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Vampire Conditions
Ten stories. Three cycles. Fists and possums and gunfighters and penises and hookers and short buses and dead babies and fireworks.
The stories in this collection originally appeared in: HOBART, FICTION INTERNATIONAL, KITTY SNACKS, TEXAS OBSERVER, NEW BORDER and THE PURITAN.
The stories in this collection originally appeared in: HOBART, FICTION INTERNATIONAL, KITTY SNACKS, TEXAS OBSERVER, NEW BORDER and THE PURITAN.
115 pages, Paperback
First published September 1, 2012
7 people are currently reading
581 people want to read
About the author
Brian Allen Carr
13 books280 followersBrian Allen Carr is an Aspen Words Finalist and two time Wonderland Book Award winner.
His books include OPIOID, INDIANA, MOTHERFUCKING SHARKS and several others.
He is from Texas and lives in Indiana.
His books include OPIOID, INDIANA, MOTHERFUCKING SHARKS and several others.
He is from Texas and lives in Indiana.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 30 reviews
February 3, 2020
An interesting selection of stories that will stick with you!
Vampire Conditions by Brian Allen Carr is a collection of short and strange stories. A good variety and some will stick with you!
Vampire Conditions by Brian Allen Carr is a collection of short and strange stories. A good variety and some will stick with you!
May 18, 2014
Reading this collection of stories in mostly a single sitting is the best worst plan. Akin to meeting the author in a border town bar, accepting his proffered tankard-sized tequila shots and then cajoled into a knife fight with Pancho Villa. Things are going to be very fucking far from OK. And that's OK.
Don't be fooled by the Freytag's Pyramid Carr sports as his author profile photo - he uses that triangle as a sharp instrument to pierce the construct of short fiction and then create something vile and beautiful from those shards. He can write something that will make you laugh out loud, but by the time the noise leaves your throat it might be a sob:
I didn't get mad at my mom when she told me I was adopted on my twelfth birthday. Mainly because she had already told me on my eleventh birthday. And on my tenth birthday. And on my ninth. On my eighth birthday, though, that time was different. That time I cried and cried.
And a warning: this collection comes with a money magnet. Buy it, read it, and it will force you to purchase everything else Brian Allen Carr has written. And that's OK.
October 7, 2012
Read this with the lights on because you probably can't read in the dark.
December 31, 2012
THIS REVIEW WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED AT THE NERVOUS BREAKDOWN.
In order for a collection of short stories to work, the reader must be pulled into the narratives and settings as quickly and thoroughly as possible. In Vampire Conditions, a slim volume of grotesque stories by Brian Allen Carr, the immersion and compassion is palpable from each opening sentence. We are past the tipping point, along for the ride, and the destinations are always unexpected. These are cautionary tales bound with bruised human flesh, taut and cracking from the tension.
Carr’s stories are mostly rural, and he takes full advantage both of wide expanses of land and of emotion to show us how things unfold when nobody is looking. Take these opening lines from the first story, “The Paint From Her Hands”:
“When the baby came dead they held her for a few hours on the kitchen floor with their legs tangled in the purged amniotic fluid, and Tabitha cried with her head thrown back against the refrigerator door, but Barrow didn’t say a thing. He even breathed quiet, drawing the burnt-almond scented air through his nose, his thoughts as puzzled as dust floating in light. They had been to the flea market the week before and had seen a woman with a stand where she made dolls in the likeness of real babies for mementos, and they had smiled and laughed with her and had said they’d see her in a few weeks, and the doll maker held her hand against Tabitha’s belly…”
What a horrible moment, this tragedy, vividly unfolding in front of us. We get a sense of their unique world in his name—Barrow (not much of a stretch from barren, I think, or sorrow). And with the ominous doll maker, we feel a bit of the supernatural, the promise of seeing them again—and soon. It’s that twist, the dolls, that takes us in an unexpected direction. The reaction of parents (who are no longer parents) is filled with anger, desperation, and loss.
This hint of the unknown, this danger, is always there, right from the start, pulling us down the rabbit hole as we root for (or against) characters that struggle to find their way in the world. Again, a strong hook in “Lucy Standing Naked,” as we start the second story with a kiss:
“Lucy Colon kissed at strangers in the hall. She’d hold her face cold and still as winter concrete for the most part, but when she neared the strangers, got a step away, she’d turn her face toward them, pucker up, and suck a kiss through her lips. Most strangers wouldn’t even notice. Some would turn their heads unsure. Others might flinch at the sound, brushing their ears with their fingertips as though shooing away a fly. I only knew because she told me.”
We are let in on a secret, some kind of witchcraft perhaps, or maybe just the games kids play. Who knows? We have to read on to find out. But in that vulnerability, that risk taking, we ask her to do it again, to see what will happen, unsure whether the reaction will be positive or negative, but wanting to see something develop nonetheless.
Immersion. Compassion. And running through it all, dysfunction. Because we want to see things go wrong, we want to peer deep into the darkness, to witness the base desires of humanity, to gape at deviants as they try to fill the voids left behind by abuse, neglect and manipulation. Take this example from “A Brief OK”:
“The only real friend I had was this lady I paid for hand jobs at the library. She was hideous. Her skin was near the same color as the clump of dead baby that fell from my wife’s hiney, and I’m not sure how old she was, but I think she was going bald. I’d give her a twenty and she’d spank me off in the poetry section, we’d both be sitting on one of those weird canister things that you can stand on in the library to reach the top shelves, and I’d tell her about everything that was bothering me as she diddled me off—that funny flickering sound that hand jobs make. She didn’t ever really talk much, and when she did it sort of sounded like she was under water or afraid that if she opened her mouth too much her bottom teeth would fall out. She was always checking out books about “horseys,” and she always wanted to show me some of the pictures while she smiled. Yeah, come to think of it, she may have been a bit retarded.”
Where do you go from there? That’s all kinds of wrong, and yet, a part of us wants to laugh, while at the same time stone the man to death. But we also want to leave the poor slobs to their distorted salvation. Whatever the reaction, it’s hard to look away.
It is likewise in “Corrido,” a story about a teacher merely trying to do his best to save a few lost souls. When our protagonist opens the story by wiping the dirty butt of a handicapped boy, the shocking moment is disorienting, and the reader, unsure of what is happening, falls into the story of stunted emotions and mental limitations, worked over by Carr and left diminished, a bit of us dying inside.
It’s not a stretch to see glimpses of Denis Johnson, Ron Rash, and Daniel Woodrell in the writing of Brian Allen Carr. His settings are lush and yet bleak, his characters damaged but not beyond repair, his conclusions sad, but not without a ray of glimmering hope. In Vampire Conditions we are drained, and yet made eternal—forever altered, but still intact.
In order for a collection of short stories to work, the reader must be pulled into the narratives and settings as quickly and thoroughly as possible. In Vampire Conditions, a slim volume of grotesque stories by Brian Allen Carr, the immersion and compassion is palpable from each opening sentence. We are past the tipping point, along for the ride, and the destinations are always unexpected. These are cautionary tales bound with bruised human flesh, taut and cracking from the tension.
Carr’s stories are mostly rural, and he takes full advantage both of wide expanses of land and of emotion to show us how things unfold when nobody is looking. Take these opening lines from the first story, “The Paint From Her Hands”:
“When the baby came dead they held her for a few hours on the kitchen floor with their legs tangled in the purged amniotic fluid, and Tabitha cried with her head thrown back against the refrigerator door, but Barrow didn’t say a thing. He even breathed quiet, drawing the burnt-almond scented air through his nose, his thoughts as puzzled as dust floating in light. They had been to the flea market the week before and had seen a woman with a stand where she made dolls in the likeness of real babies for mementos, and they had smiled and laughed with her and had said they’d see her in a few weeks, and the doll maker held her hand against Tabitha’s belly…”
What a horrible moment, this tragedy, vividly unfolding in front of us. We get a sense of their unique world in his name—Barrow (not much of a stretch from barren, I think, or sorrow). And with the ominous doll maker, we feel a bit of the supernatural, the promise of seeing them again—and soon. It’s that twist, the dolls, that takes us in an unexpected direction. The reaction of parents (who are no longer parents) is filled with anger, desperation, and loss.
This hint of the unknown, this danger, is always there, right from the start, pulling us down the rabbit hole as we root for (or against) characters that struggle to find their way in the world. Again, a strong hook in “Lucy Standing Naked,” as we start the second story with a kiss:
“Lucy Colon kissed at strangers in the hall. She’d hold her face cold and still as winter concrete for the most part, but when she neared the strangers, got a step away, she’d turn her face toward them, pucker up, and suck a kiss through her lips. Most strangers wouldn’t even notice. Some would turn their heads unsure. Others might flinch at the sound, brushing their ears with their fingertips as though shooing away a fly. I only knew because she told me.”
We are let in on a secret, some kind of witchcraft perhaps, or maybe just the games kids play. Who knows? We have to read on to find out. But in that vulnerability, that risk taking, we ask her to do it again, to see what will happen, unsure whether the reaction will be positive or negative, but wanting to see something develop nonetheless.
Immersion. Compassion. And running through it all, dysfunction. Because we want to see things go wrong, we want to peer deep into the darkness, to witness the base desires of humanity, to gape at deviants as they try to fill the voids left behind by abuse, neglect and manipulation. Take this example from “A Brief OK”:
“The only real friend I had was this lady I paid for hand jobs at the library. She was hideous. Her skin was near the same color as the clump of dead baby that fell from my wife’s hiney, and I’m not sure how old she was, but I think she was going bald. I’d give her a twenty and she’d spank me off in the poetry section, we’d both be sitting on one of those weird canister things that you can stand on in the library to reach the top shelves, and I’d tell her about everything that was bothering me as she diddled me off—that funny flickering sound that hand jobs make. She didn’t ever really talk much, and when she did it sort of sounded like she was under water or afraid that if she opened her mouth too much her bottom teeth would fall out. She was always checking out books about “horseys,” and she always wanted to show me some of the pictures while she smiled. Yeah, come to think of it, she may have been a bit retarded.”
Where do you go from there? That’s all kinds of wrong, and yet, a part of us wants to laugh, while at the same time stone the man to death. But we also want to leave the poor slobs to their distorted salvation. Whatever the reaction, it’s hard to look away.
It is likewise in “Corrido,” a story about a teacher merely trying to do his best to save a few lost souls. When our protagonist opens the story by wiping the dirty butt of a handicapped boy, the shocking moment is disorienting, and the reader, unsure of what is happening, falls into the story of stunted emotions and mental limitations, worked over by Carr and left diminished, a bit of us dying inside.
It’s not a stretch to see glimpses of Denis Johnson, Ron Rash, and Daniel Woodrell in the writing of Brian Allen Carr. His settings are lush and yet bleak, his characters damaged but not beyond repair, his conclusions sad, but not without a ray of glimmering hope. In Vampire Conditions we are drained, and yet made eternal—forever altered, but still intact.
July 22, 2018
This is my least favorite Brian Allen Carr book. However, being written by BAC, Vampire Conditions is still an incredible read. Highly recommended!
But, if you don't dig Vampire Conditions, and this is your first Brain Allen Carr read, don't shrug him off. Check out Sip or another book before bailing. BAC is magical, majestical.
But, if you don't dig Vampire Conditions, and this is your first Brain Allen Carr read, don't shrug him off. Check out Sip or another book before bailing. BAC is magical, majestical.
June 14, 2015
I have found a new favorite author to add to my fangirl list. Carr's book of short stories is truly impressive and I am shocked to not have heard of him before his Last Horror Novel in the History of the World turned up as a recommendation as part of my Kindle Unlimited subscription. At that point, I had heard nothing really about Last Horror Novel... and I had very low expectations given some of my experiences with Kindle Unlimited (and Kindle First) books, but it sounded intriguing. I was blown away. Carr is clearly talented and has a unique and compelling voice. His remarkable sparse prose manages to communicate so much. In a way, Carr's writing reminds me of Cormac McCarthy, but somehow with the ability to dive more deeply into characters in an even more parsimonious manner.
This book of short stories is well-worth your time. While the title, especially combined with his Motherfucking Sharks and the Last Horror Novel... , could be misleading in the sense that one may be expecting a collection about vampires or related spookies, this is not a horror novel. There were supernatural elements here, but more in the sense of George Saunders-esque magical realism than anything meant to be creepy. This is "literary" fiction (ugh, genres) at its best.
Wonderful. Highly recommended.
This book of short stories is well-worth your time. While the title, especially combined with his Motherfucking Sharks and the Last Horror Novel... , could be misleading in the sense that one may be expecting a collection about vampires or related spookies, this is not a horror novel. There were supernatural elements here, but more in the sense of George Saunders-esque magical realism than anything meant to be creepy. This is "literary" fiction (ugh, genres) at its best.
Wonderful. Highly recommended.
September 15, 2012
We all leave trails leading back to what we might not want to remember, what we need to forget. Vampire Conditions is a record of some of those trails, the ones lived that will never leave you. Each sentence grips onto the one that follows, hoping to occupy your mind for more than the moment it took to read it.
These are stories you hold onto like an important lesson because, in a way, it's exactly what Carr is doing: He's teaching you how to see, and I mean really see.
These are stories you hold onto like an important lesson because, in a way, it's exactly what Carr is doing: He's teaching you how to see, and I mean really see.
November 4, 2012
One of the hardest things to do in fiction is make the reader forget that she's reading a story. "Lucy Standing Naked" had my scalp tingling with delicious anticipation as the narrative unfolded. I don't want to say more than that for fear of spoiling its multiple surprises. If you're old enough to remember after-school specials this is the one you've been waiting for. Short and far from sweet, this collection comes highly recommended.
January 7, 2014
This was so entertaining. The authors' strength is that he is a brilliant storyteller. I was enthralled from start to finish. "A Brief OK" was my favorite of all.
February 9, 2014
Brian Allen Carr came highly recommended to me from several authors and friends whose literary judgments I trust. They were right on the money!
Vampire Conditions is a very powerful short story collection. The author sets the tone with "The Paint From Her Hands", in which he depicts the state of mind of a man who suffers the loss of his baby. The strange, almost dream-like narrative was so mesmerizing, I never wanted it to end.
"The First Henley" and "Everything Will Fall its Way" are, in my opinion, the other stand-out pieces of the collection. The former is about the life of a popular gunslinger who lives through a terrible ordeal. The latter is, simply put, one of the most poignant pieces of fiction I have ever read.
Brian Allen Carr does a great job of portraying rural life and its sinister nature. He succeeds in making (most) his characters alive and likeable, genuine and undisguised.
Vampire Conditions is a very powerful short story collection. The author sets the tone with "The Paint From Her Hands", in which he depicts the state of mind of a man who suffers the loss of his baby. The strange, almost dream-like narrative was so mesmerizing, I never wanted it to end.
"The First Henley" and "Everything Will Fall its Way" are, in my opinion, the other stand-out pieces of the collection. The former is about the life of a popular gunslinger who lives through a terrible ordeal. The latter is, simply put, one of the most poignant pieces of fiction I have ever read.
Brian Allen Carr does a great job of portraying rural life and its sinister nature. He succeeds in making (most) his characters alive and likeable, genuine and undisguised.
September 25, 2012
this book is fucking fantastic.
i opened it up meaning to read a little of it, just for now, but read it all the way through. i kept putting the book down for a second in between stories and saying "god damn" to myself because the endings were absolutely perfect.
i'm really damn impressed with brian allen carr, but i should have expected this from holler presents. pure gold.
i opened it up meaning to read a little of it, just for now, but read it all the way through. i kept putting the book down for a second in between stories and saying "god damn" to myself because the endings were absolutely perfect.
i'm really damn impressed with brian allen carr, but i should have expected this from holler presents. pure gold.
September 2, 2012
There are some seriously fantastic stories coming out of Holler Presents. Brian Allen Carr has gift for the poignant and the strange. He writes from a variety of voices, but they all feel genuine in their own way. Highly recommended, and I'm very excited to see what comes out of Holler next.
June 26, 2013
I'm really thankful that these stories had nothing to do with vampires. From the title, I was concerned...and I'm sick of vampires. I loved these stories, though. Carr definitely has intensity, though he's also got a light touch when the story calls for it. I was never quite sure what was coming, but I found the stories moving, enigmatic, and interesting. I have to say, this is my second experience with Carr's work and I'm really digging it.
June 27, 2014
I don't always know (and I don't always care) what Brian Allen Carr is writing about, I just like being carried away by the force of his words. He has a unique voice that I ride like a huge wave, knowing it will come crashing down at some point, but still being okay with that, and if his writing wasn't enough, I always love his book covers.
August 8, 2018
I just... don't want to spend any time in Texas, ever.
August 22, 2020
Solid collection of stories, bleak and disturbing but also revealing of some tender and vulnerable aspect to the characters by the end of each story. I’m not sure why I keep reading this guy. Sometimes the characters are really appalling, the situations sordid and frequently disgusting but man oh man can he write and sometimes when he’s writing about a character who’s pretty horrible he can turn that character into someone just about likeable and I can feel this great compassion for a character that I had found pretty loathsome up until that point. That’s skill and artistry and it’s what keeps me reading even when sometimes I’m quite appalled. Each of the stories had a unique voice and yet all were undeniably Carr’s kind of characters which is an artistry of writing that I appreciate in a short story collection. I’m a sucker for a western which puts The First Henley as my favourite.
February 14, 2025
It's been a week between finishing Vampire Conditions and writing this review and I can't recall a story out of the collection. But I remember they were good. An Allen Carr story is like sitting down with an old aquaintance and just listening to him vent his spleen. I become mildly annoyed when real aquaintences retell old stories but I'll be glad to go back to this one in a year or two and relive the moments long faded from my memory.
October 22, 2017
Everything Holler Presents Press touches turns redneck shitty backwoods living into restless, well-paced highly-readable beauty. B.A. Carr is no exception, and indeed raises the bar. This collection excels, and leaves feeling like you grew up with some of these folks, because you probably did, and all you want is more.
October 25, 2017
Most book things now (with a few exceptions) are just built around nice, safe books written for nice and safe book club readers. These are usually the books you see on display at Barnes and Noble. These internet writers are, like, literally terrorists to me. They’re training as we speak. They’re getting ready to invade. They’re building an army.
(Scott Mcclanahan)
(Scott Mcclanahan)
July 26, 2021
There are several standout stories in this collection of stories about folks in tough spots trying to find something good to hand on to. My favorites are "Lucy Standing Naked" "Corrido" and "Everything will Fall Its Way". Just a heads up, the first story is probably the most experimental, so don't expect everything to follow to be like that one.
November 30, 2012
First Reads Review – Vampire Conditions by Brian Allen Carr
I believe when I found that I had won this book through the GoodReads First Reads program, I was a little apprehensive, a little concerned about what I may have signed up for, because at first glance this looks like a vampire book that takes place in a bathroom. Luckily I must have been better informed when I signed up for it, because when it arrived I found out that this is far from a surreal, supernatural experience and instead much closer to the sort of contemporary, literary short fiction that I have been missing lately. And so I can say that Vampire Conditions really has nothing to do with Vampires, and little enough to do with bathrooms, though those at least do appear from time to time in the short collection.
The title really does fit with the themes of the collection, though, with the feel of the setting, the conditions of the stories. The settings here are rather desolate, rather oppressive, straight from the American southwest, a sort of western feel, and nostalgia lurks in the pages, a sort of lens that gives the stories the feel of something remembered, told from the present but through the a bit of the fog of time. This fog leaves some of the stories in a rather strange place, but it is largely successful, and lends an almost hopeless quality to much of the stories.
Or, at least, it seems that these stories are about the characters trying to find some escape from their surrounds, trying to find some way to get away from the oppressive environs they come from, and largely failing. Some may try walking away, and some may try leaving it behind them, but there is the feeling that they never quite succeed in shedding the setting from them, that they never get out from the conditions that feed off them, that drain them. These are characters that might be remembering some past glory, or some small rebellion, some small success, but in many ways it is also about how those successes fade, how those hopes fail to actually break the cycle.
Which, of course, might just be my reading, but the world that these characters move through is not a pretty one, and as such the characters are affected by that, marked as much as if they had been bitten on the neck. And I like that. The stories are effective and full of odd characters, characters that could only really exist in the sort of moody and dirty world that Carr shows us. And with that, the collection still manages to maintain a certain humor, must really because the situations are so terrible. The humor is the defense, the way to soften the blows that continually rain down on the reader. It’s not wholesome fun, but there are some laughs to be had, and it’s interesting to see how the stories basically hold the readers’ hands as it walks us all into the same guilt that the characters bear, how it marks us as we read on.
And really the only complaint I had were very minor and probably had more to instances where I disagreed with some of the choices that the author made towards the endings of the stories. The story with the gun fighter, more than the others, tripped me a little at the end with the way it introduces doubt to the narrative by stepping back and showing it all in a different light. It’s a subtle thing, and perhaps wholly intentional, but I just didn’t like the way that it added a bit of confusion to close the story. But then, endings are tricky things, and I still liked the story, so there it is. So yes, I liked this collection, I liked it and recommend it with four stars out of five.
I believe when I found that I had won this book through the GoodReads First Reads program, I was a little apprehensive, a little concerned about what I may have signed up for, because at first glance this looks like a vampire book that takes place in a bathroom. Luckily I must have been better informed when I signed up for it, because when it arrived I found out that this is far from a surreal, supernatural experience and instead much closer to the sort of contemporary, literary short fiction that I have been missing lately. And so I can say that Vampire Conditions really has nothing to do with Vampires, and little enough to do with bathrooms, though those at least do appear from time to time in the short collection.
The title really does fit with the themes of the collection, though, with the feel of the setting, the conditions of the stories. The settings here are rather desolate, rather oppressive, straight from the American southwest, a sort of western feel, and nostalgia lurks in the pages, a sort of lens that gives the stories the feel of something remembered, told from the present but through the a bit of the fog of time. This fog leaves some of the stories in a rather strange place, but it is largely successful, and lends an almost hopeless quality to much of the stories.
Or, at least, it seems that these stories are about the characters trying to find some escape from their surrounds, trying to find some way to get away from the oppressive environs they come from, and largely failing. Some may try walking away, and some may try leaving it behind them, but there is the feeling that they never quite succeed in shedding the setting from them, that they never get out from the conditions that feed off them, that drain them. These are characters that might be remembering some past glory, or some small rebellion, some small success, but in many ways it is also about how those successes fade, how those hopes fail to actually break the cycle.
Which, of course, might just be my reading, but the world that these characters move through is not a pretty one, and as such the characters are affected by that, marked as much as if they had been bitten on the neck. And I like that. The stories are effective and full of odd characters, characters that could only really exist in the sort of moody and dirty world that Carr shows us. And with that, the collection still manages to maintain a certain humor, must really because the situations are so terrible. The humor is the defense, the way to soften the blows that continually rain down on the reader. It’s not wholesome fun, but there are some laughs to be had, and it’s interesting to see how the stories basically hold the readers’ hands as it walks us all into the same guilt that the characters bear, how it marks us as we read on.
And really the only complaint I had were very minor and probably had more to instances where I disagreed with some of the choices that the author made towards the endings of the stories. The story with the gun fighter, more than the others, tripped me a little at the end with the way it introduces doubt to the narrative by stepping back and showing it all in a different light. It’s a subtle thing, and perhaps wholly intentional, but I just didn’t like the way that it added a bit of confusion to close the story. But then, endings are tricky things, and I still liked the story, so there it is. So yes, I liked this collection, I liked it and recommend it with four stars out of five.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 26, 2013
Brian Allen Carr reads like the unholy child of Cormac McCarthy and Charles Bukowski. Darkly amusing, brutally honest, unflinchingly stark, the six stories in Vampire Conditions left me emotionally stunned. Carr explores brief moments of loss, hope and despair in the lives of people on the margins: a couple’s baby is stillborn and a flea market memento takes its place; a bullied Asian youth finds himself auditioning for George Strait’s brother Buddy; a Valley man follows his friend to Oklahoma, fleeing a divorce, only to have that buddy die on him; a special education teacher at a Valley high school forms a strange bond with the family of some of his students; a fingerless gunslinger earns the pity of a revenge-bent young woman; a fireworks salesman tries to connect with the young man who might be his son. Nearly everyone suffers from “vampire conditions” in these tales, that eternal and often deliberate leeching away of humanity, the sacrifice of parts of yourself that “follow you back in glistening trails you can trace toward the ghoulish deeds left done.” Highly cinematic, Vampire Conditions is definitely one for the Coen Brothers, whose own black humor and artful realism would find kissing cousins in the pages of Carr’s slim volume.
Read
January 18, 2013Comparing a writer to another writer is rarely accurate or fair, but as a means of communicating what the style is like to someone who might not otherwise know, well, here: the writing reminded me of the book's publisher, author Scott McClanahan, and maybe Donald Ray Pollock and maybe bits of a couple other people, and also like nobody else, but set in Texas near the border instead of West Virginia or Ohio.
Not that geography matters much with the stories. They are still stories and locale isn't what makes them, it's the writing that makes them. I lived in South Texas for a spell and have a deep affection for the area, so I was eager to soak up some stories from someone who is writing from there and a bit about there. I soaked them up. They made my insides twist a bit and I liked the twisting.
Not that geography matters much with the stories. They are still stories and locale isn't what makes them, it's the writing that makes them. I lived in South Texas for a spell and have a deep affection for the area, so I was eager to soak up some stories from someone who is writing from there and a bit about there. I soaked them up. They made my insides twist a bit and I liked the twisting.
April 29, 2013
Plowed through this story collection. Carr has such an original voice that it's easy to forgive the lack of cohesion. Not that I think every collection of short stories needs a theme, it's just without one, they tend to feel like literary journals. I guess you could consider this collection geographically linked together by Texas, which has such a strong presence that it works as an anchor point.
March 24, 2014
Other reviewers have noted that Carr's work is a kind of Southern (or Texan) gothic, and the comparison is apt, though there is also a great deal of humor in these stories and the kind of sly observation one finds in the stories of Daryl Scroggins. Carr's scenes and narrators are sharp, vibrant, individual. If mainstream American publishing cared more about quality than connections, this book would have been issued by a large press with a big budget.
April 19, 2013
My nephew gave me this book for my birthday. I thought it was going to be some youngsters thing but it ended up being some of the best stories I've ever read in my almost 70 years. There is so much magic in this book, and so much truth. I thought things like this disappeared a long time ago. This book left me feeling like there was still something worth sticking around for.
October 14, 2014
Grimy. Before I read ”Everything Will Fall Its Way” this collection didn't stand out, except for the idea of vampire conditions being a place that you never want to see exposed to light.
That story was very good.
That story was very good.
Read
November 9, 2020A world where there is the violence and desperation we know, but also one all its own.
Read
June 15, 2018There's a killer on the loose in the Valley and his name is Brian Allen Carr!!
January 5, 2015
Wild released in Saint-Petersburg.
Find out more at http://www.bookcrossing.com/journal/1...
Find out more at http://www.bookcrossing.com/journal/1...
Displaying 1 - 30 of 30 reviews