Stop Coming to My House

By Marcel Krueger

'Marcel Krueger takes his turn as prince of the quotidian.' - Kit Fryatt, upstart.ie
The Easter Rising, near-fatal plane crashes, Celtic fire traditions, German sausages and battle weary spiders, this collection of thoughts and stories by expat writer and blogger Marcel Krueger has all that and more. Non-fiction and fiction combined to a short book that's part memoir, part travelogue and mostly a recollection of hangovers. A witty and sometimes bleak look at everyday life and its defeats, great and small.
'Not bad.' Haukur Magnusson, Reykjavik Grapevine

www.kingofpain.org

• Language: English
• Publisher: Marcel Krueger
• Release date: Sep 20, 2011
• ISBN: 9781466007376

Marcel Krueger

Marcel Krueger is a writer, translator and editor. He predominantly writes works of non-fiction about places, their history and the journeys in between. He is book editor of the Elsewhere Journal and is contributing editor of Sonic Iceland. His articles and essays have been published in the Daily Telegraph, The Guardian, Reykjavik Grapevine, Süddeutsche Zeitung, Slow Travel Berlin and CNN Travel, amongst others. He is the author of Babushka's Journey: The Dark Road to Stalin's Wartime Camps and, together with Paul Sullivan, Berlin: A Literary Guide for Travellers.

Book preview

Stop Coming to My House

Thoughts and Stories

By Marcel Krueger

Smashwords Edition

Copyright collection © Marcel Krueger 2011

All rights reserved. No part of this e-book may be reproduced in any form other than that in which it was purchased and without the written permission of the author.

This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

www.kingofpain.org

http://blog.kingofpain.org/buy-the-book/

Contents:

An Introduction

I Travelled Far and I Burned All the Bridges

February 13th

Addiction King

This Is Not My Victory

There's a King On His Throne With His Eyes Torn Out

Under the Sun

Rock City Number One?

I'm Sorry to Bother You

I Miss

Saturday 8:30 a.m.

No Christmas Carol in Prose

Early-Morning Flight

Cut & Burn

Light my Fire

Beirut in Tripod

Procrastination

Cities

In Silence They Drove Along Phibsborough Road

Niceland

Surviving the Runtur?

Little Trip

The Only Würstchenbude in Town

How to Walk Up a Hill in Ireland

Dublin Bay

The Sweet Taste of Hope

A Tale of Two Spiders

Credits

An Introduction

I’ve been putting off writing this introduction for ages. I hope that I’ll sell some copies of this book to other people than friends and family, so I wondered how to introduce my writings to a stranger? I’ll start with saying hello. Hello. I’m a German, so English is not my first language. I live in Ireland for five years now, and hope I was able to improve my English, which is my preferred language to write things in. I feel courageous, try more things and I don’t feel I have to oblige to the standard rules of language as much. The Irish are forgiving people anyway. So, here’s a collection of writings; articles, blog posts, and stories of the last three years. I hope you forgive me.

I Travelled Far and I Burned All the Bridges sounds like an introduction, but is actually my end-of-the-year-2009-post for the Dublin Community Blog. I started writing for this blog in 2008, and am ever-thankful to the Darragh and the other writers for welcoming me and giving me a shot at writing for an English-speaking audience for the first time in my life. We’ve won the Irish Blog Awards 2009 as best group blog.

February 13th , Addiction King, This Is Not My Victory, There's a King On His Throne With His Eyes Torn Out, Under the Sun, Rock City Number One?, I'm Sorry to Bother You, I Miss, Saturday 8:30 a.m., No Christmas Carol in Prose and Early-Morning Flight are collected blog posts from my personal blog www.kingofpain.org

Cut & Burn is the tour diary of the 2011 Ireland tour of my friends, German metal band Killtribe. I used to work as a promoter and tour manager before, so this was a welcomed return to old ways and trying to write about it.

Light my Fire was written for meg.ie, or My Event Guide, a culture guide bravely operated by Trish and Kevin, where I contribute irregularly.

Beirut in Tripod was my first try at writing a gig review in English. I never found a place to publish it, so it’s in here now.

Procrastination and Cities: sometimes I get drunk and write poems like Bukowski. These are the only two I did not delete the morning after. Cities was actually put on a poster and hung up a lamppost by the good guys at the Upstart-arts-collective.

In Silence They Drove along Phibsborough Road was originally written for my Matador U-travel writing course, and has subsequently been published on upstart.ie

Niceland, Surviving the Runtur? and Little Trip are chapters of Sonic Iceland, the hazy recollection of a 2010 trip to Iceland, where my friend Kai and I met many musicians and drank many beers.

The Only Würstchenbude in Town was published in the expat-section of the Daily Telegraph, which made me extremely proud. Not because of the political orientation of the newspaper, but because the scribbling of a German was good enough for a traditional British newspaper.

How to Walk Up a Hill in Ireland is the recollection of walking up Bray Head. First published by the Hackwriters Magazine, which has one of the best names for a literary magazine.

Dublin Bay, The Sweet Taste of Hope and A Tale of Two Spiders are previously unreleased. Dublin Bay is the only fiction in this collection.

I Travelled Far and I Burned All The Bridges

Or: an ode to Dublin

So, here I am now, in a dirty old town that I reached while the Celtic Tiger was already preparing to go into his final hibernation. And fell in love with it, though I could not tell you when exactly it happened and why. Maybe because of the fact that things are not perfect here (busses never on time, railway-bridges collapsing, city development postponed, but then who needs perfection anyway?), maybe because the Irish are such welcoming people (in spite of the scumbags who tried to rob me twice and threatened me with physical violence even more often), or maybe