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Cardinal Numbers
Cardinal Numbers is a posthumous collection of brilliantly enigmatic short fiction by Hob Broun, written with the aid of a respirator when the author was paralyzed from the neck down. Witty and full of minimalist surprise, these stories flirt with fragment, fabulism, and collage. In “Rosella, in Stages,” an old woman’s experience is movingly charted through the voice of her writing in six different life stages—and in six pages, no less. “Highspeed Linear Main Street,” a standout tale and an artistic credo of sorts, centers on a photographer’s fixation on highway life, while the surreal “Finding Florida” features a Che Guevara who becomes struck with longing for a librarian and receives some unwelcome news from a fortune teller.
Powerfully felt as well as mordantly funny, Cardinal Numbers is a freshly singular contribution to the American short story.
Powerfully felt as well as mordantly funny, Cardinal Numbers is a freshly singular contribution to the American short story.
- GenresShort StoriesFiction
150 pages, Hardcover
First published April 12, 1988
4 people are currently reading
120 people want to read
About the author
Hob Broun
4 books6 followersHob Broun (born Heywood Orren Broun; 1950 in Manhattan, New York, U.S. - December 16, 1987, Portland, Oregon, U.S.) was an author who lived in Portland, Oregon. Following the publication of his first novel, Odditorium, Broun required a spinal surgery to remove a tumor that ultimately saved his life but resulted in his paralysis. Subsequently, he wrote two books by blowing air through a tube that activated the specially outfitted keyboard of a computer. Using this technology, he completed a second novel, Inner Tube, and wrote the short stories contained in a posthumously published collection entitled Cardinal Numbers. He was working on a third novel when he died of asphyxiation after his respirator broke down in his home. He was thirty-seven years old.
Broun was born in Manhattan and graduated from the Dalton School. He attended Reed College in Portland. He was the son of Heywood Hale Broun, the writer and broadcaster, and the grandson of Heywood Broun, the newspaper columnist.
Broun was born in Manhattan and graduated from the Dalton School. He attended Reed College in Portland. He was the son of Heywood Hale Broun, the writer and broadcaster, and the grandson of Heywood Broun, the newspaper columnist.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
August 27, 2013
"Blue blood ebbs," he said, "and red blood rushes in." from "Eastern Sky"
And then everything was why say anything at all, what difference did any of it ever make, anyway. A girl wrote in her diary. A girl went a long way from home for another girl to return to sighs and duty in front of her uncertain place. I could see her ask again what does it all mean. They say. If only to have done this. A young man looks at her with a place for her in his eyes. The story ended as it begun, in the nothing place a stranger could put you in. It was such a small story, the kind of delicate of a nothing life. I had that feeling about Hob Broun that he was saying something in the glass sidewalk that doesn't bore this young woman all the way in New York City. The leftover look as they walk away kind of saying.
Do you read short story collections and before you know if you know them or not they disappear from underneath you? You're on air. I don't want to call it empty. It's a I don't know if I want to continue feeling. If it were a dream there wouldn't be the tell tale strangled signs on your skin.
A man is left to fill in dialogue for muted films all on his own. He is the kind of guy to make up the rules for whatever already has a shape. A so they say kind of shape. I've never read those kind of magazine periodicals he writes. I'm picturing a breed of women's advice columns and reader's digest headlines. A face could hang like a moon without a planet, looking to him for the prescribed truth. I felt for the hopeful bastard who wanted Riley's articles to be real. What I liked best about these stories is the breeding underneath his skin of Riley becoming one of his own believers. He sits on the sidewalk and rereads one of his own, a personal favorite. That was pretty perfect. His girlfriend said he never had the imagination to ask for anything. He's just got this kind of tell me the answer hopefulness. This might be my favorite story in the collection now that I'm thinking about it for the review.
I think I like Cardinal Numbers better now, weeks later, than I did when I was reading it. Maybe they have to grow on me, not have to have anywhere else to go.
The first story Ice Water was a slow swallow, a burn of a routine. If you go through the comforting motions to see you until the way you die story. Watch a woman in the window. If you could set your clock to someone else slow watching of his days and book store and where does everyone go by while he's drinking his water.
If you look up Hob Broun on the internets you will find a lot written about his spinal surgery and paralysis. Broun wrote Cardinal Numbers in a sip and puff method on his respirator. It is hard not to think about that when reading his stories if you know it. I guess I was looking for a if I don't write/this is all I have urgency firing these up in brain noodle soup. Maybe like if you read or watch Dennis Potter's The Singing Detective and the thread holding all of the organs in place has to be spun only like this. It shows up in dying last breath invisible ink. I felt I could become him. Check to see if my hands still hold. Maybe I would have to write with a pen taped to my claw hands like Potter needed to do. What the hell was this? It was an out of body projection if you didn't identify with the people. You become the concrete and all of that surrounding spiritual sand filling up hourglasses and windows. I'm not sure how much I even LIKED these stories but it was a curious feeling of an urgency I'm not used to. Maybe it is because you don't get to be there to answer the why bother questions. (Brilliant, Mars. Short stories are SHORT!)
Maybe my favorite was Ruby Dawn, Private Duty Nurse.
She asked for clarity in her heart.
She goes to work, she turns back to the day. The voices say you are the only one who... Ruby turns back to the private patients, the asylum patients, the wardens of a girl's school academy. She goes from one. I could nod to sleep in her day off at the movies on the trolley, buying magazines. If I saw her, maybe if I were one of her girl students, I'd wonder where she was going. Funny, it seems she's doing the same, only its her.
Do you feel the bereftness in your tummy, the starting to crawl up your throat words swallow down, as if you don't know why bother? I feel like that if I had to say all in all about all of it. Short stories are such a pain in the tush to review. I love the possible look all around you in the handshakes. I don't want to be stuck in that cycling posture of not knowing where to go, holding my magazine for the answers. What more should a book do? I ask too much, probably.
I didn't mention some of the stories that I had found kind of annoying. Maybe I'll find I like them later. Two girls holding each other in the shower, on the way to a mall job. Their aloof look of why not lovers. The I gotta get drunk for some lovin' cowboy farmhands in the dark. If I could be a lizard on that wall I probably got a cactus thorn in my throat and died of thirst. Maybe the guy from Ice Water will loan me some of his. Maybe my inner voice will speak in another's primal wordless thought as I feel the cold vibrations of theirs too cold world. Where you have to do it because you're helpless not to.
And then everything was why say anything at all, what difference did any of it ever make, anyway. A girl wrote in her diary. A girl went a long way from home for another girl to return to sighs and duty in front of her uncertain place. I could see her ask again what does it all mean. They say. If only to have done this. A young man looks at her with a place for her in his eyes. The story ended as it begun, in the nothing place a stranger could put you in. It was such a small story, the kind of delicate of a nothing life. I had that feeling about Hob Broun that he was saying something in the glass sidewalk that doesn't bore this young woman all the way in New York City. The leftover look as they walk away kind of saying.
Do you read short story collections and before you know if you know them or not they disappear from underneath you? You're on air. I don't want to call it empty. It's a I don't know if I want to continue feeling. If it were a dream there wouldn't be the tell tale strangled signs on your skin.
A mirror is the oldest thing in the room, its silvering eaten away at two corners. Under the bed, in a chronology of blue, yellow, white, are hardened knobs of kleenex. The clock face glows in the dark.- from "Cycling Posture"
A man is left to fill in dialogue for muted films all on his own. He is the kind of guy to make up the rules for whatever already has a shape. A so they say kind of shape. I've never read those kind of magazine periodicals he writes. I'm picturing a breed of women's advice columns and reader's digest headlines. A face could hang like a moon without a planet, looking to him for the prescribed truth. I felt for the hopeful bastard who wanted Riley's articles to be real. What I liked best about these stories is the breeding underneath his skin of Riley becoming one of his own believers. He sits on the sidewalk and rereads one of his own, a personal favorite. That was pretty perfect. His girlfriend said he never had the imagination to ask for anything. He's just got this kind of tell me the answer hopefulness. This might be my favorite story in the collection now that I'm thinking about it for the review.
I think I like Cardinal Numbers better now, weeks later, than I did when I was reading it. Maybe they have to grow on me, not have to have anywhere else to go.
The first story Ice Water was a slow swallow, a burn of a routine. If you go through the comforting motions to see you until the way you die story. Watch a woman in the window. If you could set your clock to someone else slow watching of his days and book store and where does everyone go by while he's drinking his water.
If you look up Hob Broun on the internets you will find a lot written about his spinal surgery and paralysis. Broun wrote Cardinal Numbers in a sip and puff method on his respirator. It is hard not to think about that when reading his stories if you know it. I guess I was looking for a if I don't write/this is all I have urgency firing these up in brain noodle soup. Maybe like if you read or watch Dennis Potter's The Singing Detective and the thread holding all of the organs in place has to be spun only like this. It shows up in dying last breath invisible ink. I felt I could become him. Check to see if my hands still hold. Maybe I would have to write with a pen taped to my claw hands like Potter needed to do. What the hell was this? It was an out of body projection if you didn't identify with the people. You become the concrete and all of that surrounding spiritual sand filling up hourglasses and windows. I'm not sure how much I even LIKED these stories but it was a curious feeling of an urgency I'm not used to. Maybe it is because you don't get to be there to answer the why bother questions. (Brilliant, Mars. Short stories are SHORT!)
Maybe my favorite was Ruby Dawn, Private Duty Nurse.
She asked for clarity in her heart.
She goes to work, she turns back to the day. The voices say you are the only one who... Ruby turns back to the private patients, the asylum patients, the wardens of a girl's school academy. She goes from one. I could nod to sleep in her day off at the movies on the trolley, buying magazines. If I saw her, maybe if I were one of her girl students, I'd wonder where she was going. Funny, it seems she's doing the same, only its her.
The nights got longer. Loyalties went untested. Life was cheap.
Do you feel the bereftness in your tummy, the starting to crawl up your throat words swallow down, as if you don't know why bother? I feel like that if I had to say all in all about all of it. Short stories are such a pain in the tush to review. I love the possible look all around you in the handshakes. I don't want to be stuck in that cycling posture of not knowing where to go, holding my magazine for the answers. What more should a book do? I ask too much, probably.
I didn't mention some of the stories that I had found kind of annoying. Maybe I'll find I like them later. Two girls holding each other in the shower, on the way to a mall job. Their aloof look of why not lovers. The I gotta get drunk for some lovin' cowboy farmhands in the dark. If I could be a lizard on that wall I probably got a cactus thorn in my throat and died of thirst. Maybe the guy from Ice Water will loan me some of his. Maybe my inner voice will speak in another's primal wordless thought as I feel the cold vibrations of theirs too cold world. Where you have to do it because you're helpless not to.
September 14, 2015
one of the authors I've been reading about on the excellent blog Writers No one Reads. Some of them I probably won't bother to track down, Hungarian poets for example, but there are many short story writers who sound great, or interesting. The blog seems endless too, so many more to come I expect.
This bloke looks special, and was edited by Gordon Lish. He had a spinal tumour and.. oh I'll just quote:
underwent emergency surgery to remove [it]. He lived, but was left paralysed from the neck down. As he said to his agent at the time, the surgeons had “snipped every God-damn wire.” From now on, Broun’s very breath was brought about by a respirator. His deep depression during this period is perhaps easy to appreciate. What is remarkable, however, is the way in which he overcame it—willing himself, against all odds, to go on writing.
Broun finished Inner Tube, and wrote the stories collected in Cardinal Numbers (Knopf, 1988) by means of a mechanical prosthesis: an oral catheter (known as a “sip-and-puff device”) connected to a Franklin Ace 2000 computer, running a customised word processer triggered by Broun’s breath whenever a letter flashed on the screen.
Well quite a book. Beautiful writing, sharp observation, full of ellipsis, both from passage to passage ('Blood Aspens' is a found manuscript with pages missing, indicated, and in 'Rosella, by Stages' the parts start at [6] and then jump to [19], followed by [32] and so on), and in the writing itself:
in all hands on deck for their day not his to wake up on stage, costume faces and white glove pressing - Anita and a black fan three Wolvens Ed and Norma TC who bought the meatmarket Ethel and Sid the fat Garside kids *
so as a reader you have to work hard to fill in the blanks, and I found myself re-reading and re-reading some to get at the meaning, or to create a flow in my head. It did get easier and was rewarding. The writing is full of little gems:
ice lumps turn in the slow porridge of the river
foam crackled like burnt candy at the edges of the beach
It's funny, rude, bitter, strange (and also ordinary, in the sense it's full of observations of the ordinary, houses, trees, roads, faces). Recommended if you like a challenge.
* this is supposed to have gaps in! e.g. there's a gap between Wolvens and Ed and Norma and then a gap between Norma and TC etc. I don't know why Goodreads has pushed them together - entirely negates my point! I could do three dots I suppose but that's not how it is in the book. Grrr.
This bloke looks special, and was edited by Gordon Lish. He had a spinal tumour and.. oh I'll just quote:
underwent emergency surgery to remove [it]. He lived, but was left paralysed from the neck down. As he said to his agent at the time, the surgeons had “snipped every God-damn wire.” From now on, Broun’s very breath was brought about by a respirator. His deep depression during this period is perhaps easy to appreciate. What is remarkable, however, is the way in which he overcame it—willing himself, against all odds, to go on writing.
Broun finished Inner Tube, and wrote the stories collected in Cardinal Numbers (Knopf, 1988) by means of a mechanical prosthesis: an oral catheter (known as a “sip-and-puff device”) connected to a Franklin Ace 2000 computer, running a customised word processer triggered by Broun’s breath whenever a letter flashed on the screen.
Well quite a book. Beautiful writing, sharp observation, full of ellipsis, both from passage to passage ('Blood Aspens' is a found manuscript with pages missing, indicated, and in 'Rosella, by Stages' the parts start at [6] and then jump to [19], followed by [32] and so on), and in the writing itself:
in all hands on deck for their day not his to wake up on stage, costume faces and white glove pressing - Anita and a black fan three Wolvens Ed and Norma TC who bought the meatmarket Ethel and Sid the fat Garside kids *
so as a reader you have to work hard to fill in the blanks, and I found myself re-reading and re-reading some to get at the meaning, or to create a flow in my head. It did get easier and was rewarding. The writing is full of little gems:
ice lumps turn in the slow porridge of the river
foam crackled like burnt candy at the edges of the beach
It's funny, rude, bitter, strange (and also ordinary, in the sense it's full of observations of the ordinary, houses, trees, roads, faces). Recommended if you like a challenge.
* this is supposed to have gaps in! e.g. there's a gap between Wolvens and Ed and Norma and then a gap between Norma and TC etc. I don't know why Goodreads has pushed them together - entirely negates my point! I could do three dots I suppose but that's not how it is in the book. Grrr.
December 13, 2016
What a weird book. At times, the odd syntax and nutty flow reminded me of the best of Sam Lipsyte's weirdo prose. At other times it recalled the bleak Midwestern tableau of William H. Gass. You can feel Gordon Lish on the page, paring things back, pruning. But when the stories failed to land, they failed hard. I found myself struggling to grind through a few of them.
I'd recommend jumping around and reading what grabs you, skipping what doesn't.
And the truth is that this should probably be a 5-star book when you consider that the author wrote the whole thing by blowing through a tube. Incredible and heartbreaking.
I'd recommend jumping around and reading what grabs you, skipping what doesn't.
And the truth is that this should probably be a 5-star book when you consider that the author wrote the whole thing by blowing through a tube. Incredible and heartbreaking.
February 25, 2013
Cardinal Numbers is Broun's best book, for my money: tightly compressed, but bursting with energy. An almost forgotten author, who merits more attention. My profile of Broun is here.
Read
May 24, 2024Highly pressurized stories - some are bone-deep character studies, some have words and images whooshing by like the view from the passenger seat on a long and sunny drive. You get some diamonds, and some coal, but hold it in your hands and you're feeling something.
July 11, 2025
I really wanted to enjoy this book, and at first, the short stories and the way they are written really drew me in. However, progressing through it brought along with it a few head-scratches and head-tilts. We do get good glimpses into the characters' lives sometimes, but other times I was left wondering what exactly I was meant to feel or infer. I'm one to look up every word I don't know (or can't accurately define, for that matter), but it was the spaces between the words and sentences that left me the most curious, and at times feeling inept. Hob Broun was a good writer, and some of these pieces did inspire me, but I can't help but feel a disconnect between the writer's intentions and the written word, or at the very least, a disconnect between himself and me. A couple of stories in here are worth studying for the average creative writer, but results may vary.
April 14, 2019
"Is This Civilization?" is one of the best short stories you'll ever read. The rest of the fictions collected here can't match it.
September 17, 2025
reread in editorial capacity (to bring back into print): https://5cense.com/25/1238.html
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews