We Were Giants
by Christopher Bowen
from Sunnyoutside
This is a chapbook of microfiction. Like all Sunnyoutside books it is very beautiful. The author Christopher Bowen runs a chapbook press called Burning River and reading WWG I realized his own writing is similar to the writing he publishes. That makes sense. His writing, like Lydia Davis’s, is exacting and looks for profundity in the small quirks of language. This is from “The Knocking,” p11:
Bob was away like an instant message alert, online but nowhere near talking, selling things statewide, out of state and in general for the state of things at her mother’s house and because of Chelsea, the birth of Chelsea, and the unexpected cost of things.
But God is knocking at the door begging forgiveness for asking if she could spare a bill’s payment here or there to donate to the local church and the welfare shelter they have.
[This is the first post in my new series, BookFace, in which I write briefly about whatever book I happen to be holding in front of my face. Thanks to Caryn Lazzuri for pointing out this idea.]