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Soft Fruit in the Sun
by Oliver Zarandi
This is the sort of collection you can start reading at any spot and come away with the same impression: This author is a talented lunatic. Which I mean, of course, in a good way. Murder, sex, more sex, revulsion, depression, antipathy, and sociopathy—all of it can be funny and here it is. You might call this smart bizarro (which there’s not enough of). Readers might also see a little bit of Bukowski in these pages.
Buy it here:
https://hexusjournal.bigcartel.com/product/soft-fruit-in-the-sun-oliver-zarandi-preorder
Ghosts Are Just Strangers Who Know How to Knock
by Hillary Leftwich
Leftwich is a gifted stylist, her prose characterized by novel word choices and phrasings that never go astray. The concerns here are human broadly speaking, issues of life and death, relationships, and emotions; but Leftwich’s work shouldn’t be mistaken for standard suburban minimalism. Her perspective is dark and off-center making these stories both surprising and a pleasure to read.
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Bone Chalk
by Jim Reese
Bone Chalk is Midwestern Americana at its best. Ringing of truth down to the last thought and gesture, Reese creates a modern portrait of small town life; one Norman Rockwell definitely wouldn’t recognize. Built on prose that never fusses or falters, humor, and the endless intrigues that are there in everyday life—if you just know where to look—this is the sort of book you’ll pick up and finish in one sitting and be glad you did.
Buy it here:
https://www.amazon.com/Bone-Chalk-Jim-Reese/dp/1622882032
Ghosts of You
by Cathy Ulrich
A flash collection about murdered women, the feminist focus is obvious and important. The stories here are sharply written, powerful, and, at times, funny. And there is no avoiding the truth at the heart of this book: women’s lives and deaths are still seen by many people as of lesser value than those of men. So much so that in art, the dead woman as a plot device remains a grim, all-too-common reality.
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https://okaydonkeymag.bigcartel.com/product/ghosts-of-you-by-cathy-ulrich
Missing Signal
by Seb Doubinsky
The latest installment in Doubinsky’s hilariously horrifying City States cycle, Missing Signal is a satirical acid trip into a fractured, future Europe. Brief, biting, and brimming with conspiracies, this is social commentary that succeeds because it never takes itself too seriously. Viva la revolucion! Viva la Doubinsky!
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Gristle
by Jordan A. Rothacker
With their languid prose and religious touchpoints, these stories feel almost as if they’re drawn from an earlier time. Redolent in places of writers like Garcia Marquez and Mahfouz, Gristle is a collection concerned not so much with the mundanities of plot and story but with sensory perceptions and capturing the living essence of specific moments.
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https://www.stalkinghorsepress.com/product/gristle-weird-tales/
Kansastan
by Farooq Ahmed
A wild re-imagining of the American Civil War as it might have been lived in Islamic Kansas—let that sink in—this is the tale of a sociopathic goatherd who lives in seething isolation atop a minaret—now, let that sink in. Challenging and remorselessly funny, Kansastan shows Ahmed turning his satirist’s eye to Islamic myth and history, the nature of fanaticism, and much more.
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