Jake La Botz writes with a bruised, musical lyricism, capturing revelations that arrive not through grand redemption but through small, fleeting graces. His stories linger in the aftermath of failure, curious about what it means to find beauty, dignity, and purpose amid addiction, poverty, and social abandonment in Chicago’s forgotten neighborhoods. La Botz does not romanticize poverty or misfortune; instead, he demands on showcasing his characters’ humanity.
Tag: short stories
A review of We Had it Coming and other fictions by Luke O’Neil
There’s a strong sense of place throughout the collection, but with the shading of resigned desperation, almost as keen as describing a memory while it is still being formed. O’Neil often points to the small tortures of acknowledging the sharpness of reality alongside and our shared passivity: “Being lied to isn’t so bad sometimes compared to being aware of how things actually are. You wouldn’t want to go around like that for very long. No one wants to know all the secrets.”
A review of The Victoria Principle by Michael Farrell
By keeping close to home, the pieces in this collection challenge notions of what is and isn’t real, undermining notions of memoir, which is a construct no matter how it’s labelled. It makes for consistently entertaining, and often challenging reading that encourages uncertainty. This shift between memoir, fiction and poetry feels seamless, challenging the reader to re-examine notions of identity, history art.
A review of Through the Trapdoor by Kavita Ivy Nandan
Through the Trapdoor is full of such vivid characterisation, engaging dialogue and enjoyable plotlines around overbearing ambitions, competitive siblings, domineering parents, and the difficulty of intermarriage, that its easy to miss how powerful the statements these pieces make, but there is a strong political current that runs through the work, engaging, subtly of course as is Nandan’s way, with misogyny, binary thinking, colonialism and racism.
A review of Bodock by Robert Busby
The threads creating the tapestry are often thin, though. Rarely, if ever, will the same characters appear across multiple stories. There’s a joy to be found in wondering whether you’ve just met an unnamed character from a previous story, or if the same dinghy bar or stretch of road is being used as the setting. Despite the lack of crossovers, Busby still manages to make Bodock feel like a fleshed-out, lived-in town, with a community of believably-flawed people.
A review of 18 Shticks by Margarita Meklina
At forty-five pages, 18 Shticks isn’t a long collection, but it covers a lot of ground. Individually these are stories of ordinary lives made surreal through life’s twists, through close examination, and through a sense that just beneath the surface of any situation, there is another reality simmering.
A review of Exit Zero by Marie-Helene Bertino
This is no ordinary collection. The Bertino omnibus features a Guignol-esque cast of characters readers will readily recognize because, flights of abstruse and absurd fancy aside, they abide and strive, hungry ducklings all, within each of us.
A review of Men Behaving Badly and The Corona Verses by Tim O’Leary
With both Men Behaving Badly and The Corona Verses, both published by Rare Bird Books, Tim O’Leary proves himself a master of the short form, unafraid to wade into messy, uncomfortable terrain with equal parts irreverence and empathy. These aren’t just stories about individual characters—they’re honest reflections of a country in flux, where comedy and tragedy often sit side by side.
A review of The Three Devils by William Luvaas
What an amazing collection. The best advice I can give a potential reader: pour a cup of coffee or a glass of wine, or even better, both, sit in a dark room with only one light on to illuminate the pages, and sit in the most comfortable chair you have. Prepare to stay awhile. You won’t want to stop.
A review of Everything Must Go by Dan Flore III
In the flash fiction of Dan Flore the conflict could go either way, and often, to his readers’ benefit, it does. Everything Must Go does indeed entertains, and often his protagonist’s pain is his reader’s pleasure. The poet and memoirist John Yamrus’s introduction gives readers a good perspective on Flore’s work.