The Book of Duels
Autor Michael Garriga Ilustrat de Tynan Kerren Limba Engleză Paperback – 17 mar 2014
Fierce, searing, and darkly comical, Garriga's debut collection of short-short fiction depicts historical and imagined duels, re-envisioning in a flash the competing points of motivation—courage and cowardice, honor and vengeance—that lead individuals to risk it all.
In this compact collection, “settling the score” provides a fascinating apparatus for exploring foundational civilizing ideas. Notions of courage, cowardice, and revenge course through Michael Garriga’s flash fiction pieces, each one of which captures a duel’s decisive moment from three distinct perspectives: opposing accounts from the individual duelists, followed by the third account of a witness. In razor-honed language, the voices of the duelists take center stage, training a spotlight on the litany of misguided beliefs and perceptions that lead individuals into such conflicts.
From Cain and Abel to Andrew Jackson and Charles Dickenson; from John Henry and the steam drill to an alcoholic fighting the bottle: the cumulative effect of these powerful pieces is a probing and disconcerting look at humankind’s long-held notions of pride, honor, vengeance, and satisfaction. Meticulously crafted by Garriga, and with stunning illustrations by Tynan Kerr, The Book of Duels is a unique and remarkable debut.
In this compact collection, “settling the score” provides a fascinating apparatus for exploring foundational civilizing ideas. Notions of courage, cowardice, and revenge course through Michael Garriga’s flash fiction pieces, each one of which captures a duel’s decisive moment from three distinct perspectives: opposing accounts from the individual duelists, followed by the third account of a witness. In razor-honed language, the voices of the duelists take center stage, training a spotlight on the litany of misguided beliefs and perceptions that lead individuals into such conflicts.
From Cain and Abel to Andrew Jackson and Charles Dickenson; from John Henry and the steam drill to an alcoholic fighting the bottle: the cumulative effect of these powerful pieces is a probing and disconcerting look at humankind’s long-held notions of pride, honor, vengeance, and satisfaction. Meticulously crafted by Garriga, and with stunning illustrations by Tynan Kerr, The Book of Duels is a unique and remarkable debut.
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Specificații
ISBN-13: 9781571310934
ISBN-10: 1571310932
Pagini: 225
Ilustrații: B&W illustrations throughout
Dimensiuni: 140 x 213 x 20 mm
Greutate: 0.34 kg
Editura: Milkweed Editions
Locul publicării:Canada
ISBN-10: 1571310932
Pagini: 225
Ilustrații: B&W illustrations throughout
Dimensiuni: 140 x 213 x 20 mm
Greutate: 0.34 kg
Editura: Milkweed Editions
Locul publicării:Canada
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Recenzii
"Michael Garriga's prose is rich with idiom and tension, taut and visceral as the stories he tells. He writes exclusively of getting even, settling scores, honor, bullying and cowardice. The language has biblical force and rhythms, and he goes inside these characters and brings them to us direct from their deepest parts."
—Daniel Woodrell, author of The Maid's Version and Winter's Bone
"Lovers of language at its thrumming, pulse-driven peak, fiends for characters staggeringly alive, twitching addicts of images grotesque and glorious, Michael Garriga is your man and The Book of Duels your new obsession. With his Duels, Garriga defies classification, transcends form, and gives us neither prose, poems, or prose-poems, but a work of unassailable linguistic art."
—Kent Wascom, author of The Blood of Heaven
"Garriga has instantly established himself as both a master of that profoundly modern literary form, the short short story, and a master of the human condition. The Book of Duels is one of the most extraordinary first books of fiction I’ve ever read."
—Robert Olen Butler, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain
"Michael Garriga’s truly original and often darkly funny stories in The Book of Duels are as full of heart and blood and guts as the work of his great heroes, Cormac McCarthy and Barry Hannah, and he shares with those writers a hard-won vulnerability at the word-drunk nub of everything."
—Mark Winegardner, author of Crooked River Burning
"The Book of Duels is a beautiful, brutal collection, bridging the distance between prose and poetry. Garriga bears down on our legacies of racism, violence, and vengeance—at turns historically precise and otherworldly—creating an acute awareness of our human frailty and relentless desire for love."
—Julianna Baggott, author of the Pure Trilogy
"There are a lot of great storytellers published today, but it takes a great writer to tell a story in so few words—and Michael Garriga does it brilliantly. Told candidly from the perspective of each duelist and a witness, The Book of Duels delves into the final thoughts—of honor, of love, of hatred, of anger, of God—of those facing death. Gritty, and often darkly humorous, this debut collection will make readers take note of flash fiction."
—Lindsay Pingel, Inkwood Books, Tampa, FL
—Daniel Woodrell, author of The Maid's Version and Winter's Bone
"Lovers of language at its thrumming, pulse-driven peak, fiends for characters staggeringly alive, twitching addicts of images grotesque and glorious, Michael Garriga is your man and The Book of Duels your new obsession. With his Duels, Garriga defies classification, transcends form, and gives us neither prose, poems, or prose-poems, but a work of unassailable linguistic art."
—Kent Wascom, author of The Blood of Heaven
"Garriga has instantly established himself as both a master of that profoundly modern literary form, the short short story, and a master of the human condition. The Book of Duels is one of the most extraordinary first books of fiction I’ve ever read."
—Robert Olen Butler, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain
"Michael Garriga’s truly original and often darkly funny stories in The Book of Duels are as full of heart and blood and guts as the work of his great heroes, Cormac McCarthy and Barry Hannah, and he shares with those writers a hard-won vulnerability at the word-drunk nub of everything."
—Mark Winegardner, author of Crooked River Burning
"The Book of Duels is a beautiful, brutal collection, bridging the distance between prose and poetry. Garriga bears down on our legacies of racism, violence, and vengeance—at turns historically precise and otherworldly—creating an acute awareness of our human frailty and relentless desire for love."
—Julianna Baggott, author of the Pure Trilogy
"There are a lot of great storytellers published today, but it takes a great writer to tell a story in so few words—and Michael Garriga does it brilliantly. Told candidly from the perspective of each duelist and a witness, The Book of Duels delves into the final thoughts—of honor, of love, of hatred, of anger, of God—of those facing death. Gritty, and often darkly humorous, this debut collection will make readers take note of flash fiction."
—Lindsay Pingel, Inkwood Books, Tampa, FL
Notă biografică
Michael Garriga holds a Ph.D. from Florida State University’s creative writing program. His short fiction has appeared in New Letters, Black Warrior Review, storySouth, Southern Review, and elsewhere. Garriga lives with his family outside of Cleveland, OH, where he teaches creative writing in the English department at Baldwin Wallace Unversity. The Book of Duels is his first book.
Tynan Kerr was born in St. Paul, MN. He received a B.F.A. from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. He currently lives in South Minneapolis.
Tynan Kerr was born in St. Paul, MN. He received a B.F.A. from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. He currently lives in South Minneapolis.
Extras
Slouching Toward the Land of Nod:
Somewhere Just East of Eden,
Once Upon a Time
Abel, 17, Shepherd
How easy it must be to sit beside a fig tree and let the wind turn the soil and the rain bury your seed and the sun pull your wheat and bean from the field, while here I hold a lonely vigil, watch over the hillside speckled by sheep, wary as ever of hound and hawk, because even though the lion may once have lain with the lamb, as Mother always says, it now devours them as prey—yesterday, I witnessed three lioness bring down a gazelle and tear its flesh shrive from the bone—it is little wonder to me why Holy Father loved my offering more than his, but not Mother—she who loves Cain more than me, loves Cain more than Father, loves Cain in fact more than Holy Father—she strokes his hair and hums as she eats his lavash and lentils and ignores the cheese and yogurt I bring to our table—sometimes in the heat of early morn I smell her in the lambs’ wool as I milk them—last night I dreamt I took a wee one by its hind feet, him kicking and jerking and bleating against the sweat of my naked arms and chest, and I held him up to the heavens and sank my teeth into his throat, the first man ever to taste blood, instead of the flesh of berry and herb and grain—I tore his muscle loose from bone and my jaw ached from the chewing, and when I woke, I ached still and so slaughtered a firstling and rendered its fat and brought it unto the Lord who smiled and said it was good and if it were good enough for Him then why not for me as well?
I herd my sheep toward his field and my strange brother, tall and gangly and talking to himself, cries unto me, Your sheep are eating the crops and they are drinking the needed water, and I say, Shut up, shut up, shut up, you goddamn bleating baby, and I shove him hard and he falls to all fours and I jump on his back and oh it feel good to spit the khat from my mouth and drive my teeth into his neck.
Cain, 19, Farmer
With the wind in my teeth I howl the first poetry of the world and call each unnamed and new experience the thing it shall be called and I bring forth from the very earth the fruit of my labor conjured so by song—and so it is and so it is good—and I break the earth that God hath made and I plant the seed that God hath gave unto me and I adore the sun and I adore the rain and I adore the wind and cry: You, you shall be called chick-pea and you shall be fava and you, barley, and this the scythe and that the harvest and I will continue so, even as God shuns my offering and even as my brother turns on me and shoves me into the earth where I spin and smash his head, over and over, until he lies in the dirt and there he dies and I call it murder.
Standing in the sun, the flint-blade still red in my hand, my own blood runs down my neck and soaks my tunic and my brother’s blood seeps into the mouth of mother earth and my dark skin begins to throb and brighten and glow an ungodly white and I hear His voice again, There is thy mark upon thee, Cain, sayeth the Lord, for all to know thee by thy deed.
God, Eternal Witness
Somewhere Just East of Eden,
Once Upon a Time
Abel, 17, Shepherd
How easy it must be to sit beside a fig tree and let the wind turn the soil and the rain bury your seed and the sun pull your wheat and bean from the field, while here I hold a lonely vigil, watch over the hillside speckled by sheep, wary as ever of hound and hawk, because even though the lion may once have lain with the lamb, as Mother always says, it now devours them as prey—yesterday, I witnessed three lioness bring down a gazelle and tear its flesh shrive from the bone—it is little wonder to me why Holy Father loved my offering more than his, but not Mother—she who loves Cain more than me, loves Cain more than Father, loves Cain in fact more than Holy Father—she strokes his hair and hums as she eats his lavash and lentils and ignores the cheese and yogurt I bring to our table—sometimes in the heat of early morn I smell her in the lambs’ wool as I milk them—last night I dreamt I took a wee one by its hind feet, him kicking and jerking and bleating against the sweat of my naked arms and chest, and I held him up to the heavens and sank my teeth into his throat, the first man ever to taste blood, instead of the flesh of berry and herb and grain—I tore his muscle loose from bone and my jaw ached from the chewing, and when I woke, I ached still and so slaughtered a firstling and rendered its fat and brought it unto the Lord who smiled and said it was good and if it were good enough for Him then why not for me as well?
I herd my sheep toward his field and my strange brother, tall and gangly and talking to himself, cries unto me, Your sheep are eating the crops and they are drinking the needed water, and I say, Shut up, shut up, shut up, you goddamn bleating baby, and I shove him hard and he falls to all fours and I jump on his back and oh it feel good to spit the khat from my mouth and drive my teeth into his neck.
Cain, 19, Farmer
With the wind in my teeth I howl the first poetry of the world and call each unnamed and new experience the thing it shall be called and I bring forth from the very earth the fruit of my labor conjured so by song—and so it is and so it is good—and I break the earth that God hath made and I plant the seed that God hath gave unto me and I adore the sun and I adore the rain and I adore the wind and cry: You, you shall be called chick-pea and you shall be fava and you, barley, and this the scythe and that the harvest and I will continue so, even as God shuns my offering and even as my brother turns on me and shoves me into the earth where I spin and smash his head, over and over, until he lies in the dirt and there he dies and I call it murder.
Standing in the sun, the flint-blade still red in my hand, my own blood runs down my neck and soaks my tunic and my brother’s blood seeps into the mouth of mother earth and my dark skin begins to throb and brighten and glow an ungodly white and I hear His voice again, There is thy mark upon thee, Cain, sayeth the Lord, for all to know thee by thy deed.
God, Eternal Witness