Tag Archives other writers

Carswell, Sean, Train Wreck Girl. San Francisco: Manic D Press. 2008. paper,ISBN: 978-1-933149-21-9 Before I go any further, know that Train Wreck Girl will easily be one of the best novels of 2008. At 20 pages in, the earth paused. I remained absolutely entranced through the final page. Novels like this don’t happen very often, so pay attention. Train Wreck Girl poses as a fairly straightforward story of a man traveling cross-country to flee his past, returning years later, only to re-immerse in all that he tried to originally escape. He’s outgrown this childhood town of Cocoa Beach, FL, but only in width. The slug line describes the narrative beautifully: One man’s quest to figure out what to do with his life now that it is too late for him to die young. Beyond the immediately arresting imaginative structural elements (the first chapter is told as a countdown to New…

Like the subject matter in this, Harley Elliott’s twelfth book and first collection of non-fiction, there exists below the surface, universal binds and shared histories from which the impetus of progression can be said to reside. The non-fiction moniker given to this collection belies the engaging, story-telling mode Elliott uses. Set against the backdrop of the Kansas prairie, Loading the Stone reads more like a story of a familial love of history used to explore the bonds threading father and son relationships than the listing of facts and dates that might be implied by the subject matter and genre. Perhaps, however, my assumptions of genre are just one example of the misunderstandings that Elliot explores. For example, the use of the word ‘Indian’: The word had no relationship to the people [Christopher Columbus] encountered or the land they inhabited, or to the many generations preceding them, hunters of the big,…

Rayo Casablanca’s debut novel, 6 Sick Hipsters is now officially out and available for order. Rayo was nice enough to send me an ARC of his novel a few months back, which I reviewed for Dogmatika, here. Casablanca is truly a great writer and all around great guy. He can probably dance, too, which makes me even more jealous. Get his novel. From the review: "6 Sick Hipsters carries the rogue camaraderie of Joey Goebel's The Anomalies—punk attitude and hipster lifestyles included—along with a less passive social critique found in Coupland's Generation X. Fans of slick conspiracies and vinyl records rejoice." 6 Sick Hipsters homepage Amazon.com page Powell's page Kensington (the publisher) Page

When a man in a suit made of cockroaches meets a man in a suit made of Twinkies -- well, that's about as easy as subtraction gets. From Jeremy Robert Johnson's Extinction Journals About a year ago I came across this novella, fell in love, then promptly forgot it in favor of my ever-increasing to-read stack. Shame, really. Recently (today, actually) I revisited the story, coming away from the experience with all the enthusiasm I had after the original read. Extinction Journals manages the high-concept, visceral storytelling consistent with Bizarro literature, but delivers in addition, literary quality unfortunately uncommon with a lot of work in the same genre. The literal tale is of a man, the sole survivor of a nuclear cataclysm, searching the country for survivors in a suit made of cockroaches. The deeper tale explores survivor's will, collective consciousness, and how the two working together can be an…