"The Stations" in BATHHOUSE 9.1

My story "The Stations" is in the new issue of Bathhouse, the online literary journal of Eastern Michigan University, alongside art by Bianca Stone, two videos by David Buuck, excerpts from “The Sugar Book” by Johannes Göransson, audio cut ups by gtrabbit, and poetry by Arielle Greenberg, Patrick Samuel, Laura Wetherington, Amir Kenan, and Jane Joritz-Nakagawa. Thanks to editor Sean Kilpatrick and the rest of the Bathhouse staff for taking this story, and for doing such a great job with its presentation.

2012 Book #42: SEA OF TREES by Robert James Russell

 

On her sixteenth birthday, Yui Sato had had enough, locked herself in the toilet, and attempted to kill herself by mixing detergent and bath salts—her mother’s—a method she had researched on the internet. She sat on the cold tile floor as the mixture turned into a thick white gas and quickly filled the room, breathing in the pungent fumes for nearly five minutes before her father, Haruki, managed to force his way in and rushed to open the window. Haruki and the rest of the family—her mother, Mako, and younger brother, Koji—were in the den watching television and the moment she saw her father’s eyes she wished she hadn’t acted so quickly and waited until she was alone—it had been the rotten egg smell that had given her away.

Months later the incident was nearly forgotten, Haruki buried in his work, Mako withdrawn and tending almost exclusively to Koji during his impeding adolescence. Yui was forced to talk to a counselor about her actions, and out of those sessions she developed a desire to have a better future, being told that, among other things, she deserved one—that the light would most certainly present itself to her. So Yui came to renounce the selfish act, and as similar deaths were reported on the news, all successful in her method—a twelve-year-old girl in Nakano City, a forty-year-old man in Kita, among others—she laughed at what she had almost accomplished, the desperate acts of a young girl starving for attention.

—Sea of Trees by Robert James Russell

CATACLYSM BABY Reviewed at SMALL DOGGIES

Ampersand Books publisher Jason Cook reviewed Cataclysm Baby at Small Doggies this past week, concluding:

What separates Bell’s writing from other apocalypse tales is the deeply-considered metaphor, which is at once obvious but never belabored. The focus is never on the world-shattering pyrotechnics, but stays on the more prosaic concerns of family conflicts and what, if anything, it means to be a father... What truly makes Cataclysm Baby special, however, is the style Bell has adopted, a restrained prose with something of the biblical about its sparseness, the distance between the narrators and others, the anonymity of the actors.

Thanks to Jason Cook for his kind words, and to Matty Byloos of Small Doggies for supporting my work. You can read the rest of the review here.

2012 Book #41: A MERCY by Toni Morrison

Don’t be afraid. My telling can’t hurt you in spite of what I have done and I promise to lie quietly in the dark—weeping perhaps or occasionally seeing the blood once more—but I will never again unfold my limbs to rise up and bare teeth. I explain. You can think what I tell you a confession, if you like, but one full of curiosities familiar only in dreams and during those moments when a dog’s profile plays in the steam of a kettle. Or when a corn-husk doll sitting on a shelf is soon splaying in the corner of a room and the wicked of how it got there is plain. Stranger things happen all the time everywhere. You know. I know you know. One question is who is responsible? Another is can you read? If a pea hen refuses to brood I read it quickly and, sure enough, that night I see a minha mãe standing hand in hand with her little boy, my shoes jamming the pocket of her apron. Other signs need more time to understand. Often there are too many signs, or a bright omen clouds up too fast. I sort them and try to recall, yet I know I am missing much, like not reading the garden snake crawling up to the door saddle to die. Let me start with what I know for certain.

The beginning begins with the shoes.

—A Mercy by Toni Morrison

Interview at Biblioklept

Last week Edwin Turner of the blog Biblioklept published an interview he conducted with me over the previous month. We talked mostly about Cataclysm Baby, including its origins, the rewriting process, and why end of the world stories are so compelling. We also talked about Cormac McCarthy's idea that "books are made out of books" and how I avoid writer's block, something I'm not sure anyone's ever asked me:

Personally, I think I rarely have true writer’s block, the kind where I don’t write. Instead I have days where I write only badly, and sometimes miserably so—and sometimes those days stretch into weeks. When I’m working on a project, there’s almost always something to do, so if I can’t go forward I just move backward in the story and try to revise my way into forward motion again. If I’m between projects, I try to start something new every day until one catches. Immediately after finishing Cataclysm Baby I must have written the beginnings of a dozen terrible short stories, not letting myself abandon one before my writing time was over for the day. So maybe I spent a month writing three or four hours a day on work I wasn’t going to continue with—but at least I was writing. That’s the only way I know to get past writer’s block that isn’t dumb luck.

I just had to do this same process again to get moving after finishing a long story, and am happy to report it still works. Thanks again to Edwin for his time and attention, and for both reading and reviewing Cataclysm Baby at Biblioklept.

2012 Book #40: GIGANTIC by Marc Nesbitt

You stand there, wondering could you fit inside a Chinese carton with the sides greased enough, watching the weeds celebrate at the front of a dust-smothered shed. The waitress grabs your hand and squints up at you as if it means something. The brothers start up; spit on each other during words, clash teeth, rip their own lips off, furious about pro city teams you're almost sure you've heard of.

They've chosen sides, and in among the vague you worry you'll root wrong. You look at her. She still squints, you might even call it a smile, her eyes on a train track or a dust storm coming, or wind, or distance—all of it, and her warmth along your arm with the confidence of weather, and she smiles like the right direction.

—Gigantic by Marc Nesbitt

2012 Book #39: CARRY EACH HIS BURDEN by James Goertel

By the time he was twenty, the lush greens and bright blues of his childhood were gone, skies stained a permanent black, the rolling, sunken meadows of the Scottish lowlands turned brown but hidden beneath a near immutable, perennial layer of snow. She'd wanted a wedding in the sun, in the quality of light that dances on open water, spins gold from the long leafy vines of the willow, which speaks of new beginnings. She'd settled for the cold, dirty-white of permanent winter. She held no bouquet, no blooms adorned her hair on a day whenall the diamonds in the world would not have bought a single, wiliting corsage.

—Carry Each His Burden by James Goertel

Review of HOW THEY WERE FOUND at BIG OTHER

Thanks so much to John Madera for these kind words about How They Were Found, next to short reviews of books by William Walsh, Edward Mullany, and Joseph Riippi:

"What I learned is that even a book can be a door if you hold it right," says one of Bell’s narrators, and if you hold How They Were Found right, you will have a door, a door of immaculate perception, a door into elsewhere and whatever is next door to it. It’s a fine debut collection demonstrating the author’s versatility, especially with regard to form and content, realized by a measured, strapping prose style.

Thanks, John!

Interview at VOL. 1 Brooklyn

Earlier in the week, Tobias Carroll and I talked about Cataclysm Baby at Vol. 1 Brooklyn, in part to promote my Tuesday night reading that they hosted in New York City. Among other things, Tobias and I discussed the use of permutations as a writing process, the influence of fairy tales, and my "thoughts on the roles of hope and despair in the face of irrevocable change" (as Tobias says it).

The event on Tuesday went great, and it was a pleasure to read with Lincoln Michel, Melissa Broder, Jacob Silverman and Julia Jackson. I'm so appreciative of Tobias and Jason from Vol. 1 for hosting me, and to Ryan Chang for covering the event for Electric Literature's The Outlet. Thanks again to everyone who came out to hear us.

2012 Book #34: LEVEL END by Brian Oliu

When I arrived, the music changed, and then it went silent—nothing of note except for the ringing in my ears, the residue of the clinking of a glass, the dropped phone call, the silence of a house in the morning. There is nothing romantic about the idea of final when final arrives like this: not with an arrow in the eye, not with a body losing grip on the floor and disappearing in the dark with a sparkle and a wink, not with a final blink after turning magenta, a red not found in nature, a red not found in your face, not even while choking, not even while gasping for breath. What you have imagined the final stage to be is not what it is—here is a list it is not. It is not surrounded by family and handwritten cards from friends, fresh flowers replacing dead flowers, no, never dead flowers, get them out of here, cast them into the street, put them in another room, the water will not save you.

—Level End by Brian Oliu