Synopses & Reviews
Fiction. Inertia is a force, a powerful force, but it's not the only one. Courtney and Martin know all the words to all the songs on the mix tape of their lives. They have the cynical in-jokes down, the snide asides, the nonchalant pose. But beneath the practiced façade of self-satisfying ennui, these kids are staring down their futures, struggling in soured relationships with lovers and families, and finding out just what it takes to break out, if it's even possible. HERE IS HOW IT HAPPENS.
"Spencer Dew writes like a quiet maniac who sees the violence under the fa‡ade of everyday things, and the beauty under the violence. With X-ray vision and fine-tuned prose, Dew discovers insights and absurdities in the Americana of box stores, elite colleges, poetry students, buffet restaurants, historic plaques, alternative radio, conspiracy theorists, installation artists, and lug-headed drug experimentalists. HERE IS HOW IT HAPPENS explores the place where the heartland meets the rust belt meets the precarious bubble of academia, and finds redemption in the purity of longing and the shit coffee of an Amish country diner."—Karen Lillis
Review
"Dew captures the 'violent ambivalence' of young people fearing their future, doubting their potential, and, as Martin describes, stylizing their “still-developing artifice”. His prose is simultaneously urgent and hesitant as his characters are desperate for connection but also terrified of what looms ahead.” -Publishers Weekly
Review
"The romantic dysfunction that fills this book is as stomach-turning as it is riveting. Only Spencer Dew could unfold a story of the slurred mess that is college life with such precision.” -Jac Jemc, author of My Only Wife
Review
"Dew perfectly captures the desperation of his characters to stay true to their ideal selves even as they realize that they’re all doomed to become echoes of their parents.” — Marc Schuster, Small Press Reviews.
Synopsis
Fiction. Inertia is a force, a powerful force, but it's not the only one. Courtney and Martin know all the words to all the songs on the mix tape of their lives. They have the cynical in-jokes down, the snide asides, the nonchalant pose. But beneath the practiced facade of self-satisfying ennui, these kids are staring down their futures, struggling in soured relationships with lovers and families, and finding out just what it takes to break out, if it's even possible. HERE IS HOW IT HAPPENS.
Video
http://youtu.be/bYUFamaBoiM
About the Author
Spencer Dew is the author of the short story collection SONGS OF INSURGENCY (Vagabond Press, 2008), the critical study Learning for Revolution: the Work of Kathy Acker (Hyperbole Books, 2011), the chapbook Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres (Another New Calligraphy, 2010), and the novel HERE IS HOW IT HAPPENS (Ampersand Books, 2013). Dew is staff book reviewer for decomP magazinE and a regular reviewer for Rain Taxi Review of Books.