Tag Archives: Fiction

Sunshine In The Valley, by Kyle Muntz

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Sunshine In The Valley, CCM (Civil Coping Mechanisms) Press, by Kyle Muntz. Reviewed by Elynn Alexander for Full Of Crow Press.

“We were here and we were really here. It kept us breathing.” (7)

It strikes me that they gather beneath the full sun, seeming to celebrate time’s passage rather than indulging in lamentation.

“...always to glorious burning.” (7) This is in contrast to the typical themes of the so-called human condition, creatures tethered to dread, in constant fear of our own mortality and with an often painful awareness of our insignificance. Living with the spectre brings a certain pressure to bear, beings set out to live in ways that maximize perceived “significance”: progeny, legacy, endurance of the corporeal made manifest through enduring actions and accomplishments. How to make one’s mark? How to distinguish one’s small life from an expansive tribe, exponential, a pool that consists of others with the same preoccupations, both present and ancestral? We compete with history. We want to BE something in our own right. We want to be enduring, somehow, different perhaps in the way that Muntz makes a distinction between a story and a legend. We want to be more than a story, we want to be embellished and etched into permanence, to linger. Continue reading →

Apostle Rising, by Richard Godwin

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Apostle Rising, by Richard Godwin, published by Black Jackal Books. Reviewed for Full Of Crow by Elynn Alexander.

In his first novel Apostle Rising, Richard Godwin emerges as a writer willing to take risks because of his confidence in the reader. He understands that on one level we want to be passively entertained, and that is what sells in a market dominated by vampire clone stories and the prattle of politicians-gone -celebrity. The rubric for success seems to include attention-getting crossover and repetition, feeding the appetite  of the consumer for familiarity and predictability. In putting out a genre work- Godwin is responsive to this. Called both “police procedural” and a “psychological thriller”, there is certainly a niche market in mind. But one characteristic of a good novel is the ability to resonate with others, particularly those who don’t tend to frequent those sections in the book store, a sort of “universality” about the book’s appeal. Continue reading →

Twenty Stories, Kristin Fouquet

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Richard Godwin reviews “Twenty Stories” by Kristin Fouquet.

What immediately struck me as soon as I started reading these excellent stories, is that Kristin Fouquet inhabits the European tradition of literature.

She uses detailed and concise description which she has mastered to an unusual degree to conjure characters quickly from the page and render a narrative with immediate impact.
There is heartache here and humour, there is tragedy and insight.

From the brilliant opening story ‘The Dead Redhead’, which has the courage to remain equivocal, through the excellent ‘The Kitchen’, the reader gets an immediate sense of the author’s playful eroticism and control of words. Continue reading →

“Watching The Windows Sleep”, Tantra Bensko

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Lynn Alexander for Full Of Crow on “Watching The Windows Sleep”, a chapbook produced by Naissance, written by Tantra Bensko.  A review by Spencer Dew appeared in decomp in January as well and you can check that out here. Find out more on Tantra Bensko at her website and at Naissance Press: Official Tantra Bensko Web Site and the Official Naissance Chapbooks Web Site.

“Whimsical ridiculous meets explorations of consciousness.” Bensko is known for her experimental poetry and fiction, work that is strange and surrealist. It seems fitting that she begins this chapbook with the poem “Non Containers”, as this is not a collection that can be easily defined, a mix of poetry and fiction that tantalizes the imagination: Continue reading →

Sui Generis, by Marc Lowe

 
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Marc Lowe’s collection of fiction, “Sui Generis” from ISMs Press, reviewed for Full Of Crow by Lynn Alexander.

“Sui Generis” And Other Fictions is a digital collection (e-book) available now from ISMs Press. It contains 23 stories that Lowe identifies as being written while he was living in Japan from 2004 to 2006. The stories have been published in various zines and publications around the web but are now assembled in one place, which really gives the reader a sense of what he has been doing as a writer and how much he departs from “conventional” fiction. I really liked the stories he chose, and I think Lowe is one to keep an eye on. Continue reading →

"Grease Stains, Kismet, and Maternal Wisdom", Mel Bosworth

 
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Grease Stains, Kismet, and Maternal Wisdom : A Novel By Mel Bosworth. Reviewed by Lynn Alexander. Published at Prick of The Spindle, Vol. 3.2.

“They quickly learned that we were the King and Queen of the bar. They were our servants. They worked for us. We were Gods. Our ears and noses were red and our lips wet. We were drunks. We were in love.”

Mel Bosworth is a sweet romantic bastard, who knew?  This is a love story, lines of love: crazy love, nervous love, public love, mother love, writing about love to remember love. And it’s funny.

Bosworth’s character, David, spends chapter after chapter ogling Samantha while becoming more and more powerless in her presence. He covets her gun panties, delights in her classy sipping of shots, tells her about his period in a baby voice, and promenades with her as a monster. Continue reading →

A Brief Compilation And Other Absurdist Offerings, polycarp kusch

 
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Manila Six Pack Test DummyA Brief Compilation, by polycarp kusch. Reviewed By Lynn Alexander. polycarp kusch has an ebook collection housed at The New Absurdist, featuring an assortment of writers, misanthropes, and malcontents.

A Brief Compilation is an ebook offering at The Absurdist Monthly Review, and features collected shorts by polycarp kusch, who claims to have invented the letter D and emancipated himself as a young child to live as a hobo in New Jersey. Only polycarp knows the extent to which the miseries that befell him in those formative years took their toll on his creative processes and subsequent rise to prominence. Only polycarp knows if that Stormtrooper he stuck in his pocket that day at Bobby’s did in fact turn out to be valuable despite having been removed from it’s original packaging.

What is apparent is that poor polycarp was permanently and irreparably demented socially, such that he remains incapable to this day of performing essential tasks in public such as grocery shopping, Chinese food ordering, parking spot selection, negotiating postage. Continue reading →

Crow Reviews

 
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This is the Review Section for Full of Crow, edited by Aleathia Drehmer and Lynn Alexander.

We review independent titles and small press publications, as well as self-published work. We hope to incorporate some of our knowledge of the authors, their approach and methods, and bring something different to our reviews in that we want to go past an attempt to judge quality. We are looking to describe work, explore a specific aspect of work, talk about context or what an author was trying to achieve. We want to talk about the work, but also the writing of the work.

We welcome correspondence regarding reviews, as well as your feedback and participation in a discussion of the work. Please address your correspondence to us:

AleathiaDrehmer@fullofcrow.com

LynnAlexander@fullofcrow.com