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Original Essays | October 17, 2009

Jessica Maxwell: IMG God's Tea Party



My Catholic friend tilted her teacup like a fortune-teller. "You know," she said, "I think people who don't have God in their lives are like people... Continue »
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Beautiful Blemish

by Kevin Sampsell

Beautiful Blemish Cover

Synopses & Reviews

Publisher Comments:

Kevin Sampsell likes secrets. In the short story collection Beautiful Blemish, Sampsell dives deep into the human psyche to reveal the layers of secret desire, loneliness and hope buried in our hearts. The stories in Beautiful Blemish display an American voice that mixes humor, experimentation and unflinching pathos to full effect.

Review:

"Sampsell, editor of The Insomniac Reader and publisher of fringe fiction at 'micro-press' Future Tense Books, concocts a diverse, convincing world of romantic perversion governed by impulses at turns whimsical, hilarious and cryptic in a slim collection of very short stories ranging from one to 11 pages. In the title story, an elderly couple engages in bizarre sexual congress involving Magic Markers and extreme dirty talk, only to end their romp on a note of piquant tenderness. In 'Gloves,' a man collects lost gloves from the street and vainly looks for ways to give them away. In 'The Plant,' a man casually mourns his 'inept nurturing' of the plant in his care and his own frustrated self. Sampsell's prose ranges from taut to indifferent, bearing occasional whiffs of Charles Bukowski and Richard Brautigan, as well as Chris Ware and Dan Clowes, and his stories are full of horniness and wonder, morbid speculation and strange coincidence. For readers with tastes that range outside the mainstream, this is a gem of warmhearted idiosyncrasy and oddball observation." Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

Review:

"Kevin Sampsell should never be allowed near children. Or electrical outlets. Or water. I'm frightened and thrilled to see what he'll do next." Zoe Trope, author of Please Don't Kill the Freshman

Review:

"Let Kevin Sampsell in for one page and he has permanently won you over with writing that is charmed, painful, hilarious and beautiful. His ability to find magic, humor, and heartbreak where anyone of less talent would see only vacant landscapes leaves you reconsidering every place you've ever been." Dan Kennedy, author of Loser Goes First: My Thirty-Something Years of DumbLuck and Minor Humiliation

Review:

"Quirky, perverse tales of romance and alienation. Fun, winning, and passionate." Tin House magazine

About the Author

Kevin Sampsell is the publisher of the influential micro-press, Future Tense Books, in Portland, Oregon. His work has been published widely in magazines and on the internet. He is also the editor of The Insomniac Reader: Stories of the Night (Manic D Press) and the author of many small books such as A Common Pornography, Etiquette for Evil, and The Patricia Letters.

What Our Readers Are Saying

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Average customer rating based on 1 comment:
gingertwinkle, July 30, 2009 (view all comments by gingertwinkle)
Kevin is brilliant. Kevin is brilliant and reading his work is like watching someone get the $_!_ kicked out of them on a big-screen TV in HD -- you can see every pockmark and hair follicle and drip of saliva with such incredible clarity that it almost feels surreal. "Beautiful Blemish" is visceral and addictive; sometimes profound, sometimes as honestly shallow as life has the tendency to be, and mostly both at once. It's the type of book you read, re-read, loan to friends, and read again when you get it back.
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Product Details

ISBN:
9780972820080
Author:
Sampsell, Kevin
Publisher:
Word Riot Press
Subject:
General
Publication Date:
February 2005
Binding:
Paperback
Language:
English
Pages:
96
Dimensions:
824x530x29 26

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