Everyone Was There
Indeed, we are all composites of contradictions, mysteries unto ourselves, forever zinging between obstacles like a pinball. This is why we tell stories, to convince ourselves that the world is not without reason.
57 Octaves Below Middle C
These stories could be read in an hour, but to understand them, the reader should stop after each one, for the express purpose of thinking. Or rather, dreaming, for they are rather like dreams, these curiously tilted, somewhat wacky, often startling small stories.
The Laws of Motion
I met the principal at a bar called the Eternal Cellar. I bet you can already picture how it looked: “dank” would be the best word to describe it. They kept the Jim Beam on the top rail. If you were foolish enough to put your hand on the bar, it stuck.
Fen
This is a collection about sexuality, belonging, the unexplainable compulsion and magnetism toward chosen lovers. It’s also about pleasure, agency, consent, and the marginalized female body.
The Killer’s Dog
A well-tended, predictable life, upended in seconds, seems altered forever.
Stephen Florida
…Habash trades in whales for altogether more mesmerizing imagery like cannibalistic octopi and an absolutely terrifying “frogman” right out of a Lynchian universe. These latter images contribute to a book that is a vivid, visceral experience, filled with all the sweat, blood, and excretions of a postadolescent dream state.
Island of Point Nemo
When they are not deciphering multilingual codes, interviewing suspects, competing with Inspector Scummington, and stumbling over corpses, they are surviving catastrophe aboard an “elegant cigar” shaped airship, braving rough passages in rowboats, steamships and schooners, and dodging bullets, tumbling animals, and an infamous killer known as the Noh Straddler as they ride the Trans-Siberian Railway.
The Night Runner
The girls mimicked his voice when he spoke, squeaking at him in high-pitched, nasal tones. They flicked things at him: not only chalk, but bits of spit-sodden paper, corn kernels, bobby pins, and flaky, greenish balls made of snot. Once, after he’d handed back a set of exercises, Roda Kudondo sauntered up to his desk and shoved her notebook in his face, mumbling in a slurred mishmash she intended as an imitation of his Texas drawl. The class exploded in laughter, and Aaron, not understanding, ordered her back to her seat.
Red Shoes for Rachel: Three Novellas
For Sarah, the past, present and future bond into a formidable wall of fear and dread. Her present physical security can’t dispel her inner exile.
Island Rule
My mother’s house was built into the side of the volcano, where it was green and too thick to take anything but the machete-cut paths. We were field-workers. That is, until the men in uniform came.