Full Description
Matthew Kirkpatrick's debut, Light without Heat, is an inventive, surprising collection of short stories full of odd, marginal characters rendered with surreal humor and lyrical, often beautiful language. Formally playful, these stories take the shape of biographies, instructions, glossaries, and diagrams, all ultimately in the service of depicting characters with emotional intensity. Stories in the collection explore the flawed nature of memory, workplace malaise, the isolation of home, and the last throes of ending love. No two stories in Light without Heat are the same, yet all of them work toward sharing human experience in new, innovative ways.
Contents
Different Distances 1 Instructions 13 Light Without 15 Pennsylvania 39 The Saddening 41 Crystal Castles 47 Pineal Gland 61 Throw Him in the Water 63 Nevada 77 The Celebrations 79 The Most Amazing Attic 93 The AuralSec Story, A Corporate History, Chapter 7: Our Dependable Grampy 97 Animal Attacks 113 Glossary 115 The Board Game Monopoly 123 The Sodding 141 Pastoral 143 Iceland 151 Some Kirkpatricks 153 Acknowledgments 177
