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Rating: 
Summary: post-post-post-modern
Review: Bottoms goes for broke in this collection of genre-benders, both emotionally and structurally. Every piece is narrated from a different vantage point by a young writer named Greg Bottoms, who wrote a book called Angelhead, and he uses many different approaches, getting into character's heads, messing with time, changing point of view. If it didn't get so dreamy and speculative you could almost call this book nonfiction. But I get the sense that Bottoms--in both his books--is saying that it's all fiction and it's all true. You've never read anything like this (or Angelhead, which is maybe better). Raymond Carver meets William Vollmann. If you like Charles Baxter, Alaksander Hemon, Rick Moody, or D F Wallace, you'll find something here.
Rating:
Summary: Virtuosity!
Review: Here is a really excellent book. It's about...God, drugs, going nuts, making art, making sense of violence, killing yourself, mourning the dead...A few of these stories are deeply sad to the point that you sorta worry about the writer. But anyway, this guy's as close to a Faulkner as you are likely to find. I also suggest Brad Watson's "Last Days of the Dog Men"...and Breece Pancake, of course, who Bottoms has a "story" about.
Rating:
Summary: A remarkable accomplishment
Review: I thought it would be hard to top Angelhead, one of the finest pieces of nonfiction writing I have read, but Bottoms has done it with this collection of essays/stories, which, like Angelhead, continues to blur the lines between fiction and nonfiction. Bottoms is one of the best young writers publishing today, and these pieces have a remarkable, muscular power. Bottom's writing has the kind of emotional impact that sneaks up you and punches you in the gut. A wonderful, wonderful book, full of passion and fury.
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