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In Matt Bell's epic, mythical debut novel, In the House upon the Dirt between the Lake and the Woods (Soho), newlyweds escape the busy confusion of their homeland for a distant and almost uninhabited lakeshore. They plan to live there simply, to fish the lake, to trap the nearby woods, and to build a house upon the dirt between, where they can raise a family. But as their every pregnancy fails, the child-obsessed husband begins to rage at this new world.
In his debut collection How They Were Found, Matt Bell draws from a wide range of genres to create stories that are both formally innovative and imaginatively rich. In one, a 19th-century minister follows ghostly instructions to build a mechanical messiah. In another, a tyrannical army commander watches his apocalyptic command slip away as the memories of his men begin to fade and fail. Elsewhere, murders are indexed, new worlds are mapped, fairy tales are fractured and retold and then fractured again. Throughout these thirteen stories, Bell's careful prose burrows at the foundations of his characters' lives until they topple over, then painstakingly pores over the wreckage for what rubbled humanity might yet remain to be found.
Contains the story "Dredge," selected for Best American Mystery Stories 2010.
Synopsis:
Matt Bell's often non-realist, always genre-bending stories combine sci-fi, mystery, and horror into innovative literary fiction.
Synopsis:
From a mechanical messiah to an apocalyptic army commander, and from the historical myth of the Collyer brothers to the fairy tale of Red Riding Hood, Matt Bell's obsessive stories unearth what horrors and hopes lie buried beneath our daily lives. Includes "The Collectors", which sold out of a limited edition chapbook.
Synopsis:
“Reminiscent of Friedrich Dürrenmatts The Winter War in Tibet in its calm examination and unsettling embodiment of mental and physical extremes, How They Were Found is a dreamers chronicle of the loss and partial recovery of a world given over to the wrecking ball. Fierce, unflinching, funny, How They Were Found is just the book we need right now, Matt Bell just the writer.” —Laird Hunt, author of Ray of the Star
“How They Were Found offers a world with shifting rules, described with a lovely and deceptive simplicity. This guide shows you thirteen different types of wilderness, and you can spend all day exploring before you realize you are lost.” —Amelia Gray, author of Museum of the Weird
“Youre a robot if the stories in Matt Bells debut collection dont exhilarate, frighten, and unalterably change you. His wild manipulation of form and genre makes the bulk of contemporary fiction feels bloodless and inert in comparison, but it is Bells recurring arrival at something sturdy and true about human behavior that makes the stories in How They Were Found so rewarding and resonant.” —Matthew Derby, author of Super Flat Times: Stories
In this debut collection, Matt Bell draws from a wide range of genres to create stories that are both formally innovative and imaginatively rich. In one, a 19th-century minister follows ghostly instructions to build a mechanical messiah. In another, a tyrannical army commander watches his apocalyptic command slip away as the memories of his men begin to fade and fail. Elsewhere, murders are indexed, new worlds are mapped, fairy tales are fractured and retold and then fractured again.
Throughout these thirteen stories, Bell's careful prose burrows at the foundations of his characters' lives until they topple over, then painstakingly pores over the wreckage for what rubbled humanity might yet remain to be found.
Contains the story "Dredge," selected for Best American Mystery Stories 2010.
Matt Bell's fiction has been anthologized in Best American Mystery Stories and Best American Fantasy. He is also the editor of The Collagist, series editor of Best of the Web, and a senior editor at Dzanc Books.
"Synopsis"
by Perseus,
Matt Bell's often non-realist, always genre-bending stories combine sci-fi, mystery, and horror into innovative literary fiction.
"Synopsis"
by Perseus,
From a mechanical messiah to an apocalyptic army commander, and from the historical myth of the Collyer brothers to the fairy tale of Red Riding Hood, Matt Bell's obsessive stories unearth what horrors and hopes lie buried beneath our daily lives. Includes "The Collectors", which sold out of a limited edition chapbook.
"Synopsis"
by Firebrand,
“Reminiscent of Friedrich Dürrenmatts The Winter War in Tibet in its calm examination and unsettling embodiment of mental and physical extremes, How They Were Found is a dreamers chronicle of the loss and partial recovery of a world given over to the wrecking ball. Fierce, unflinching, funny, How They Were Found is just the book we need right now, Matt Bell just the writer.” —Laird Hunt, author of Ray of the Star
“How They Were Found offers a world with shifting rules, described with a lovely and deceptive simplicity. This guide shows you thirteen different types of wilderness, and you can spend all day exploring before you realize you are lost.” —Amelia Gray, author of Museum of the Weird
“Youre a robot if the stories in Matt Bells debut collection dont exhilarate, frighten, and unalterably change you. His wild manipulation of form and genre makes the bulk of contemporary fiction feels bloodless and inert in comparison, but it is Bells recurring arrival at something sturdy and true about human behavior that makes the stories in How They Were Found so rewarding and resonant.” —Matthew Derby, author of Super Flat Times: Stories
In this debut collection, Matt Bell draws from a wide range of genres to create stories that are both formally innovative and imaginatively rich. In one, a 19th-century minister follows ghostly instructions to build a mechanical messiah. In another, a tyrannical army commander watches his apocalyptic command slip away as the memories of his men begin to fade and fail. Elsewhere, murders are indexed, new worlds are mapped, fairy tales are fractured and retold and then fractured again.
Throughout these thirteen stories, Bell's careful prose burrows at the foundations of his characters' lives until they topple over, then painstakingly pores over the wreckage for what rubbled humanity might yet remain to be found.
Contains the story "Dredge," selected for Best American Mystery Stories 2010.
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