As you’ve surely noticed by now, STML is rather fond of Metronome Press, the English-language publisher set up in Paris by Clémentine Deliss, and not just because they shamelessly chucked a couple of free books our way. No, we like them because they promote their books unequivocally as art, a rare thing in fiction these days. That they don’t have to rely on the whims of the booksellers and the great unwashed to survive in these hard times is paraded in the list of patrons at the back of each edition, much to the chagrin of others.

Even the great Pete Ayrton himself, founder of Serpent’s Tail, had to be reminded on Front Row this evening that culture is not the same thing as market goods, and that what sells is not a barometer of taste. He lamented that only in Britain is “a local prize” (the Booker) deemed more worthy that the Nobel, but it is not our place to moan about the lack of money or celebrity afforded our corner of the arts, but to find new ways to ensure that it is made available and, if nothing else, survives. It’s what wealthy patrons have been enabling in the arts for centuries, and if the market won’t support this stuff, we’d better find someone who will.

Thank you then, Mr Harold Falckenberg (Hamburg), Mr Antoine de Galbert (Paris), one Anonymous Patron (Barcelona), the Ministère de la Culture et de la Communication (France), the Centre National des Arts Plastiques (the French again, we presume), the American Center Foundation (New York) and the Hessische Kulturstiftung (Frankfurt) for their generous support without which we would not have had the pleasure of Phyllis Kiehl’s Fat Mountain Scenes, or any of the other Metronome titles.

Fat Mountain Scenes is a story about an exclusive diet clinic, the Weiko Sud, where the fatties (her words, not mine) have taken over the asylum. Ebba, a new arrival, is just settling into the bizarre but surprisingly unstressful routine, which includes regular self-administered blood tests, sharply sloping dinner tables, and paper punishment suits for those who put weight back on (they stick to sweaty folds of skin and chafe until they rupture…), when a new physician struggles up the 180-step entranceway and attempts to institure a new regime. What follows is a cross between Lord of the Flies and Fat Camp, as Dr Tense’s followers square up against the mysterious Dr Sago, unseen head of the institute and gatekeeper to its mysteries.

While certainly not as experimental in form (Remainder, Stunning Lofts) or stunningly resurrected (The Young & Evil) as other Metronome titles, Fat Mountain Scenes still gets successfully under the skin, leaving a sense of deeper secrets buried beneath the flab than even the narrator reveals (although to what extent this is due to the translation - see here) - is unknowable). The connections with Kiehl’s other work, described as “plump, textile sculpture” which manifests when “the more extraordinary visual elements of her stories renounce their status as printed matter” must be fascinating - please let STML know if you find any examples…