Author: Heavy Feather

Fiction Review: Christopher Lura Reads Graham Guest’s Winter Park

Winter Park opens on an airplane flown by a pilot who says things like “scone be bumpy” and a main character who, while tossing back a couple of “G&T’s,” notes proudly to the reader that he is a philosopher. It’s an entry that gives us several clues about what kind of book is awaiting: we…
Book Review: Paul Albano on Matthew Griffin’s Debut Novel Hide

Hide, Matthew Griffin’s tender, funny, and engrossing debut novel, is a love story. But an odd love story, a sort of alchemy between the sturdy, old-fashioned mores of the Greatest Generation, and the newfangled deconstruction, or at least complication of those mores, that frequently mark contemporary literature. The lovers are Wendell Wilson and Frank Clifton,…
Novella Review: Ryan Werner Reads Dan Mancilla’s The Deathmask of El Gaucho

I would assume that writing about professional wrestling is infinitely harder than writing professional wrestling itself. The conceit of wrestling is a simple one, one person saying to another You have caused me personal and/or professional strife and I wish to rectify that within the parameters of a wrestling match. The performances are where the…
Insignificana, stories by Dolan Morgan, reviewed by Tyler Barton

Think Kafka for the absurdism, for the nihilistic subjects. Think Lydia Davis for the story-as-grammatical-game. Think of the pranksterism of Michael Martone. Think of your favorite conspiracy theory, your favorite washed-up actor. If you like what you’re thinking about, you should read Insignficana by Dolan Morgan. No, wait. There are other reasons. Read it for…
The Folly of Loving Life, short story collection by Monica Drake, reviewed by Laura Citino

The story of a city is really the story of the people who live there. In one sense, Monica Drake’s collection of linked stories, The Folly of Loving Life, is the story of Portland, Oregon, a city that looms large in the cultural imagination as a kind of well-meaning joke. The collection may end in…
Review: Erin Flanagan on Amy Gustine’s Story Collection You Should Pity Us Instead

Amy Gustine’s first collection of stories demonstrates a remarkable range, not only in situation and character, but also in the vast landscapes of human emotion and reaction. The characters surprise the reader with what they’re willing to do, but they also surprise themselves. In the opening story “All the Sons of Cain,” a mother goes…
Fiction Review: Gay Degani on Peek by Paul Beckman

Picture a seven-year-old with a magnifying glass and a battalion of ants trooping along the sidewalk with contraband. The sun blazes down, a strong summer sun. Some of the ants burn up, some escape and immediately have regrets, while others stream off into lush grass, but all have exposed their essential tiny ant souls. Paul…
“Someday I’m Going to Die”: Daniel Miller Reviews New Animals by Nick Francis Potter

New Animals is comics. It is short stories. It is the dreams and nightmares of various horned creatures, of children, and of angels. As its name suggests, New Animals is a living, breathing creature, each short piece another row of razor-sharp teeth. On the book’s backside, author Lily Hoang has this to say about Nick…
Two Poems by Mark DeCarteret

Deluge After one day of rainwe could feel in our ankleswhere the nails had been sunkand we knew that His bloodwould somehow fail us. After two days of rainthe children sang of the pavementthey’d once chalked their own halos on—when their tongues weren’t swollenwith the names of those who’dthey stuck them out at with blame.…