Synopses & Reviews
Howard (
In the Colorless Round) upends some traditional literary conventions in these 14 tales of startling description and beauty. Her settings are bucolic, such as an abandoned farm house, a hilltop mansion and the ruins of a cider mill, each depicted in romantic language (in a lavender twilight).
In the first story, "Light Carried on Air Moves Less", a waiflike beauty stumbles upon an erotic book and apes the illustrations, all the while being watched by a curious specter. In "Captive Girl for Cobbled Horsemen", the author plays on the 19th-century captive narrative, while "Seascape" tinkers with the maritime ghost story by featuring a widow who gradually comes to love the captain depicted in a painting.
Many of the stories simply showcase lush, serene description, such as "The Scent of Apples", in which a recluse tends to his apple orchard, spied on adoringly by his orphan ward. The last story, "The Tartan Detective", features all the necessary accoutrements of detective fiction (even the listening mechanism concealed in a potted fern ).
In her debut short story collection, Joanna Howard bends the expectations and cliches of mainstream mystery and paranormal writing to bring new surprises and intelligence to the genre. Rebecca Brown says, "These words are dreams or visions, fantasies, letters of things that are not quite love, buffooneries and comedies, scenarios from horror films you are afraid you'll one day see."
Review
"Howard's sensuous prose is to be savored for its own sake." Publishers Weekly
Review
"Like a fever dream, every sense is heightened in these stories. Every smell is fermented, every sight is lush, every taste is pungent, every sound reverberates. The stories are sodden with detail, saturated with color and have a lacquered brilliance mirroring the luxuriant abundance of 17th century Dutch Golden Age painting." John Madera, The Brooklyn Rail (read the entire )
Synopsis
In her debut short story collection, Joanna Howard bends the expectations and cliches of mainstream mystery and paranormal writing to bring new surprises and intelligence to the genre. Rebecca Brown says, "These words are dreams or visions, fantasies, letters of things that are not quite love, buffooneries and comedies, scenarios from horror films you are afraid you'll one day see."
Howard joins Kelly Link and Shelley Jackson in redefining genre writing for a new audience.
Synopsis
A debut story collection that twists the clichés of mainstream mystery writing, bringing new surprises and intelligence.
About the Author
Joanna Howard holds a PhD in creative writing from the University of Denver and an MFA from Bowling Green State University. She teaches fiction writing at Brown University.