Synopses & Reviews
Fiction. Poetry. Introduction by Susan McCabe. DIES: A SENTENCE by Vanessa Place is a 117-page, one-sentence novel about the coils of language and war, unspooled in the dying breath of a pre- and post-scient World War I soldier. John Witte of the Northwest Review calls DIES, "a marvel of sustained synergy," author Jim Krusoe describes the book as "dizzyingly complex, compound, and full of miraculous side trips as well," and novelist Doug Nufer heralds DIES as a "delightful tour de force of a hopelessly grim predicament." Place obliterates the line between victim and perpetrator, subject and object, rendering this human truth: in the death sentence of life, there is still beauty. "Roll over, dear Whitman," says Susan McCabe in her Introduction, "Here's our new original."
Review
Vanessa Place a sky-writer, a kind of Beryl Markham aviator of wordsshe loops the loop, stalls and re-starts, dips her wingsthen lands on a dime, delivers the mail, her sentence up in the air, drifting continuum. Carol Muske-Dukes
Review
If (and I like to believe it is) a single sentence is a unit of thought, then this present thought of Vanessa Place is dizzyingly complex, compound, and full of miraculous side trips as well not so dissimilar to the world that contains it. Jim Krusoe, author of Iceland
Synopsis
Book 1/1 of the TrenchArt Material Series by Les Figues Press
In Dies: A Sentence, Place withholds the period for 117 pages and one long night as its legless narrator recounts the war journey that has lead him to his final point of final truth, next to an armless man making stew. Places single sentence unmoors time and space, subject and object, victim and perpetrator, in a voice sanctifying everything and elegizing nothing. As poet and scholar Susan McCabe says in her introduction, Roll over, dear Whitman. Heres our new original.
About the Author
Vanessa Place is the author of DIES: A SENTENCE (Les Figues Press), and a chapbook, "Figure from The Gates of Paradise" (Woodland Editions). Other work has appeared in Northwest Review, Contemporary Literary Criticism, and Five Fingers Review.