Internecio Pulicorum’s Literary Quintet Reimagines Classics with Grit, Heart, and Cosmic Chaos

Pulicorum’s 5 bold works reimagine Plato, Sun Tzu, Shakespeare, San Martín & Tarot with Wallace-esque grit, from gritty diners to psychedelic highways.

NEW YORK, NY, UNITED STATES, April 15, 2025 /EINPresswire.com/ -- Debut author Internecio Pulicorum unveils a literary quintet that reimagines timeless archetypes sprawling, digression-fueled prose with Wallace-esque wit. This audacious collection—spanning Greek-American diners, modern American battlegrounds, Argentina’s junta-scarred streets, South America’s revolutionary peaks, and a psychedelic Tarot odyssey—marks Pulicorum as a bold new voice. Born in Florence, Italy, in 1975, this self-taught wanderer, now 50 and rooted in Asunción, Paraguay, crafts narratives that pulse with human messiness, blending humor, despair, and cosmic wonder across languages and borders.

First, The Poker Game & The Last Shift transports readers to Astoria, Queens, where gyro grease and diner neon frame a soulful reimagining of Plato’s Symposium and Phaedo. In The Poker Game, a $500 scratch-off win sparks a raucous night in Gus Antoniou’s walk-up, where seven Greek-American workers—line cooks, electricians, forklift drivers—swap poker chips for rants on love. Narrated by twitchy cook Andy Panagiotou, their tales of trash-hauling heroism and cosmic ladders collide with Metallica and chaos, crafting a tzatziki-smeared ode to connection. The Last Shift shifts to Sammy Kouris’s hospice room, where the dying diner owner debates the soul’s endurance with his crew, spinning cycles and spark plugs into a mythic highway afterlife. Pete Demopoulos, chain-smoking, recounts Sammy’s final grin: “Tell the diner gods I owe ‘em a gyro.” Published independently, this dual-novella volume captures immigrant hustle with sprawling prose, perfect for fans of Wallace’s maximalist grit or George Saunders’ biting heart.

Next, The Art of Winning Without Totally Losing It: 13 American Parables reimagines Sun Tzu’s The Art of War as a wild ride through today’s USA. Thirteen standalone stories transform ancient strategy into vivid underdog triumphs—a vape-shop manager wielding spreadsheets against corporate doom, a taco-truck queen outsmarting rivals with free samples. From suburban HOAs to dive-bar DJ gigs, each parable wrestles with America’s absurd now, anchored by Sun Tzu’s wisdom: plan smart, strike fast, adapt or bust. Pulicorum’s long-winded sentences and pop-culture detours evoke Wallace’s knack for finding meaning in the mundane, offering a hilarious, profound rollercoaster for readers who’ve ever bluffed through a losing hand.

La Libertad o la Muerte, a brutal reimagining of Romeo and Juliet, burns in the shadow of Argentina’s Dirty War. Set in 1977 Buenos Aires, where Ford Falcons prowl and ideals bleed, it follows Román Alberdi, a libertarian drunk on free-market dreams, and Julia “La Negra” Torres, a Montonera revolutionary. Their forbidden love—a chaotic basement wedding, a cyanide-laced hideout—spirals to 1994 Havana, where Julia, exiled and scarred, faces a vengeful ghost from Román’s past. No gentle romance, this non-linear novel is a Molotov cocktail of liberty’s wreckage, its footnote-heavy prose thick with the stench of a nation unraveling. Fans of Infinite Jest or star-crossed tragedies will lose themselves in its raw odyssey, where love ends in strangulation, not sonnets.

The Mule Boy’s Burden dives into José de San Martín’s Campaña Libertadora, blending gritty history with electric prose. In 1814 Mendoza, Tomás “Tomasito” Guzmán, a limping, illiterate mule boy, joins San Martín’s audacious plan to free Argentina, Chile, and Peru. From the Andes’ treacherous crossing to bloody clashes at Chacabuco and Maipú, Tomasito hauls revolution’s weight alongside sharp-tongued Ana “La Chilena” and the ailing San Martín. Tracing real events from 1814 to 1822, this coming-of-age epic weaves sacrifice and survival, capturing courage in the smallest acts for readers of historical epics and human triumphs.

Finally, A Fool’s Psychoesoteric Journey cracks the cosmic egg, fusing psychedelic fiction with Tarot’s arcane wisdom. Born from a neon-lit motel, The Fool—grinning, stick in hand, mutt at heel—stumbles through a surreal America, from bone-strewn plains to disco traps. Across 22 chapters, each tied to a Tarot arcana, he chases truth, piling up skull, vial, star, and seed. Landing in Ithaca, NY, on August 15, 1971, against Nixon’s gold-standard collapse, this lysergic spiral mirrors a holographic universe, echoing Maldacena’s theories in radiant prose. Sunflowers sing, wolves howl under a dripping moon, and intuition outruns logic in a road trip of revelation, perfect for fans of surreal quests and literary wild rides.

Pulicorum, channels his autodidactic roots into these bizarre, heartfelt adaptations. Known for dark suits and reclusive habits, he invites readers to embrace the mess, question reality, and find meaning in the grind.

Internecio Pulicorum
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