Pure Cosmos Club (a Novel)

In this biting satire, Matthew Binder takes surreal aim at the poses and pretensions of high art and fashion. With ruthless wit, Binder chronicles the struggles of Paul, an eccentric artist, and his companion dog, a disabled, quiche-obsessed terrier-mix named Blanche. Together they negotiate hilarious scenes of bad parties, bizarre couture, deranged friends, shady deals, unrequited love, sabotage, and inscrutable art. But there may be a way out for Paul when he meets James, a New Age guru and leader of a secretive cult: the Pure Cosmos Club. Yet, every time Paul believes he’s ready for the “Ultimate Level,” James raises the price of entry. Just how far will Paul go for love, for art, and to attain cosmic oneness?

Some Nice Things People Have Written About The Work:

“Pure Cosmos Club is an inventive, antic picaresque with a satirical eye trained on spiritual and aesthetic hucksterism. Matthew Binder sets them up and knocks them down in this witty, energetic novel. Long live Blanche the dog!” – Sam Lipsyte, author of No One Left To Come Looking For You  

“Binder is our American Murakami. He takes tragic themes and makes them hilarious but also mind-blowing, cosmos erupting. If you’ve forgotten the pure joy of reading, buy this book immediately: Binder’s enormous delight in language and life is irresistible. You’ll be hooked again, like I was, like you were when you were a kid.” – Clancy Martin, author of Bad Sex

“Pure Cosmos Club is a satirical rollick through art, money, and power. Our guide is a most unusual man, a struggling artist named Paul, whose work is either brilliant or terrible—depending on who’s looking—and will do whatever it takes to break through. With a uniquely memorable ensemble, including Blanche, whose sophisticated pallet and mind of her own make her an exceptional dog, indeed. This laugh-out-loud novel is a fresh take on spiritual ascension, told in language so propulsive and gorgeous it announces Binder as a master stylist of prose.”  – Amanda Stern, author of Little Panic

“In the world of Pure Cosmos Club, art is a vain posture, enlightenment is an elaborate con, and delusion is a way of life. Matthew Binder’s ingenious satire captures the absurdities of our fraught moment with a startling mix of laugh-out-loud hilarity and subtle melancholy. It’s a novel you won’t shake anytime soon.” - Jeff Jackson, author of Destroy All Monsters

"This absurdist send-up of the haute art world features a struggling iconoclast navigating a Palahniukian landscape of poser blowhards and sky-high art deals with the best canine sidekick in literature. There’s not another novel out there like this one." -  Courtney Maum, author of Costalegre

Reading Matthew Binder’s Pure Cosmos Club, one is overwhelmed by the sheer power of his imagination, his capacity to conjure into being not only characters but an entire universe that is as full as ours but in some essential way very different. Later, the characters, who had at first seemed inhuman, embed themselves in your mind. Their humanity, you’ve realized, is richer, more intense, than the humanity to which we’re accustomed. What’s best of all is the way that, ultimately, it’s through their eyes that we begin to see ourselves in ways we never had. - Celeste Marcus, Liberties Journal

“What a thrill to live inside the head of Paul, the disturbed, lovable genius of Pure Cosmos Club.” - Paula Bomer, author of Inside Madeline

“A dazzling, often surreal, laugh-out-loud portrait of the unheralded artist getting onto the middle years of life."  – Julian Tepper, author of Between the Records