"Johnny Stanton was born in 1943 in Manhattan, the son of Irish immigrants from Galway. He was an altar boy and Eagle Scout who attended Catholic schools & eventually graduated from Columbia University, where he fell in with many poets and writers of the New York School, including Kenneth Koch, Ted Berrigan, Ron Padgett, and Paul Auster. He published many of them, some for the first time, in his Siamese Banana Press, which started as a newspaper in 1972 and ended as a performance gang in 1978. He is the author of many short stories and the novel Mangled Hands, neglected by critics yet highly acclaimed by the readers who discover it. He has lived in the East Village for 30 years with his wife, the poet Elinor Nauen, a cat (currently Lefty), and a lot of art." - from The Collidescope



Johnny Stanton, New York City, November 1997, talking about Siamese Banana:
'First it was a NEWSPAPER,

Then it was a PRESS,

Then it was a GANG.

I worked at a neighborhood youth center and one day our fearless director barked at me, “Jumping butterballs, you’re supposed to be a writer, why don’t you start a center newspaper.”

“You betcha,” I meowed. This idea for a newspaper collected a bunch of oddball kids: Fat John, Ginzo, Pokey, Caggie, Lilley, et al. The painter Joe Brainard had suggested the newspaper’s name in another context: The SIAMESE BANANA from Vol. XXVII of Ripley’s Believe It or Not. The paper’s motto became: If the Facts Don’t Fit, Change Them. After that it was easy to start up an artsy-literary press. The philosophy was simple: Writers and Artists, you have nothing to lose, so unite in the SB Press. The technology was easy: electronic stencils. Meanwhile, back in the ’hood, wiseguy newspaper kids got infected by literary bugs. But these kids were from the TV dope fiend generation. They wanted to form a gang. “How about a name?” “Exterminator Angels?” “No way!” “Military Gangsters from the Super Id?” “Fuck off, Mr. Stanton.” “Please, you guys, just call me Stanton.” “Okay Stanton, how about the SBG?” “Right on! The SBG. I’m a member.” We tore up and down every house we performed in. Kicked ass and then some. Ahead of our time and underneath it.'

From the blog of Douglas Messerli, dated June 2019: "I'm almost speechless here. The indescribable fiction writer Johnny Stanton. I read just a few sections of his lost book, Mangled Hands in a magazine, and with great audacity called him up to ask if the book was ever completed. Yes, it's under my bed, he responded. Please send it to me, and I published it. One of the most significant of American fictions of the 20th century, I still believe. He wrote a second book, and we typeset it, sending him the proofs, but he pulled it from publication; to this day I don't quite know why. He's a true genius. And I loved his company; we went for Chinese in D.C. with Elinor Nauen and he showed up to several of our NYC parties. Johnny where are you? I miss you so much. Mangled Hands is a classic of American fiction in case you didn't know."