ATTICUS BOOKS SWEEPS IPPY REGIONAL AWARDS WITH FOUR GOLD MEDAL WINS IN LITERARY FICTION

• Nazareth, North Dakota by Tommy Zurhellen
• The Snow Whale by John Minichillo
• The Great Lenore by J.M. Tohline
• Tracks: A Novel in Stories by Eric D. Goodman

KENSINGTON, MD — A giant whale. A woman who fakes her death. A retelling of the New Testament. A train journey. Four of this year’s eight Independent Publisher Book Awards (IPPY) in the U.S. Regional Awards in Fiction were awarded to novels published by Atticus Books.

The four gold medal recipients represent the eclectic combination of high-quality, genre-busting literary fiction published by the new press, which released its first book in October 2010. All four award-winning books are also the debut novels of their respective authors.

“Winning these awards brings well-deserved recognition to novelists who typically fly so unjustly far under the marketplace radar that they need to wear glow-in-the-dark cardigans to get attention,” said Dan Cafaro, founder and publisher of Atticus Books. “We indie lit presses take pride in identifying and supporting writers whose inventive works fall through the cracks of commercial houses. The IPPY Awards help us build awareness and establish a bond with librarians, booksellers, bloggers, and readers. We’re not publishing formulaic books that we think people will buy in droves. We’re publishing compelling books that we think people should read in earnest.”

Tommy Zurhellen’s Nazareth, North Dakota is a quirky, dirt-kicking ride through the 1980s North Dakota Badlands and a modern take on the story of the young messiah. Publishers Weekly said, “Zurhellen’s masterful dialogue often makes for gripping scenes that sustain these characters for decades.” The sequel, Apostle Islands, is forthcoming from Atticus Books in September.

John Minichillo’s The Snow Whale, a satire that examines identity, race, and our connection to nature within the bones of Herman Melville’s classic novel, Moby-Dick, follows mild-mannered suburban office worker John Jacobs’ journey on an Alaskan whale hunt adventure among the Inuit. The Los Angeles Times said, “Many serious issues are pretty much trampled here, but the result is wry, dry, pure hilarity all around.”

A ravishing, deceptive young British woman on Nantucket Island who orchestrates her death is at the heart of J M Tohline’s The Great Lenore, and takes its inspiration from two American classics: F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby and Edgar Allen Poe’s poem “The Raven.”  Small Press Reviews said Tohline’s novel is a “page-turner that introduces the literary world to an author with a clear and profound appreciation for the American literary canon.”

In Eric D. Goodman’s Tracks, a novel in stories set on a train traveling from Baltimore to Chicago, readers meet the strangers we encounter every day: a soldier returned from war, a traveling salesman, a computer geek, a Holocaust survivor, a couple in love, a poet, a hit man. The New York Journal of Books calls Goodman “a born storyteller who weaves his tales of each individual character, and then ties them together to create a finely patterned cloth.”

Atticus Books isn’t new to the IPPY Award. In 2011, a Gold Medal for Best Fiction from the U.S. Mid-Atlantic Region was awarded to Alex Kudera’s Fight For Your Long Day, a satire about how one survives—or doesn’t—as an adjunct university professor.

The IPPY Awards are given annually to all members of the independent publishing industry, and are intended to bring increased recognition to the thousands of exemplary independent titles published each year.

The 2012 IPPY Award winners are an elite group, with 372 medalists chosen from 5,203 total entries including 3,741 national category entries, 1,072 regional category entries, and 390 E-book category entries. IPPY medalists represent 44 U.S. states plus Washington, D.C., seven Canadian provinces, and 10 countries overseas.

Atticus Books is a publishing house based in the Maryland suburbs of Washington, DC that specializes in literary fiction. Atticus is run by founder and publisher Dan Cafaro and assistant editor Libby O’Neill. Visit us on the web at http://www.AtticusBooksOnline.com.

Contact: Lacey N. Dunham, Publicist
laceyd@atticusbooks.net / 301.525.8729

###

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 1, 2012

PRAISE FOR THE LAW OF STRINGS

“[T]his story collection hooked me from story one and continued to captivate to the end. Expert dialog and movement and resolution in each piece…This is a book you could read in a sitting or two. The pace is that swift; the stories are that good.”

- STEPHEN DIXON, two-time National Book Award finalist

KENSINGTON, MD — Steven Gillis is a fixture of the contemporary indie lit scene. The publisher of independent powerhouse Dzanc Books and the founder of 826michigan, part of the national youth writing workshops started by writer Dave Eggers, Gillis admits that finding a balance between constant multi-tasking and sleep is a refined art. He adds, “Or maybe I’m just a shark and will drown if I stop moving.”

The Law of Strings (Atticus Books, $14.95, Summer 2012), Gillis’ sixth book and second collection of short stories, is an existential yelp examining individual choices and our all-too-human response to unexpected events. Fans of George Saunders and Aimee Bender will delight in Gillis’ surprising surrealist twists in the heart of painfully real emotion and interpersonal relationships. From a tightrope walker abandoning his trade to an Immovable Girl learning to levitate, The Law of Strings explores what happens at the crossroads in our lives and how we decide what matters most in a world defined by chaos.

Gillis says he approaches short stories in “rapid succession” and “always follows [his] gut.” For this lawyer turned publisher turned writer, gutsy risk-taking is at the core of his personality and spills into the lives of his characters, who frequently make decisions with shattering consequences. Unlike many flashy, contemporary novelists sparring publically on Twitter or hovering in billboards over Times Square, Gillis prefers to let his writing speak for itself.

A former labor lawyer in Washington, D.C., Gillis returned to his home state of Michigan in the early ’90s to dedicate more time to writing fiction. The rest of the story for this self-proclaimed “man behind the curtain” reads like a romanticized version of every writer’s dream: Gillis published four books, started a non-profit publisher for niche market literary writers ignored by major presses, and embedded himself in his local community by bringing writing workshops to city youth. “Community is everything,” Gillis says. “I just feel it’s important to do something positive for those around you. It’s really as simple as that. If you aren’t making someone else’s life better, what are you doing?”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Steven Gillis is the author of Walter Falls, The Weight of Nothing, Giraffes, Temporary People, and The Consequence of Skating. His stories, articles, and book reviews have appeared in over four dozen journals, and his books have been finalists for the Independent Publishers Book of the Year Award and the ForeWord Magazine Book of the Year among others. A three-year member of the Ann Arbor Book Festival Board of Directors, and a finalist for the 2007 Ann Arbor News Citizen of the Year, Steve also founded 826michigan and is the co-founder of Dzanc Books. Steve taught writing at Eastern Michigan University for three years.

ADDITIONAL PRAISE FOR THE LAW OF STRINGS

“Very few writers would dare explore, in a collection of stories, the intersections between quantum physics and everyday ethics, between cosmic law and domestic habit; fewer still could make those intersections so compelling and surreal and surprising, and could make the pages sing by so quickly; only Steven Gillis can provide just this bracing combination of thoughtfulness and spiked wit and deadpan finesse. The Law of Strings is a revelation—strange, barbed, and original.”

- MICHAEL GRIFFITH, author of the novels Trophy, Bibliophilia and Spikes

Atticus Books is a publishing house based in the Maryland suburbs of Washington, DC that specializes in genre-busting literary fiction. Atticus is run by founder and publisher Dan Cafaro and assistant editor Libby O’Neill. Visit us on the web at http://www.AtticusBooksOnline.com.

Press Contact: Lacey N. Dunham
laceyd [at] atticusbooks [dot] net
301.525.8729

# # #

]]> http://atticusbooksonline.com/atticus-books-signs-826michigan-founder-steven-gillis/feed 0 http://atticusbooksonline.com/atticus-books-signs-27-year-old-writer-colin-winnette http://atticusbooksonline.com/atticus-books-signs-27-year-old-writer-colin-winnette#comments Wed, 29 Feb 2012 11:05:20 +0000 Lacey N. Dunham http://atticusbooksonline.com/?p=2744 YOUNG WRITERS WITH PRETERNATURAL TALENT ENERGIZE PUBLISHING
27-Year-Old Writer Signs with Atticus Books 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
February 29, 2012

KENSINGTON, MD — If the literary world had a pin-up calendar, the 27- year-old Colin Winnette would grace its pages. The former American Short Fiction “Mr. January” joins the Atticus roster as the independent press’s first signed writer for 2013.

Winnette’s A Long Line of Diggers (forthcoming Winter 2013) places him alongside other under 30 talent revitalizing the contemporary literature scene, including J M Tohline, whose debut novel The Great Lenore, was published last summer by Atticus Books.

A former bicycle repairman and bookseller, Winnette is completing his MFA in creative writing from the School of the Arts Institute, Chicago. A Long Line of Diggers explores what Winnette calls “the creative impulse, what it means to make, to unmake” and is driven by an uncommon thread of allegories about family and love.

A Long Line of Diggers is comprised of two experimental novellas. “Gainesville” is the darkly whimsical tale of a Texas family’s bloodline from cradle to grave and back again. “In One Story, The Two Sisters” recasts two characters into new worlds and surrealistic circumstances again and again. Despite incidents of familial violence, both novellas explore the presence of humor often found in tragedies. A Long Line of Diggers pushes far beyond conventional storytelling to depict family and love as they are rarely seen: utterly raw, mystical, and wholly dysfunctional.

A performer as well as a writer, Winnette will make his first appearance with Atticus at the annual Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWP) conference in Chicago February 29 – March 4.

“I’m thrilled to be working with Atticus Books on these novellas,” Winnette says. “They’re an enthusiastic and innovative crew, and they seem to work nonstop. And, to me, that’s a really good feeling.”
 
 

COLIN WINNETTE AWP AUTHOR APPEARANCES WITH ATTICUS BOOKS

Friday, March 2: Literary High Jinx
Brando’s Speakeasy, 343 South Dearborn Street
9:30pm – Midnight

Saturday, March 3: Atticus Table (C-16)
9am – 1:15pm

 
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
COLIN WINNETTE is a writer and performer living in Chicago. He was a finalist for the 1913 First Book award, and has published one novel, Revelation (Mutable Sound Press, 2011), and one collection of short prose, Animal Collection (Spork Press, 2012). Read more about Colin and his work at colinwinnette.com.

 
 
Atticus Books is a publishing house based in Kensington, Maryland that specializes in literary fiction. Atticus is run by founder and publisher Dan Cafaro and assistant editor Libby O’Neill. Visit us on the web at http://www.AtticusBooksOnline.com.

Press Contact: Lacey N. Dunham
laceyd [at] atticusbooks [dot] net
301.525.8729

###

Kino by Jürgen Fauth

“Kino is a fast, complex, exhilarating roadster ride through history and time. It is the story of a woman who becomes obsessed with her grandfather, a visionary film director, [and] the powerful bindings of family, the sweet, dark loam of loss, and the high-voltage current of pulp fascism. Kino is an intoxicating Euro-brew, written with enormous skill and dedication.”
– FREDERICK BARTHELME, author of Elroy Nights

KENSINGTON, MD — In gripping debut literary thriller Kino (Atticus Books, $14.95), film critic and Fictionaut co-founder Jürgen Fauth traverses themes of art, family and history during the Weimar Republic and post-9/11 U.S.

Writing a novel about a silent film director’s fall from grace in Nazi Germany “involved many nights spent watching silent films and [reading] stacks of books about the 1920s and 30s in Berlin,” says Fauth, a German-American author who was born and grew up in Wiesbaden, Germany and now lives with his family in Astoria, NY. “They were fascinating, fertile periods that were a pleasure to research in-depth.”

Kino’s postmodern manipulation of genre tackles thorny questions of artistic responsibility and the personal price artists pay in pursuit of their vision. History buffs and film aficionados will appreciate a cast of characters that includes Joseph Goebbels, Fritz Lang and Leni Riefenstahl. A tragic, galvanizing story of discovery and loss set amidst the depraved glamour and infectious panic of Germany between the wars and the United States during George W. Bush’s administration, Kino asks if the search for truth and happiness is worth the price of admission.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
JÜRGEN FAUTH is a writer, film critic, and co-founder of the literary community Fictionaut. His short stories have been published in a number of journals including Chiron Review, La Petite Zine, and Berkeley Review. He is a long-time film critic for About.com and has written for Huffington Post, New York Newsday, and Flavorpill. A native of Wiesbaden, Germany, he lives in Astoria, N.Y., with his wife, the writer Marcy Dermansky, and their daughter, Nina.

CONNECT
Tulpendiebe – A Tumblr dedicated to the memory of Klaus “Kino” Koblitz, the Wunderkind of Neubabelsberg.

Jürgen Fauth – Author website (in English and German)

@muckster - Follow Jürgen on Twitter

NetGalley – To request a digital advance copy of Kino

Itasca Books – For wholesale orders

ADVANCED PRAISE FOR THREE WAYS OF THE SAW

“There’s a brooding, raw, rustbelt, jazzy, Motown energy that informs the sensibility and sound of this writer, fuels his prose, and gathers this collection into a compelling whole.” – Stuart Dybek, The Coast of Chicago

KENSINGTON, MD — A gritty debut of alienation, longing, and redemption, Matt Mullins’ Three Ways of the Saw (Atticus Books, $14.95) unites ragged characters with themes reminiscent of Cormac McCarthy’s novels.

“He who touches this book touches the ghost of a man still living,” Mullins says about Three Ways of the Saw. Structured into three sections—Black Sheep Missives, Dischords, and Ghost Limbs—the twenty stories are bound by the characters’ self-destruction and their yearning for an authentic connection with the world, one that the author shares.

“One night I wandered off from a good party, returned to find a riot in progress, and threw the bicycle I’d stolen into the bonfire because I thought I had something to say that hadn’t been said already,” Mullins says, describing an incident from his time as an undergraduate at Michigan State University in the late eighties.  “I’ve broken my nose a few times playing sports and fighting. I’ve broken a couple toes… I keep thinking I’m too old now, too careful and hedgy to break a bone. But then again, things happen, don’t they?”

With sharp attention to language and imagery, Mullins’ vibrant prose ranges from the experimental to the realistic and searingly dissects the idea of alienation. With a startling new voice in traditional storytelling that carves out a territory all its own, Three Ways of the Saw doesn’t shy away from the human condition—it embodies it.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
MATT MULLINS is a writer, musician, experimental filmmaker and multimedia artist. His fiction and poetry have appeared in Mid-American Review, Pleiades, Hunger Mountain, Harpur Palate, Descant, Hobart, and a number of other print and online literary journals. He is an Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at Ball State University where he is a faculty fellow with the Emerging Media Initiative. His recent works of interactive/digital literature can be found at lit-digital.com. Read excerpts, find info about readings, and more at his blog.

Publisher and Editor Threaten Defamation Suit, Author Chortles (Off the Record)

KENSINGTON, MD — Frustrated by disconnected and myopic blog posts, Facebook comments, and tweets flung daily across the web, Atticus Books is uniting conversation in one place with Six Degrees Left, a series of frank discussions centered on a rotating theme of hot-­button topics across a wide spectrum of disciplines.

October’s inaugural Six Degrees Left discussion tackles the value of creative writing MFA programs, an especially controversial topic in light of criticism surrounding the ranking of universities offering the degree. Writers Matt Bell, Colin Fleming, Roxane Gay, Tara Laskowski, Matt Mullins, and JM Tohline are the first participants in the open communications forum.

“Six Degrees Left is a virtual think tank of discourse meant to combat, if not drown out, agenda-­driven rhetoric,” says Dan Cafaro, founder and publisher of Atticus Books. “Our series cuts to the core of society’s tipping point issues through a vibrant exchange of ideas with sensible, plainspoken thought leaders whose common attribute is an intimate understanding of the human condition.”

Atticus’ goals for the series include dismantling literary elitism and inciting critical discussion. “If you’re looking for signs of intelligent life and prefer that pundits leave their parochial prism at the doors of perception, you’ve come to the right place,” Cafaro says. With divisive cultural criticism on the rise, Six Degrees Left fills a need for diverse opinions valued by the premier advocates of independent thinking: bookstores, libraries, publishing houses, and the greater artistic community.

“Our panelists—many of them writers and multimedia artists—offer candor without partisanship,” Cafaro stresses. “Freeform, artistic dialogue is strikingly different—and often more colorful and enlightening—than the polarizing, black-­and-­white views of the sociopolitical community. The nuanced perspective of the artist in response to complex subject matters rises above the closed-­minded, ‘no-­spin zone’ hypocrisy that pervades our nation’s airwaves.”

Six Degrees Left is a monthly series of lively debates with topics ranging from the Occupy Wall Street protest to censorship and the creative use of public space.

###

“A large-hearted book about the everpresent fundamental human verities written with empathy, force, and verve.” – Ron Carlson, author of Five Skies and The Signal

“Richly imagined and so very poignant this novel [is] something special.” – Robert Olmstead, author of Coal Black Horse and Far Bright Star

KENSINGTON, MD — The messiah is on tour.

A splendid modern retelling of the story of the young messiah, Nazareth, North Dakota (Atticus Books, $14.95) is a quirky, dirt-kicking ride through the Badlands of North Dakota, a location Tommy Zurhellen knows well.

“I’ve solo hiked the Badlands a few times myself… in so many ways [it] is so isolated and distant,” Zurhellen says. The debut novelist returns to North Dakota and the Midwest for “Nazapalooza,” the tour for his adventurous, touching novel that weaves Lakota and Christian mythology into a contemporary setting.

Zurhellen, an avid outdoorsman and New York City native, is also taking the opportunity while on sabbatical—“which is academic-speak for being temporarily unemployed,” he says—to complete a sequel, Apostle Islands. In a path blazed by Thoreau, Zurhellen sleeps in a tent on national park land, heats coffee over a wood fire, and finds inspiration in the solitude.

Like its predecessor, Apostle Islands loosely follows the New Testament. Lake Superior features prominently in the sequel, as does the tiny Apostle Island northeast of Wisconsin’s Bayfield Peninsula. Apostle Islands is due from Atticus Books in summer 2012.

Tommy Zurhellen was born in New York City. Learn more about Tommy and his work at tommyzurhellen.com.

TOUR DATES
9/22
Bismarck State College
Bismarck, ND

9/26
Zandbroz Variety
Fargo, ND

9/27
North Dakota State University
Fargo, ND

9/28
Gustavus Adolphus College
St. Peter, MN

10/4
Beloit College
Beloit, WI

10/11
Howland Library
Beacon, NY

10/13
Hyde Park Free Library
Hyde Park, NY

10/16
Barnes & Noble Booksellers
Poughkeepsie, NY

10/27
Starr Library
Rhinebeck, NY

10/31
Dutchess Community College
Poughkeepsie, NY

ABOUT THE BOOKS:

Nazareth, North Dakota
by Tommy Zurhellen
Atticus Books / April 2011 / $14.95 / 978-0-9845105-6-6 / 212 pages

Apostle Islands
by Tommy Zurhellen
Atticus Books / Summer 2012

###

SPRING RELEASES

Matt Mullins

We’re thrilled to be taking on story collections in 2012 and we couldn’t ask for a grittier or more captivating collection than Three Ways of the Saw by Matt Mullins (February 29). Perhaps it was an omen that upon reading the title story back in December, we couldn’t help but share it on our website right away. Aside from writing fiction, screenplays and poetry, Mullins makes experimental films and designs digital interfaces for his poems and stories (which makes him an excellent curator of Mixed Media for Atticus Review). Stories from Three Ways of the Saw will soon be appearing in the Mid-Atlantic Review, Many Mountains Moving and online and in print in BULL. Matt lives in Muncie, Indiana where he teaches creative writing at Ball State University.

Jurgen Fauth

Our first literary thriller will hit the shelves April 17 in the form of Jürgen Fauth’s KINO. Set in Germany (Jürgen’s homeland to which he’s recently returned), the page-turner follows a granddaughter’s attempt to distinguish fact from the fiction surrounding her grandfather’s legendary filmmaking career during the 1920s and 1930s and the nature of his flight from the Nazis. Read the first few pages of KINO over at The Good Men Project. Fauth is an associate editor at Mississippi Review and a co-founder of the online writer’s community Fictionaut.

SUMMER RELEASES

Steven Gillis

Atticus will kick off the summer of 2012 with The Law of Strings (June 20), a brilliant story collection by publishing veteran Steven Gillis. Gillis is the author of Walter Falls, The Weight of Nothing, Giraffes, Temporary People, and, most recently The Consequence of Skating (winner of the 2010 Silver Medal for Book of the Year Literary Fiction from the Independent Publishers IPPY). His stories, articles, and book reviews have appeared in over four dozen journals, and his books have been finalists for the Independent Publishers Book of the Year Award and the ForeWord Magazine Book of the Year. Steve is the founder of 826michigan and the publisher and co-founder of Dzanc Books.

Tommy Zurhellen

And come Labor Day, we’ll be teaming up with Tommy Zurhellen for the second time to release Apostle Islands, the sequel to his modern, Midwestern recasting of the story of the messiah, Nazareth, North Dakota.Tommy, an assistant professor at Marist College, is currently spending his sabbatical doing research for the sequel. And by research we mean road-tripping, hiking and camping his way through the upper Midwest. Follow Tommy as he scours Wisconsin, Minnesota and North Dakota for all things Bible-related at tommyzurhellen.com.

FALL RELEASES

Nathan Leslie

If a New Testament story set in the present-day Badlands sounds deliciously outside the box, mark your calendars for the Halloween release of The Tall Tale of Tommy Twice by Nathan Leslie, an orphan novel that bursts with imagination and should not be read to the kids at bedtime. Nathan is the author of six books of short fiction, one book of poetry and the editor of two anthologies. And if that doesn’t impress you, he’s also the fiction editor for Pedestal Magazine, was the series editor for Best of the Web and teaches full-time at Northern Virginia Community College. Recently, Nathan’s short fiction has appeared in Boulevard, North American Review, Slab, Gargoyle, Dos Passos Review and Red Rock Review. His work also appeared online in Dark Sky Magazine and is in the new issue of Press 1 (both a column and a short story). All to say, this is a guy who, like us, can’t get enough of good writing–and it shows.

Jared Yates Sexton

If the Mayans were on to something, come December 21, 2012, we’ll all be goners. However, we’re taking our chances (and a tongue-in-cheek jab at those who will be stocking their pantries and moving to the cellar) and releasing Jared Yates Sexton’s An End to All Things, a collection of clear, strong stories showcasing the intense emotional complexities of the blue-collar working man (November 23). To get a taste for the cut-to-the-chase kind of fiction in store, check out “The Right Men for the Job,” a story from the collection, published at 10,000 Tons of Black Ink. Jared was recently named Managing Editor at BULL: Fiction for Thinking Men; do yourself a favor by reading his recently published essay, “The Necessity of Despair.”

From Fell’s Point to Federal Hill, Tracks re-discovers the heart of Baltimore’s diverse neighborhoods and include local sites like the Red Brick Station, the playground atop Federal Hill, Hotel Monaco, Baltimore’s Holocaust Memorial and the American Visionary Art Museum that give the novel a realistic and regional feel.

Goodman, a writer and frequent guest on WYPR, says he originally “thought I was just writing a few unrelated stories.  But they all happened to involve trains. I’ve lived in Baltimore for more than ten years.  I wanted to set Tracks in real places that people could recognize or visit. The train, however, is the most important setting—a character itself.”

The release party for Tracks, which is published by the Maryland-based independent press Atticus Books, is on September 27 at Max’s Taphouse, featured in Goodman’s book. “Max’s Taphouse is Baltimore’s best beer bar,” Goodman explained. “Besides, one of the stories… is called ‘A Good Beer Needs a Good Stein.’  A book with a story title like that belongs in a good beer pub.”

Goodman also will be making two appearances in September: He performs a reading at the Janice Holt and Henry Giles House in Knifley, Kentucky on Saturday (Sept. 17) and next Sunday (September 25) he will be at the Baltimore Book Festival discussing linked stories with Susi Wyss (The Civilized World) from 3 to 4 p.m. on the CityLit Stage in Mount Vernon, Md.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Eric D. Goodman’s work has appeared in The Baltimore Review, The Potomac, Grub Street, The Arabesques Review, and New Lines from the Old Line State: An Anthology of Maryland Writers, among others. Eric is the author of Flightless Goose, a storybook for children. Tracks is his first novel.

###

KENSINGTON, MD — As of about 8:00 this morning, May 17, 2011, independent press Atticus Books is busting-its-buttons proud to announce the launch of its first literary journal, Atticus Review. AR is a weekly online journal that publishes stories, poems, and electric literature, and shepherds other genre-busting words of wisdom and interactive whimsy. The non-commercial publication’s tagline: Six Degrees Left of Literature.

“We take pride in not taking ourselves too seriously, while taking seriously the responsibility of producing a literary journal worth celebrating,” says Dan Cafaro, founder of the trade publishing company Atticus Books. “You may not be able to physically cuddle with our journal, but the intimacy and immediacy of the writing will provide comfort and be a clarion call for substantive meaning … with some occasional banal humor thrown in to keep it real.”

Starting today, the AR staff is dedicated to bringing to readers every Tuesday a wide array of literary endeavors, from haunting short stories to smile-inducing poems to inventive videos and soundscapes. And Atticus, as always, is bent on elevating the stature of writers and artists whose work eschews the mainstream for the inventive and bypasses the ordinary for the extraordinary.

Conceived at the annual AWP conference, mostly during a series of whiskey-fueled conversations (as admitted by the publisher), Atticus Review intends to “change the public’s perception of reading as a static activity” and “turn the platform of digital publishing into an interactive trampoline.” As further covered in the mission statement, AR aims to “slay apathy. Slay illiteracy. Slay ignorance. Slay censorship. Slay formulaic drivel, preened and packaged to sell. Slay the tendency to settle for second-rate writing.”

“If Atticus means the bringer of death in Latin, let this journal propagate and celebrate the refreshing rebirth of arts and the evolution of language,” Cafaro says. “We’re arriving at a critical juncture for the publishing industry, so the idea of offering a multimedia, digital harvest of creative writing, connected to all things literary, is new Renaissance fruit ripe for bearing.”

Writer and fearless Editor-in-Chief Katrina Gray leads the journal into the media fray, selecting the most exciting and challenging short and flash fiction that she can get her hands on. And should you get lost in the website’s contents, her weekly Letter from the Editor (“Inside the Nest” column) will clue you in to “where our minds are at, what questions we can’t shake, and what images and issues are fascinating us to no end.”

“Whatever your coordinates are when you begin reading, we hope you have to reassess your latitude by the time you click away,” Gray says in her kickoff column.

The Atticus Review team is rounded out by Poetry Editor Michael Meyerhofer, Mixed Media Editor Matt Mullins and Managing Editor Libby Kuzma who, with their combined efforts, plan to make sure there’s never a dull moment. As AR continues to build its foundation and flesh out its unique personality and left-of-center body of work, the publisher warmly invites and encourages submissions from writers, poets, digital lit aficionados, cultural pulse-takers and anyone else with something to say and a unique way to say it.

To submit work for consideration, go to the Atticus submishmash site or e-mail submissions@atticusreview.org.

Congratulations to Alex Kudera. His debut novel (and the first-ever book from Atticus Books), Fight for Your Long Day, has gone and won the regional IPPY gold award for best fiction in the Mid-Atlantic region. His publisher couldn’t be more proud and also couldn’t think of a better way to celebrate than sharing an excerpt of this “uncompromising expose´ of how we live now.” One that takes us through underpaid professor Cyrus Duffleman’s subway commute, complete with stereotypes and stenches and, because we can’t resist a little irony, a well-aimed jab at all those “smiling prize winners.” Who’s smiling now? Well, one thing’s for sure, it’s not Duffy.

*************

Oh shit. 9:40, and now 9:41 a.m., according to the time and temperature on the blue background just above the stock-quote corner of the screen. To meet his Tuesday – Thursday schedule, he needs to be out the door at 9:35 sharp to arrive at his first class in a timely fashion. Now he is six minutes late.

Channel changer in hand, Duffy shoots dead his screen, springs from the couch, shot-guns his tall glass of tap water, and swallows the last half cup of lukewarm coffee, praying he receive not the shits while sampling public transportation. After throwing on a gray and worn-thin wool sweater and stepping into functional beige khakis, finally socks, shoes, and deodorant in case he forgot, he darts around his tiny two-room studio, searching for his umbrella, which he remembers he has been unable to find since the start of April. But he sees from his window that it’s only drizzling, and he lowers each window to two inches so as to let in air but keep out any watery gusts during the day. He turns off the coffee pot, and checks to make sure the toaster oven is switched off. Then he glances down at the oven knobs as he presses firmly against the refrigerator door to test its airtight seal, steps back to the bathroom to make sure the toilet water isn’t running but as he does so, in double-checking the coffee pot, he sees the milk is still out on the counter, and so he returns it to the refrigerator, rechecks the oven knobs with his left hand as he firmly presses the fridge again with his right, and then double-checks the radio despite its silence as he returns to the bathroom and finds all fixtures secure, and not a droplet of sound. He opens the tiny bathroom window as wide as it will go, admires the branch that has been growing off the plastic window sill—a tree seed and soil apparently found its way to the perfect humidity of a window by the shower—and then moves back to the bedroom to doublecheck the computer switch and the back window—where the terrorist or burglar would likely sneak in—and finally grabs his jacket and book bag, walks out of his apartment door, and locks it behind him. As he takes two steps down the stairs, he realizes he has forgotten his granola breakfast bar and peanut butter ’n cheese cracker snack, the two items he needs to save three dollars on snacks from the food carts around campus. So he fusses with his key, reenters the apartment, grabs the snacks, eyes the coffee pot one last time, lowers his hulking bag to the floor as he tosses on his jacket, lifts the bag, and then locks the door, hurrying down the steps before he can remember to check anything else.

Outside, where the drizzle has picked up to a steady, light rain, he gets wet and checks his watch. 9:44 a.m.

Duffy has no time for the calm ride of the slightly out-of-the-way suburban trains, so he rushes for the subway, pacing as briskly as possible without falling on his ass. His shoes are an investment; they are made of a synthetic material used for “walker” models, with good traction and better arch support. He fondly recalls paying twelve extra dollars to buy the pair with waterproofing. As he marches forward, head tilted down enough to avoid puddles but still see approaching pedestrians, his glasses catch the water. A constant drip from the upper rim of the frame plops down just below each eye.

At a quarter to ten, not many are out walking, not in this rain, most having already made it to work, and not yet prepared to venture outside for their morning smoke. In the underpass below the trains, Duffy indulges in thirty yards of dry. As he returns to getting wet, to his left, he passes the Drew building, where they award generous stipends for fiction, poetry, and plays. His terminal degree states that he has a “Masters” in the so-called “Fine Art” of creative writing, and he applied years ago, long before the seven deadly sins of literary blockage—daily drudgery, anxiety, low self-esteem, depression, lack of talent and ambition, and above all, laziness—stole away any chance he had of concentrating for long enough to produce anything even loosely resembling a work of art, or tight and tidy enough to be considered that marketable commodity, “the contemporary novel.” Even in his overworked state, he still remembers to brood and mutter bitterly each time photos of smiling prize winners are published; from Duffy’s perspective, there seems to be something politically correct, connected, or insubstantial about every finalist. Who has ever heard of writers smiling so widely? These winners could not be writers worth reading. Awash in envy, he sees it all as one steamy lump, a movement of the ordinary produced by the educated but scared; the winners’ writing takes less risk than a political front runner in a national election. He could admit that it shows far superior craftsmanship than his endless comments on student essays, all he could claim as his own oeuvre. Such self-crunching honesty doesn’t make him feel any better, and so, with no time to stare at the imposing gray marble, Duffy trudges on.

Just as he briskly approaches and then dexterously stops at the red light at the corner of 21st and Market, a huge SEPTA bus headed west on Market plows past, drenching him from his knees to his shoulders with a shockwave of rainwater. Gathering his wits, he feels grateful this bonus soaking doesn’t come with muddy sprinkles on top. When he crosses, looking both ways, Duffy bravely fingers the bus already a block away. Past the firehouse and the adult book center and peep shows—whose bright red neon distracts him for only the briefest of seconds—he begins the steep descent to the 22nd and Market eastbound subway-surface platform, hoping, as he does so, that he encounters only sane people below. Although the new gourmet market has brought the middle class—yuppies, buppies, two-earner families, and trust-fund slackers—back to this station, particularly after work, Duffy remains cautious. Interaction with the half clad, salivating, mentally ill, or emotionally disturbed is more than he can handle, particularly at such an early hour. That each day includes an inordinate amount of interaction with himself makes life troubling enough.

After a slow, careful, one-step-at-a-time descent of the deep cement stairwell, his glasses fog up entirely with the temperature change. A trolley’s distant squeal transforms to a roar and culminates in a screeching halt; in his haste to progress, he at first shoves and nearly pushes down an elderly woman he cannot see, but then holds her up until he can steady them both. A moment for a deep breath and then he makes sure that she boards safely ahead of his oafishness, all the while apologizing profusely and at last stepping up and into the crowded car. With a tissue from his jacket, he clears his glasses to see the huge driver staring at him menacingly because he witnessed the entire episode. He absorbs the driver’s glare as acknowledgement that he is the worst kind of middle-aged white man in control of the universe—the kind who would run down an old lady in pursuit of daily bread, and no doubt take more than his share.

So Duffy returns the look with sad eyes expressing the guilt of millions, perhaps his paternal grandfather’s buried bones in the mix. At most 37.5 percent Jewish—and rarely feeling like much more of a man than that—nevertheless, culpability for this crime against humanity, this near toppling of a senior citizen, washes across his brow. For a moment, he imagines he knows what it is like to be black. Or even poor. He then recalls that by data gleaned from several surveys he tilts toward poverty or at least a lower quintile, so he shakes his head vigorously as if such brisk exertion could shake out such race- or class-based understanding of the world. He then slides his monthly pass through the slot and turns to meet his fellow passengers.

Posture-poor and folded into most of their seats, overweight brown and black Philadelphians abound, the drab colors of rain jackets and sad or expressionless eyes presciently complementing the rainy day. But there are also careerist, high-thread-count African Americans and others standing near the front, most of them appearing more erect and fit than the slouching writing instructor. He pushes past a few thin Asian girls he often sees in Center City, of varying economic classes and regions of origin—South or East or Southeastern; Pennsylvania, New Jersey, or Asia—most fully hyphenated and a few of ambiguous first language or visa status, but all in tight blue jeans or professional attire. As a people, they appear to have lives and diets; they do not cluster together, and so an attitude of individualism appears alive underneath their name brands. He pauses to marvel at these tender morsels of accessible flesh—packaged tightly in designer wrap—and for a moment feels privileged to bear witness to the Freedom of the West.

But to Duffy, alas, such fruit is forbidden, and with his throat dry and stomach rumbling, he damns himself thrice over—first for seeing so much ethnic difference; second for being such a filthy old man; and third for daring to desire the prohibited in a way that could get him tortured or maimed by radical fundamentalists. He squeezes through the packed-in passengers to find himself wedged between an enormous black woman and a middle-aged hippie. The latter is ostensibly a white male without a harem or wife or clutter of exes, the poorer kind, perhaps laid off, disabled, idled, or otherwise ignored on the employment rolls. Duffy senses that he sees one not unlike himself. Despite this shared life experience, when his nose gets stuck in the hippie’s long locks, he feels disgusted and angry. He can smell the pungency of unwashed dreads. Days, months, even a decade would be possible, and overpowered by this evil wafting, he can barely appreciate or even feel the shock of terror over the arousal he feels from the huge woman’s bosom thrust forward and flopping down into the small of his back. Forced to stare downward, Duffy cannot ignore the bald fact that the hippie rides without shoes, sandals, or any other footwear to protect his tan and yellowish heels and toes from the God-knows-what of public transportation.

At 19th Street, a few depart, or pop out as the doors open, and Duffy feels himself rearranged like one of the candies in a gumball machine. He winds up briefly on a tight-jeaned lap—Vietnamese or perhaps Laotian—who with long nails pinches his neck, the sharp pain succeeding in driving him off and vertical again, this time his face six inches from the hippie’s beard. In the beard, he sees every manner of refuse from the ages, the red of tomato-sauce stains, a fleck of silver, protest posters from decades ago, all in thick-knitted tufts of light brown and gray. When he moves his eyes up and away, the hippie smiles directly at him. Is it a knowing look? Congenial? Conspiratorial? Lewd?

Duffy isn’t sure but doesn’t have time to find out, as the trolley lurches to a halt at 15th Street. He is among the last to pile out, just behind a purple-dreadlocked crusty punk whose perfect cleavage under army camouflage reads “college is a scar” until the last half letter renders visible the fact it was a “scam” all along. Into the dirty, dark cavernous central pulse of public transport, he is but another cow in the common herd. Nevertheless, as an individual, he is cautious and nimble in foot placement, seeking to avoid water puddles and the multitudes of gum droppings both fresh and aged. Good soldier and obedient commuter, he follows the others up the filthy, blackened cement steps and around the bend—two ninety-degree —toward the Orange Line, the North-South Broad Street Line.

As he descends onto the Market Street Elevated Line’s underground Center City platform, he sees a huge pinkish pale cop holding the leash of a seated German Shepherd. The dog has soft, innocent eyes—antithetical to his master’s reputation as a mean-spirited boy in blue. They are there to protect America from violence—both imported and domestic—but no Americans stand anywhere close to their defenders. As he walks past the dog and cop, Duffy glances at the various commuters striking their poses at ten in the morning. One is seated with a cup of coffee, another stands peering at a folded newspaper. A pitch-black obese man in a brown-cloth Kanga hat stares back, reminding him it’s safer to stare at the ground. No one likes being stared at, particularly not in the subway, particularly not by a sad, sallow stranger. Eyes to the ground and plodding forward, Duffy is nagged by a severe urge to pee.

To fight the bladder that be, he picks up his pace—he is, after all, on the verge of arriving more than the permissible five minutes late—and marches on. The corridor narrows everyone to single file, commuters trudging one behind the other, weary, sluggish soldiers who cannot keep the beat. Pungent smells of stale coffee, perspiration, cheap perfume, and old urine compete for notice in the corridor. And then worse, ominous scents hit him, like the shit is about to go down, so strong in his nostrils that Duffy’s ecstasy knows no bounds when the corridor widens once more, and an almost jovial newspaper hawker shouts out, “Deer lynched in the park, American troops dead again, read all about it, two papers for a dollar.” Somehow, the Philadelphia newspaper salesmen have been selling two papers to the same customer. For a dollar you could get two copies of the Daily News at a savings of twenty cents total, an Inquirer and a Daily News at a savings of ten cents total, or two Inquirers at no savings at all. Although he has read that math is an obsolete language—public-school children handed calculators instead of Cuisenaire rods—and that the Daily News is said to be written on the third-grade level, and the Inky only the fifth, he has trouble fathoming who would be buying into such a scam. In the age of the Internet, who would be reading both newspapers, or requiring a copy of the exact same thing? Nonetheless, as he passes the vendor, a lady says, “Two Daily News sir,” and he sees her handing the man a crumpled bill.

Duffy weaves around another beefy cop—this one sans Shepherd and more menacing to account for this lack—and turns down a narrow flight of stairs, with unwashed white tiles for walls, revealing a permanent rainbow of underground grime. Graffiti gets professionally washed away but some dirt and water stains last forever.

On the subway platform, he passes a blank-faced wall of black teenagers, none of whom look old enough to be out of school at this hour. Maybe in another time, another community, a caring adult would talk to the boys, find out if they’re late or lost, warn them against truancy, and perhaps even offer them cab fare, a SEPTA token, assistance in getting to school or calling a parent. But these days, today, the “student” could have a temper or carry a knife or gun, or even an acutely contagious STD according to televised news. So he leaves such inquiry to the cops, who are presently occupied striking their own pose in the war on terror. He paces past, and finds a small gap on a metal bench between two students with eyes stuck in their books. In the mornings, these studious ones cramming in the subway give Duffy a bit of hope for the future. Sometimes he sees one with a novel, deeply engrossed in its contents, possibly even unassigned reading for pleasure. Now, on the cramped bench, he is forced to look straight ahead, in this case at a large yellow sign depicting people in jeans and sneakers with cardboard boxes shoved over their heads. “Labels are for packages,” the large lettering reads. Duffy, so fagged, doesn’t get it. His early-morning hunger pangs for something easier to understand. He glances left to see supersized ads for bright red burgers and fries and then right, yet more ads for treating anxiety and depression. “If you or anyone you know is suffering . . . ”

Then the roar approaches, the train doors open, the masses depart, and those like Duffy, headed to North Philadelphia, surge into each car and fill up the seats. Through the opposite window, he sees the yellow sign’s smaller print: “Embrace difference. Embrace America.” He looks around desperately for dissimilar citizenry whom he could hug or even offer the seat he is about to sit in; he aims for nonwhite but is willing to settle for female, older, younger, or overtly happy. Establishing no eye contact, on second thought he concludes that an act of goodwill would only draw more attention to difference. For packages, right? So he plops down, relieved that only a few students are left standing. Five local stops later, along with most other passengers, Duffy files out and through the turnstiles of the Cecil B. Moore station. As he passes through, he checks the clock behind the SEPTA ticket salesman. It is 10:10 a.m., which would not be so bad if his class were not a five-minute walk from the station. He stumbles up the crowded steps and then picks up the pace, fast-walking as best he can, feeling the familiar ache in the left hamstring, his would-be jumping leg if Duffy could defy gravity just one little bit.

On the first floor of Barron Hall, he rushes into the men’s room to find both urinals busy, one with a student rep for the videogame-obesity generation, and the other with the sort of old fossil who’ll just lean against the porcelain and let her drizzle for days—a scary reminder of what the latter years could be like. Duffy finds a stall vacant save for a boat-sized bowel movement left floating for the next fellow to see. Disgusted and suppressing the simultaneous urges to howl and heave, he pisses straight down, like a marksman gunning for old brown sides rusting in the harbor.He forgets to flush, exits the stall, and breathes again. At the sink, he turns the hot water on full blast, feeling dirty and thus especially disappointed when all he gets is a lukewarm trickle. The soap dispenser fails to produce the pink ooze he can see in its packet, so he lets his hands soak under the faucet, admiring all the more his ideal form of government, the democracy in action of Urban State University. After shaking and rubbing his hands under the warm, faint breath of the sanitization system, Duffy returns to the stairs and ascends to meet his fate.

KENSINGTON, MD — Eric D. Goodman has spent years on the road, reading stories and winning praise from scores of listeners. The long-time Baltimore resident is a versatile writer with a successful weblog, Writeful, a children’s book, Flightless Goose, and a great knack for performing public readings of his works. He now has found a place to lay his Tracks, his first novel in stories.

Independent press Atticus Books, a Maryland-based publishing house, is thrilled to announce that Goodman’s debut novel, Tracks—described by one reviewer as a “Tarantino-style ‘Love Actually’ meets literary fiction”—will be among its highly anticipated 2011 summer releases.

“Eric has a natural gift of being a fine storyteller who knows how to speak volumes in short spurts,” says Dan Cafaro, founding publisher of Atticus Books. “He understands that as a novelist, you don’t always have to run a marathon to go the distance. Sometimes a series of sprints will get you to the finish line, too.”

Tracks takes place on an Amtrak train traveling from Baltimore to Chicago. Each story is told from the perspective of a passenger on the train. They are the strangers we meet every day: a soldier, a salesman, a former mobster, a Holocaust survivor, couples in love, a woman who has lost her parents, a writer, a hit man. These and other characters fill the train with emotion and complexity.

In Tracks, Goodman has interweaved stories and connects his readers to the characters by bringing them to life, not only through his fluid, engaging writing, but in the delivery of his vibrant, animated readings. Described by WYPR as “a regular on the Baltimore literary scene,” Goodman frequently reads his fiction in venues all over the area such as the Baltimore Book Festival, the Baltimore Authors Showcase, the Patterson Theater, XandO, Ukazoo, Cyclops, the Festival of Trees, the CityLit Festival, and the Watermark Gallery.

From nefarious goings-on in a Fells Point row house to prestigious partying on Federal Hill, Goodman’s Baltimore is immediately recognizable and real.

“On one hand, Eric’s created a straight-forward collection of first-person narratives that works superbly on its own, as a group of standalone pieces,” Cafaro says. “On the other [hand], his stories become even more powerful by his seamlessly linking and intersecting these lives on a passenger train. Through this authentic technique, he paints a rich tapestry of vignettes: a cross-cultural, boundary-breaking snapshot of everyday, yet colorful people on an imagery-filled, life-changing journey.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Eric D. Goodman is an American writer of literary fiction, commercial fiction, childrens’ literature, and non-fiction. He writes a weekly “Lit Bit” column for Gather and a “Literary Life” column for Coloquio.

Goodman’s “Cicadas” leads off the Maryland Writers’ Association’s first book, New Lines from the Old Line State: An Anthology of Maryland Writers. You can hear Eric read “Cicadas” here, as featured on The Signal broadcast by National Public Radio (NPR).

You also can listen here to Eric reading “A Good Beer Needs a Good Stein” from Tracks, also featured on NPR’s The Signal.

Railroad Tracks photo source: Miles Skorpen

Order your copy today through our distributor or via Amazon.

Daring to Eat a Peach: A Novel
By Joseph Zeppetello

KENSINGTON, MD — A handful of friends are pushed and pulled together, then driven apart by choice and circumstance.  They walk into and out of each other’s lives with personal baggage, professional purpose and no certain outcome.  They either act upon their impulses and change their surroundings or they bite their lips and perpetuate their status quo.

Perched like birds on a wire at the “serious relationship” crossroads, two fickle couples grope for meaning and direction, while one steadfast patriot loses his footing, along with his desire to serve overseas, only to later find a higher ground in a familiar place.

Image credit: The work of Thomas Deerinck as interpreted by artist C. Sharp

Daring to Eat a Peach is a reverberating multiple character-study of a novel that shines a soft light on the situations in which people find themselves, and humbly asks the eternal question raised by poets, philosophers and lay people alike:  ”How did I get here?”

A finely tuned allegory of literary romance, Joseph Zeppetello’s first novel elegantly illustrates themes of love, loss and redemption in a shifting, interconnected world.

It is reminiscent of Lawrence Kasdan’s masterful treatment of the life forces that surround us in the tender films, The Big Chill and Grand Canyon, with the makings of a memorable ensemble cast.

Protagonist Denton Pike, a divorced translator, makes a life-altering decision out of necessity.  (Or is dumb luck the mother of his reinvention?)  Judy, his girlfriend, stands pat out of ritual and convenience.  (Or are the fresh wounds of her first marriage inhibiting her to move on?)

Rita Castillo, a Spanish language expert and single mother, wants nothing more than to leave uncompromised her station in the universe.  (Or are her fears and denial symptomatic of raising a child on her own?)  Peter, a roving journalist and unreliable partner, is consumed by ideals and a passion for truth.  (Or is he simply callous and self-absorbed?)

Is there any just explanation for the unlikely chain of events that connects and divides these intelligent, but driftless souls?  Is it fate?  Coincidence?  Both?  Neither?

Could the concept of cause and effect merely be a tidy rationale for random neurons of sexual energy colliding in the night?

“Objects at rest will stay at rest and objects in motion will stay in motion … unless an outside force acts upon it.”

- Newton’s First Law of Motion

Image credit: The work of UCSD microscopist Thomas Deerinck, as interpreted by artist C. Sharp

With spare, tightly written sentences, Zeppetello’s prose sparkles with a Raymond Carver-like economic use of language. The effortless dialogue speaks volumes about human nature while the reader becomes the proverbial fly on the wall.

Daring to Eat a Peach gradually unveils each major character’s motivations while blending their checkered pasts with their tilted present.  The work illuminates man’s daily struggles to make the right choices in life.  Especially when, in a split-atom moment of kinetic inertia, he is being steered wrong.

“Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?”

- T.S. Eliot, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock inspired author Joseph Zeppetello to write the novel, Daring to Eat a Peach.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Joseph Zeppetello is the Director of Writing at Marist College in Poughkeepsie, New York. He is the author of short stories published in Iron Horse (Texas Tech University), The Little Magazine, and Copper Nickel: A Journal of Art and Literature, published by the students and faculty at the University of Colorado. He received his cross-disciplinary DA degree in Composition Studies and Philosophy from the State University of New York at Albany.

“The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only one page.” ~ Jasmine, a desired damsel, quoting Saint Augustine in The Absent Traveler.

KENSINGTON, MD — What’s the furthest you’ve been from home? Randall DeVallance, author of The Absent Traveler, lived in Bulgaria during his stint with the Peace Corps, and his experience shines through in his exquisite story of Charles Lime.

Taste the Eastern European food and hear the Serbian pop music in Charles Lime’s great escape from small-town reality. If you’ve ever had your heart broken, felt misunderstood, and pined for exotic travel to lands afar, then you have a kindred spirit; his name is Charles Lime.

The Absent Traveler (December 2010, Atticus Books) is the story of this 20-something, 24-hour-a-day escapist who has little drive, less money and few prospects. Charles spends much of his mundane hours working at a local electronics store, ringing up customers at the cash register and getting into trouble with his boss and co-workers.

During his waking hours, Charles mostly tries to avoid personal encounters and wanders the drab city streets of Western Pennsylvania in a dream-like, entranced state. In the evening, when he enters that place where no one can touch him, Charles is transformed through the power of fantasy.

Charles religiously reads travel stories, alone in his small boarding room, seeking shelter from his hateful father and his lush of a landlady. Charles invariably succumbs to his nightly habit of reading as if possessed by the addictive charms of an illicit drug. Once he drifts off, he enters an alter life filled with vaguely familiar surroundings and careless adventures in a land far away from his dull, small-town existence.

A mixed-up heart and a distracted mind cause Charles to lose all sense of responsibility — and his increasingly odd behavior and unconscious actions set him on a path of self-destruction. Facing a possible eviction from his basement apartment, Charles ignores the obvious truth — his life is in tatters, and instead retreats to the place he knows best: the safety of his books, where he is free to let his imagination carry him to distant lands.

Reality, or what may pass for it, matters little to Charles who grows to find solace in permanent escape. Whether he can find his way back to the only place he has ever known becomes an altogether different matter.

Order Your Copy Today from our distributor

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Randall DeVallance is the author of the short novel, Dive (2004), and the short-story collection, Sketches of Invalids (2007). His stories have appeared in several anthologies and more than 30 print and online publications including McSweeney’s, Pindeldyboz, Eyeshot, Vestal Review, and Word Riot. He lives in New York City.