Author: Heavy Feather

Backswing, short stories by Aaron Burch, reviewed by Jeremy Griffin

There’s this great video on YouTube of the late Kurt Vonnegut giving a lecture on story shapes. Standing before a chalkboard in a dusty brown blazer, the author graphs out some of the more common narrative arcs, the idea being that the more familiar one is with the shape of stories, the easier it is…
Contributors’ Corner: Carol Guess

Welcome to “Contributors’ Corner,” where each week we open the floor to one of our contributors to the journal. This week, we hear from Carol Guess, whose story with Kelly Magee, “With Sloth” appears in 2.2. Carol Guess is the author of thirteen books of poetry and prose, including Tinderbox Lawn (Rose Metal Press, 2008) and Doll Studies: Forensics…
Going Home Nowhere and Fast, fiction by Nathan Blake, reviewed by Gavin Tomson

Nathan Blake’s first, slim chapbook of stories, Going Home Nowhere and Fast, is more of a sample than a cycle. Not only does the collection offer few overarching concerns or ideas; little unifies Blake’s style, save his drive to experiment with it. And experiment he does. From “Ward” (a post-apocalypse narrative, told from the perspective…
“Friday Was the Bomb”: An Interview with Nathan Deuel

Nathan Deuel’s new book Friday Was the Bomb: Five Years in the Middle East (Dzanc Books) is a memoir about raising his young daughter in the Middle East—living in Riyadh, Istanbul, and then Beirut—while his wife, Kelly McEvers, worked throughout the region as a war correspondent and eventually NPR’s Baghdad Bureau chief. Amid the chaos…
Beside Myself, stories by Ashley Farmer, reviewed by James R. Gapinski

Ashley Farmer’s Beside Myself has plenty of surreal imagery and an accelerated pace, but the collection feels oddly calm. It’s a book about introspection rather than bombshell plot twists. The characters are constantly turning the narrative inward, and there’s a sense of nostalgic distance in many stories—the kind of clarity that comes with time. Consider…
What Came Before, a novel by Gay Degani, reviewed by Len Kuntz

Within the first two paragraphs of Gay Degani’s novel, What Came Before, the reader is thrust into a story that sizzles: I can’t run. Can’t breathe. Dry kernels blow through my lips. I wake up sweating, legs tangled in sheets, eyes gritty, mouth dry, my brain jammed together like frozen broccoli. I rattle my head…
Last Word, a novella by Jonathan Blum, reviewed by Erin Flanagan

Set against the backdrop of changing technologies, cyber-bullying, and blended families, Jonathan Blum’s novella Last Word tells of Kip Langer and his son, Eric, as Kip attempts to understand a boy connected to him by blood and little else. Facing both a civil liberty negligence suit and his thirteen-year-old son’s expulsion from his Jewish middle…
Travel Notes, an episodic novel by Stanley Crawford, reviewed by Dan Townsend

I. On the surface, Travel Notes by Stanley Crawford is glib satire, in line with Catch-22 or Vonnegut’s Slapstick. The novel is episodic, owing to the tradition of the farcical travelogue. Promotional materials compare the story to a “fever dream”. I’m not sure what that means, fortunate as I’ve been never to have had a fever…
Contributors’ Corner: Justin Hamm

Welcome to our new interview series, “Contributors’ Corner,” where we open the floor each week to one of our contributors to the journal. This week, we hear from Justin Hamm, whose three stories appear in HFR 3.3. Justin Hamm is the founding editor of the museum of americana and the author of the chapbooks Illinois, My Apologies…