It's a crazy but credible universe Freese has created. Every story glistens with bitter truths, edgy truths about twisted human relationships, lack of love, the inexplicable lives we live. Each says maybe you haven't experienced life this way, but many others have–it is their truth and one day you might know what it means to live a shadow figure yourself.
Begnal's latest collection, Ancestor Worship, is a remarkable for its moody details. In "Beautiful People," "Dead bird blown down the road / as light as its feathers," is a dazzling, fitting inchoate for a poem that ends with the provocative line "the knife dripping with juice." Like Ginsberg, Begnal realizes a poem must provoke.
"The Law of Falling Bodies...is a brilliantly entertaining novel. Brenna's plain but poetic prose is matched in modern writing, perhaps, only by the famous poet of the plain, Cormac McCarthy. I foresee Brenna gaining national recognition like McCarthy one day. So I suggest book collectors snatch the first edition of this remarkable novel."
"Present throughout the collection, this pairing of the mundane with the lofty is used to address a variety of other philosophical concerns, ranging from the self to the psychological, even the supernatural, consistently dazzling the reader with her unmistakable narrative voice and stunning precision."
The Law of Falling Bodies, Duff Brenna’s brilliant new novel, is set in Minnesota during the Vietnam War. It opens with its protagonist, Virgil Foggy, lopping off the heads of dozens of chickens in the so-called killing field of the family farm in Foggy Meadow. …
"Kluge's imagery works well with the repeated themes and motifs in the text, which often address the nature of the afterlife while invoking metaphors that glitter and shine. By using comparisons to domestic existence to explore what lies beyond it, Kluge's book renders the unfathomable suddenly and disconcertingly familiar."
"Thomas E. Kennedy, now in his sixties, shows no sign of a diminution of his extraordinary talent. He has followed the superb Copenhagen Quartet with the equally superb Cast Upon the Day."
"Elizabeth Willis's Meteoric Flowers is filled with lyrical, spare, image-rich poetry, all of which form a carefully structured and intelligent collection...Anyone looking for a well-read and audacious new poet will definitely enjoy this book."
"They were young, educated, and both virgins on this their wedding night, and they lived in a time when conversation about sexual difficulties was plainly impossible. But it is never easy."
"Touted as something of a post-September 11 novel by the publisher, The Road actually harks as much to the disturbing imagery of the 1991 Basra road massacre in the First Gulf War and more recent Iraqi traumas..."