamed for so long suddenly loomed as a tour horrible.

Reviews
from GetRealDetroit.com
It's clear from the opening of Anywhere & Anything that David Axe is quite a good writer, which is perhaps why he won the 2001 Free Times Short Story Contest. Published independently by Trafford Publishing, Axe's novel centers on our protagonist, Teller, a young man who has saved $3000 for a two-month trip to Europe. But when Teller's money is taken moments after he arrives in Paris, the novel takes a turn for the worse, spiraling down into the paranoid recesses of Teller's mind. With graphic art by Brian Ground that enhances the mind-altering effects of the novel, Anywhere & Anything is a surprising book. Axe's true talent lies in creating a stage for our minds to play. His dialogue is sharp, quick and forthright, giving the entire book a minimalist flavor (better for letting our minds fill in the rest of the blanks). It helps both the author and the novel that Axe, a writer from Columbia, South Carolina, is incredibly self-confident in his voice. Overall a book that proves that Axe might one day be on the New York Times Bestseller List. - S.A.A
from Columbia, S.C.'s Free Times, June 6-12, 2001
Down and out in France and Hungary by Rodney Welch
    David Axe deservedly won the 2001 Free Times Short Story Contest for his entry "Indistinguishable" -- as one of the judges, I can honestly say it stood head and shoulders over just about everything else. He has now written a tight, lean, somewhat Kafka-esque first novel: Anywhere and Anything. The prose is sharp and wiry, and it races along virtually from the first page, carrying with it a bristling undertow of violence. Axe doesn't quite pull off the story in the end, but he sustains interest and excitement most of the way.
    Like Arthur Nersesian's The Fuck-Up from a couple of years ago, the story follows the downward spiral of a young man who has been suddenly reduced to nothing. Teller, a young Georgia man fresh out of high school, has saved a pile of dough from working over the summer as a security guard. Rather than head for college, he decides to embark on his life-long dream -- to tour Europe, leaving behind a disintegrating family life.
    Quickly, things go to hell. No sooner does he land in France than he is mugged of his entire savings by a gypsy woman, and is forced to depend on the kindness of strangers. The first of these is Adam Ham, a rough-hewn Australian who teaches him a few survival skills, always stressing the importance of maintaining one's own independence. As if to force the issue, he advises Teller to write home and tell the folks he's having a great time, since going home broke will only make him look weak. Through Ham's intervention, Teller gets a job working the night shift at a hostel.
    While Teller manages to get by, he has not exorcised his many demons. On a dope run for his new employer, he encounters the woman he believes robbed him. In a sudden fit of homicidal rage, he kills both her and an associate. As luck or fate would have it, he then manages to get out of Paris when Ham secures for him a stay in Hungary. This trip, too, proves a disaster, but a somewhat grimly enlightening one -- for Teller, if not for the reader, as this last patch of the story isn't sufficiently developed.
    Axe has a genuine talent for both place and character. While his eye and ear for the European details, particularly conversational Hungarian, borders on the showy, he manages to give us a hostile young man's view of a grim, soulless society. Unfortunately, he rushes things at the end and loses some control over the story, as Teller's psychological changes are too hasty to sustain credibility. Also, the latent homoerotic relationship between Teller and Ham could have been colored in a bit more.
    Despite this fourth-quarter fumble, Anywhere and Anything does show a remarkably self-assured voice that is rare in a writer in his early 20s. It is not a stunning debut; indeed, I prefer to think of this self-published work as a kind of test run. Axe will go places. He just isn't there yet.
from Furman (Greenville, S.C.) University's The Paladin, April 27, 2001
Furman grad explores themes in novel by Kenneth Hamner, Staff Writer
    No money. No change of clothes. Four thousand four hundred miles from home.
    That is just the cover of David Axe's debut novella Anywhere and Anything. Axe, a 2000 Furman University graduate, has written a mini-epic that follows the trials and tribulations of a young man as he explores Europe. The book explores a variety of themes such as Western culture's imperialism and paternalism.
    Axe shows himself to be a promising writer. However, this book isn't going to be his breakthrough work.
    The first half of the book is its best. A gypsy woman in France robs Teller, a 19-year-old Georgian who passes on college for traveling after he has been there for just over two hours. At first Axe has written Teller to be worthy of the reader's sympathy. He has saved all of his money from his blue-collar job to take this trip and fulfill his dreams. Feeling defeated and hopeless, he goes to a local bar where he happens to meet Adam Ham, a well-traveled Australian who takes Teller under his wing. Ham is perhaps the book's most interesting character. He is confident, strong and independent, and he begins to shape Teller into an image of himself.
    Life for Teller gradually improves. He learns how to make an income while acquiring various languages. That is when things begin to turn sour in the book. As Teller becomes comfortable with his life and himself, the plot begins to spin out-of-control and loses its focus. It is no longer about a man trapped in Europe losing his innocence. Instead, it turns into a modern-day version of Frankenstein, except it is less innovative and compelling.
    Teller also turns into an empty character in the process. He merely becomes a vehicle to introduce other more compelling characters, and this changes his role in the book from protagonist to observer.
    The book's artwork by Brian Ground is one thing that never lets up. The cover is anything but conventional since it is more like a movie poster. Teller also writes several postcards throughout the course of the book, and Ground does a cool job of capturing the authenticity of Teller's emotions furing each scene he writes.
    Overall, Axe has written a book that I can recommend. The scene structure is excellent, and he knows how to keep the action upbeat without losing the reader's attention. I just wish Anywhere and Anything could have kept its focus till the end.

About the Author

David Axe lives in Columbia, S.C.
Also by David Axe:
Make Me
Song About A Girl (With Geoff Edwards)

Sample Chapter

Les arènes
Adam said goodbye ("For now, mate. I'll see you in a few weeks") and Teller was truly on his own again. He wandered the arrondissement for a few hours, eventually passing a brocherie that had a line of chickens on a rotisserie in the window. The oven was plastered with a sign. Poulet roti, 20f. Teller experimented with the words. "Poulet. Roti." Poo-lay. Roe-tee. After several repetitions, he walked boldly inside. The butcher, taken aback by the authority with which this young man ordered his chicken, scurried to procure it. Teller left with a bag of chicken and growing confidence.
    Evening crept up the horizon. Teller checked his watch: 7:05. He wandered toward the hostel. On a corner he passed the young man in dark flannel.
    "Brian?"
    Brian wheeled nervously. "Huh?"
    "Name's Teller. I saw you in the Lapin."
    "Oh, the Lapin." His face shaded red.
    "Baylor was just fucking with you. He's actually a nice man."
    "Well, regardless, you can't beat his rates. For seventy francs a night I'll put up with anything."
    "You're American?"
    "Yeah. You too?"
    "I'm from Georgia."
    "South Carolina." Brian offered his hand. His skin was plump and soft and his grip gentle. "What brings you overseas?"
    "I've always wanted to see Europe. And you?"
    "I'm here with a group from Furman University. Study abroad program."
    "Really? What are you studying?"
    "Art and art history."
    "So you're an artist."
    "De quelque sorte."
    "What does that mean?"
    "Of a sort. You don't speak French?"
    "Not yet. I'm learning."
    "Well, what are you doing right now?"
    "Nothing. I pull the night shift at the Lapin starting at midnight."
    "You want to go somewhere and practice some French?"
    "Sure."
    Brian led Teller past the Lapin and around a block of apartments. They walked at a lively pace. Their rhythms converged and they began to step in unison. The heat of the day had dissolved and the streets were bare-it was almost dinnertime and the French had moved indoors. Brian's hands moved vigorously-he was charged with energy. He had an intelligent face. It interacted with the things they passed, attaching ideas to locations and weaving everything around him into a coherent oeuvre. He shifted easily into guide mode. "The city of Paris is very old -- probably more than two thousand years. Originally, it was centered on those islands in the Seine -- you know them?"
    "Yeah, I've seen them. You mean the Ile de St. Louis and the Ile de la Cité?"
    "Exactly. The city expanded outward and by the time of the late Roman Empire reached nearly to this point. It was Roman custom to build facilities for public entertainment just outside the edge of the city, to avoid congestion and rowdiness downtown. The Romans were serious about their entertainment, you know."
    "No, I don't. But go on."
    "They built an arena here. It was big enough to seat several thousand and had a basement level for the storage of game animals and such. They put on gladiator displays, hunting games, and -- my personal favorite -- they would flood the arena and fight mock naval battles in scale boats." They rounded another corner. There was a peculiar gap in the row of apartments that dominated the local airspace. "The arena fell into neglect after the fall of the Empire. Locals pillaged it for stone and metal. Later they built huts inside. Soon they had covered the entire arena in buildings. For over a thousand years Parisians built layer upon layer of residences here. They soon forgot there was an arena at all. Then after the Great War some buildings were leveled to clear space for new construction and voilà -- les arènes." They passed through an odd stone archway and found themselves on the edge of an expansive playing field ringed by climbing rows of stone benches. Tall apartment buildings provided an unbroken backdrop.
    "My God."
    "Amazing, isn't it? You do some digging around and you never know what you'll find."
    Brian climbed a set of stone steps and sat with his feet dangling over the wall of the arena. Teller joined him. "And you know the best part? Local kids still play here. Fifteen hundred years after its construction, it's in use again. This is the way I like my history. Living. The Romans built this place for a function. To strip an old building or an ancient arena of its function is an affront to the people who built it."
    They sat in silence for a while, watching the sun sink below the apartments. The arena was cast in orange that slowly faded into cold blue as night fell.
    Later, they practiced French. Brian didn't know much, but what he did know he gladly shared‹mostly art terms and practical phrases. Teller recited diligently and accepted correction graciously. He pressed the new words into his memory, forcing the round hole of his brain to accept the square peg of a foreign language. Remarkably, he found memorization coming easier and easier. He had never known that he could learn by sheer brute force. By the time they left the arena, Teller felt like he could do anything.
    "What kind of art do you do?"
    "A lot of sculpture and prints. I like to combine modern and archaic elements -- sort of unifying the past and present."
    "You woulda liked my job back home. I pulled night security in an old office building. Each room had these punch machines -- big metal things with long handles. I had to punch this little yellow card that was probably twenty-five years old at each room every time I passed to prove that I'd been there. Of course, I learned pretty quickly that all I had to do was punch eleven cards one night and save them for the next ten days."
    "So you like to beat the system?"
    "I'm no rebel. But that doesn't mean I like rules."

Catalogue Information