Synopses & Reviews
No.8 in the limited edition Small Beer Press chapbook series is Richard Butner's
Horses Blow Up Dog City & Other Stories. Butner's forte is 21st-century man just a little lost, nothing major and his ongoing attempting to come to grips with life, love, and the ultimate enigma: woman.
There's an immediacy to Butner's eye for pop culture, architectural and emotionally-revealing details that places these stories in the apartment next to yours, the (good) local diner (not the crappy one), or maybe the bar around the corner.
Not everything's going to turn out right; not everyone's going to do well. But if you follow the path Butner's laid out before you, maybe you'll find the good bar, the good diner, know when to listen, know when to fold.
Review
"Butner's meticulous prose lays a cool surface over some twisty terrain. Understated and profound, deft and smooth, these stories sneak up on you and then don't let go. Boxes within boxes, wheels within wheels." Karen Joy Fowler, author of The Jane Austen Book Club
Review
"If you let Richard Butner's sideways fiction into your brain it will slice you to ribbons so quietly that you won't even know why you're laughing, or crying. Don't say I didn't warn you." John Kessel, author of Good News From Outer Space
Review
"In the work of writers who have truly burrowed in, often I've a sense of there being not many stories but one continuous, ongoing story, ever growing, ever increasing, turning this way and that in shifting light which is how I feel about Richard Butner's." James Sallis, Cypress Grove
Review
"Richard Butner writes gorgeous, heartfelt stories that are completely his own, each propelled by an inner logic that may or may not match consensus reality, each ringing utterly true. He is unafraid of tough questions and even tougher answers. His characters sweat, grieve, exult, and struggle for understanding, and even when they terrify, they never fail to touch me." Lewis Shiner, author of Say Goodbye
About the Author
Richard Butner has published stories in magazines including Scifiction, Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet, Say..., Scream, and RE Arts & Letters, as well as in anthologies such as Lewis Shiner's When the Music's Over, Kelly Link's Trampoline, and Intersections: The Sycamore Hill Anthology, which he co-edited with John Kessel and Mark L. Van Name. With John Kessel, he runs the Sycamore Hill Writers' Conference. He holds an M.S. in Computer Engineering (with an English minor) and a B.S. in Electrical Engineering, both from North Carolina State University. He lives in Raleigh, N.C., where he works as a freelance writer and computer consultant.
Table of Contents
horses blow up dog city 1
drifting 14
lo-fi 25
ash city stomp 37
the rules of gambling 49