Ryan Ridge - American Homes

Ryan Ridge has toppled everything. An insane and brilliant book that travels the American Home while moving ever further into the mind. What is possible in writing feels different now.
Amina Cain, author of Creature

Ryan Ridges American Homes is a guidebook gagbook rulebook dreambook thoughtbook freakbook stylebook cookbook mapbook. Its overflowing with ideas, with mental diagrams and musings on the vast contraptions that surround us every day. Somewhere between Perec and Brautigan, between Barthelme and Markson, Ridge emerges from the rhizome of rooms we call today and nudges it in the ribs until theres a hole there for you to stick your head in and inhale the funny bubbles of fresh blood.
Blake Butler, author of 300,000,000

In the kitchens in Ryan Ridges American Homes are Cuisinarts into which he pours the words he bakes into loaves of prose, more wry than rye. The sandwiches he makes from them are fun to eat but leave a bitter taste in the mouth because the Land of American Homes is, after all, a bitter place. Still: the American Home is shooting sunbeams out of its eye sockets so welcome home. And welcome Ryan Ridges American Homes into yours!
Denis Wood, author of Everything Sings

Ryan Ridge inflects his anatomy of suburban interiors with a madcap, panoptic conceptualist idiom, and his readers will be left feeling they never gave nearly enough thought to the stuff that real, lived life comprises: walls, floors, doors, windows, garages, sheds, attics and basements. Ostensibly a tongue-in-cheek meditation satirizing the homogenization of contemporary domestic space, American Homes develops a truly heterogeneous literary architecture founded on the basis of formal dynamism and linguistic play.
Evan Lavender-Smith, author of From Old Notebooks

Ryan Ridge

University of Michigan Press
Ann Arbor

Copyright 2015 by Ryan Ridge
All rights reserved

This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, including illustrations, in any form (beyond that copying permitted by Sections 107 and 108 of the U.S. Copyright Law and except by reviewers for the public press), without written permission from the publisher.

Published in the United States of America by the
University of Michigan Press

Manufactured in the United States of America

2018 2017 2016 2015 4 3 2 1

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3998/tfcp.13240727.0001.001

ISBN 978-0-472-07258-3 (hardcover : alk. paper)
ISBN 978-0-472-05258-5 (paper : alk. paper)
ISBN 978-0-472-12099-4 (e-book)

for Michelle L.

The strength of a nation derives from the integrity of the home.
Confucius

Everybody needs a home
Takes centuries to build
And seconds to fall
Stephen Malkmus

Acknowledgment is made to the following publications in which sections of this book first appeared, sometimes in slightly different forms and sometimes under slightly different titles: Artifice, Bull, The Collagist, DIAGRAM, elimae, Everyday Genius, Kitty Snacks, Lamination Colony, Nailed, The Mississippi Review, Pear Noir, Salt Hill, Specter, Stoked.

This book would not exist without help, support, and inspiration from the following people: Blake Butler, Amina Cain, Ron Carlson, Gabe Durham, Ashley Farmer, Luke Goebel, Alan Grostephan, Jacob Heustis, Evan Lavender-Smith, Ben Marcus, Aaron McCollough, J.A. Tyler, Matthew Vollmer, and Denis Wood.

Thank you.

All illustrations are by Jacob Heustis.

American Homes is a book. American Homes is an idea. American Homes is a book of ideas. American Homes is just beginning. American Homes is about to end. American Homes is the foundation of all unions. American Homes is the soundtrack to our American lives. American Homes is the disinclination of individual states to yield power to the federal government. American Homes is powerlessness. American Homes is slow evolution. American Homes is not just black and white. American Homes is great for families. American Homes is better for business. American Homes is targeted at affluent women with a flair for the unconventional. American Homes is aimed at men who are comfortable with their feelings about their feelings. American Homes is feeling much better. American Homes is never worse. American Homes is an obstacle course. American Homes is between shopping centers and the skeletons of factories. American Homes is distinctly American. American Homes is illegal in Iran. American Homes is taking narcotics. American Homes is living in Tucson. American Homes is dying in Florida. American Homes is internationally known. American Homes is home movies about home movies. American Homes is a technical fact. American Homes is saving coupons and the world. American Homes is very lucky to have you. American Homes is difficult to forget.

The Front Porch is the prologue to an American Home. Or perhaps an American Home is the prologue to the Front Porch. It depends on whose home. Also: it matters who is home. Depending on these variables the Front Porch (also called the Initial Perch) is a place where a wide variety of people post-up. For instance, at a Cocktail Party (See: Domestic Festivities) the smokers are generally sequestered to this area where they swap avant-garde tales of the afternoon in between coughing jags. According to the Nu American Center for Statistical Analysis (NACSA), a person appears 40% more attractive with a cigarette in his or her hand. Hence the Front Porch (AKA The Smokers Outlet) is 120% more attractive when three or more people are smoking on it. It is the customary place where Guests wait for the Homeowners to acknowledge their presence. It is also the altar where teenage boys kneel and pray that their dates father does not answer the Door (See: Front Door). Front Porches are generally decorated with benches, rocking chairs, hammocks, and Porch Swings. Other key components of the Front Porch: animal carcasses and welcome mats. If a Porch has a welcome mat, consider yourself welcomed and invite yourself in. However, if a Porch is adorned with an animal carcass, say a goat skull smeared with virgin blood, go somewhere else. Quickly. Many U.S. Porches are super-patriotic and feature prominent American flags flapping in the American breeze like proud testaments to 18th century optimism. The Front Porch is one of the great nostalgias of our time. Which time? This time, which means: No time to look back. Even less time to crawl inside our minds. Here we are. Where? I dont know. Look. Look at the Porch Swing.

The Porch Swing is a Post-Cynical literary device. It propels the plot forward, then back, then forward again. Often errors and felonies create excellent narratives. However, the Porch Swing is not now, nor has it ever been, either of those things. The Porch Swing is innocent. It is also a symbol of freedom in the book American Homes.