We Live Here Now by C.D. Rose

 

We Live Here Now by C. D. Rose.

Published 7th August 2025 by Melville House.

From the cover of the book:

When a famous conceptual artist's installation project suddenly vanishes, the sinister aftershocks radiate outwards through twelve people who were involved in the project, changing all of their lives, and launching them on a crazy-quilt trajectory that will end with them all together at one final, apocalyptic bacchanal.

Mixing illusion and reality, simulacra and replicants, sound artists and death artists, performers and filmmakers and gallerists and journalists, We Live Here Now ranges across the world of weapons dealers and international shipping to the galleries and studios on the cutting edge of hyper-contemporary art.

Rose's characters are, as one of the puts it, in search of 'a gateway to the Un, the Ex, the Outer, the Under, the Anti, the Non, the Other Place, the Not,' and it is those mysterious Other Places where C. D. Rose weaves his surreal magic. We Live Here Now spins a dazzling web that conveys, with eerie precision, the sheer strangeness of what it is like to be alive today.

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Welcome to the world of art through the intriguing perspective of C.D. Rose, who explores a myriad of facets around the work, artists, and the sphere that surrounds them, via fourteen linked short stories to push your metaphysical boundaries.

Connecting them all is the enigmatic artist Sigismunda Conrad, her peculiar art installation We Live Here Now, and the twelve people who were involved in the project. From critics, to fellow artists, agents, fixers, and a selection of others on the fringes of the art world, Rose spins a tale about the almost mythical Conrad, rumours of strange disappearances, and the fact that the exhibition piece itself has subsequently vanished.

Between literary bookends from the perspective of an art critic, which brings everything full circle, each chapter explores the uncanny experiences of the characters. Through them Rose probes different artistic media, performance, perception, memory, illusion, corporate machines, murky investments, and even the fabric of space and time, in pursuit of answers to some pretty big questions... What is art, and what does it tell us about ourselves and the world around us?

For those of you that consider art to be a subject as dry as dust, then this the book to shatter your illusions. Rose pitches this somewhere between fever dream and philosophical investigation. He strikes out in a number of thought-provoking directions, blurring the line between speculative fiction and horror, to take you on an eerie existential journey.

It has been a good while since I read anything as wonderfully weird as this mind-bending odyssey, and I enjoyed every bizarre moment. Perfect for fans of Black Mirror.

We Live Here Now is available to buy now in paperback and ebook formats.

Thank you to Melville House for sending me a proof of this book in return for an honest review, and for inviting me to be part of this blog tour.

About the author:

C. D. Rose is the author of four previous books, including The Blind Accordionist and Walter Benjamin Stares at the Sea. His short stories have appeared in Gorse, 3AM, The Quietus, and Best British Short Stories. He currently lives in the north of England.