A Week of Kindness

Keith Newton

Published in 1934, Max Ernst’s collage novel Une semaine de bonté is a unique work of the imagination that appeared at a terrible moment of crisis and transformation. Keith Newton’s discovery of the book while traveling in Germany in 1999 led to A Week of Kindness, a hybrid work of prose that seeks not only to retell the book’s images in writing, but also to explore the mysteries of Ernst’s creative process alongside Newton’s own. Multiple time periods and alternate perspectives come into play as the historical background and narrative structure of Ernst’s work inform Newton’s investigations into the communion between life and art.

“The bird-headed men bring with them a new time of violence. They have brought no instruments or symbols of their intentions. No one is a stranger to them, only an enemy or victim or accomplice. There is no other authority to restrain them.”

KEITH NEWTON is the author of the chapbooks Sent Forth to Die in a Happy City (Cannibal Books, 2009) and Instruments No Man Has Ever Seen (forthcoming from Berl’s). He is co-editor of The Harp & Altar Anthology, a collection of writing from the online magazine Harp & Altar, which he founded in 2006, and is currently editorial director at Secret Behavior. He lives in Brooklyn.