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Herniated Roots
A tremor of desperation runs through Herniated Roots, the debut story collection from acclaimed short story writer Richard Thomas. Herniated Roots is filled with desperate characters that could be someone you know in these hard times: sexy pool hustlers, husband and wife teams, spurned lovers. In these stories you'll read about a payoff with counterfeit bills and things that may or may not be happening. Thomas' fiction will grab you hard and leave you wanting more.
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
Unzipped
Your Enemies Will Devour You
A Bird in the Hand
Released
Herniated Roots
Seeing Red
Gateway
Say Yes to Pleasure
Terrapin Station
Daybreak
Three Mistakes
Descent
The Jenny Store
Tinkering With the Moon
Kiss Off
Dyer
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
Unzipped
Your Enemies Will Devour You
A Bird in the Hand
Released
Herniated Roots
Seeing Red
Gateway
Say Yes to Pleasure
Terrapin Station
Daybreak
Three Mistakes
Descent
The Jenny Store
Tinkering With the Moon
Kiss Off
Dyer
- GenresShort StoriesCrimeHorror
107 pages, Kindle Edition
First published September 10, 2012
3 people are currently reading
79 people want to read
About the author
Richard Thomas
102 books709 followersRichard Thomas is the award-winning author of nine books: four novels—Incarnate (Podium), Disintegration and Breaker (Penguin Random House Alibi), and Transubstantiate (Otherworld Publications); four short story collections—Spontaneous Human Combustion (Turner Publishing—Bram Stoker finalist), Tribulations (Cemetery Dance), Staring Into the Abyss (Kraken Press), and Herniated Roots (Snubnose Press); as well as one novella of The Soul Standard (Dzanc Books). His over 175 stories in print include The Best Horror of the Year (Volume Eleven), Cemetery Dance (twice), Behold!: Oddities, Curiosities and Undefinable Wonders (Bram Stoker Award winner), The Hideous Book of Hidden Horrors (Shirley Jackson Award winner), Lightspeed, PANK, storySouth, Gargoyle, Weird Fiction Review, Midwestern Gothic, Shallow Creek, The Seven Deadliest, Gutted: Beautiful Horror Stories, Qualia Nous, Chiral Mad (numbers 2-4), PRISMS, Pantheon, and Shivers VI. He has won contests at ChiZine and One Buck Horror, has received five Pushcart Prize nominations, and has been long-listed for Best Horror of the Year seven times. He was also the editor of four anthologies: The New Black and Exigencies (Dark House Press), The Lineup: 20 Provocative Women Writers (Black Lawrence Press) and Burnt Tongues (Medallion Press) with Chuck Palahniuk. He has been nominated for the Bram Stoker (twice), Shirley Jackson, Thriller, and Audie awards. In his spare time he is a columnist at Lit Reactor. He was the Editor-in-Chief at Dark House Press and Gamut Magazine. His agent is Paula Munier at Talcott Notch. For more information visit www.whatdoesnotkillme.com.
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Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews
August 15, 2013
If I told you Richard Thomas is underrated, I'd get a whole lot of 'duh!'. He's been in the business for a while and has a name. Still, it's hard to grasp just how talented he is when his offerings are so fragmented. I loved HERNIATED ROOTS, read it compulsively, but it was so scattered, it bugged me a little. His delivery is so smooth, his universes so vivid, that starting over and over again gets a bit frustrating somewhat?
Thomas' prose is both gorgeous and seamless, which is the quality I respect the most. It's not all to pack a symbolic and evocative vocabulary in your fiction, if your sentences don't flow into one another, it they don't add up like an equation, it's not all it could be. Thomas' is a master at painting intimate things and therefore at making characters come alive. Surprising observation I made reading HERNIATED ROOTS it's often more convincing when he does it in first person point-of-view.
There is still time to jump in the bandwagon of one of the best brooding talents in the business. Read HERNIATED ROOTS, spread the gospel, look like a genius to everybody else.
Thomas' prose is both gorgeous and seamless, which is the quality I respect the most. It's not all to pack a symbolic and evocative vocabulary in your fiction, if your sentences don't flow into one another, it they don't add up like an equation, it's not all it could be. Thomas' is a master at painting intimate things and therefore at making characters come alive. Surprising observation I made reading HERNIATED ROOTS it's often more convincing when he does it in first person point-of-view.
There is still time to jump in the bandwagon of one of the best brooding talents in the business. Read HERNIATED ROOTS, spread the gospel, look like a genius to everybody else.
January 31, 2013
Herniated Roots. The first time I saw that I thought it was an odd title for the book. But the more I thought about it I realized what an awesome title it actually was. It evokes the image of twisted, gnarled and oddly jointed tree roots digging down into the deep dark earth. A simple title that brings to mind a clear, detailed image. It's a great way to describe the writing in this collection.
Thomas has a poetic writing voice that vividly captures the sights, sounds and feelings of the world he has created and that world is usually dangerous and dark.
This is a great collection to start reading Richard Thomas' work. I've been following his career for a couple years now and I anxiously look forward to the novels he has on the horizen.
Thomas has a poetic writing voice that vividly captures the sights, sounds and feelings of the world he has created and that world is usually dangerous and dark.
This is a great collection to start reading Richard Thomas' work. I've been following his career for a couple years now and I anxiously look forward to the novels he has on the horizen.
October 4, 2012
This is just beautiful, top to bottom. The way the emotion is handled completely gutted me. It mixes the painfully real with the emotion of the ethereal and leaves you wondering what you just experienced. Actually, it doesn’t leave you wondering. You don’t care what you’ve just experienced. It leaves you wanting to nestle down inside that feeling, close your eyes and just let it envelop you.
A full review is available on my website: http://nikkorpon.com/2012/10/01/a-rev...
A full review is available on my website: http://nikkorpon.com/2012/10/01/a-rev...
November 2, 2012
THIS REVIEW ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED AT MANARCHY MAGAZINE:
If Richard Thomas has never hit rock bottom, you wouldn’t know it by reading his short stories. His characters, marvelous in their misery, are all up shit creek some way or another, but they aren’t always interested in finding a paddle. They are sexy pool sharks in dirty city apartments. They are suburban dads with road rage. Whatever the world of each story, thanks to Thomas’ trademark attention to detail and animal honesty, the reader is thrust into it and kept there long enough to know its pain. In his first collection, Herniated Roots, Thomas isn’t afraid to put his underdogs in a corner, to let them fail and find agony, comfort, or some mix of the two in the loneliest part of the room.
The collection begins with “Unzipped,” a seemingly standard be-careful-what-you-wish-for tale. A guy dreams of the girl everybody wants, then finally gets her and things go to hell. In “Your Enemies Will Devour You,” another man falls hard for the wrong woman and the abortion she chooses sends him spiraling into booze, coke, and porn. But there is a sparkle here in these twists on the stories you think you already know, a kind of dark, nauseous magic in the pool hall stench of “urine and lavender,” in a pair of pink heart panties, a stack of dirty dishes, a tenderness, a hacksaw, and the perfect straddle of a lust/hate line.
Midway through the collection, you’ll find “Three Mistakes,” about a father who ends up homeless and begging for drinking money. Despite the fact that the events leading up to the man’s despair aren’t delivered with heft (or perhaps it’s patience) enough to warrant the total despair in which we find him, nonetheless, the story dazzles with Thomas’ trademark lyrical prose: “I carved out my own niche of depravity, and thought that I could keep it there. It’s never that clean.” And later, in the story’s most dark and beautiful moment, a kind young woman stops to drop a few dollars in the man’s hat, a man who hasn’t touched a woman in years. His response is heartbreaking in its simplicity: “I’d sell my soul just to shove her pretty foot in my mouth.”
Outshining everything is the inconspicuously placed “Tinkering with the Moon.” This time, Thomas goes for a change of pace and puts the troubled adults on the sideline, giving the voice in the story to Tyler, a seven-year-old boy stuck in the middle of two freshly divorced parents—a father, whose only presence is essentially in the form of money, and a self-important mother, who lets her son see more than his fair share of adult problems. Tyler copes by building with Tinkertoys. The story reads like an imagistic poem, weaving a magical trail throughout, and the metaphor is thoughtful and well-controlled. The mother, a bent woman who makes her mark, leaves her bent, lipstick-stained cigarette butts all over the place. The mother keeps buying more and more Tinkertoys, and Tyler builds his towers too high to hold steady, a subtle reminder of the ways in which she forces him to grow up too soon.
The bottom line is that Thomas knows short fiction, and his first collection doesn’t disappoint. For less than the price of a coffee, you can have sixteen solid stories that’ll bitch slap you into a darkhot world of the outskirts, eyelids sewn shut, bloody hay bales, the back streets, or even a suburban garage, where you can hitch a ride with a kid to the moon. What becomes of the broken hearted? Richard Thomas can show you.
If Richard Thomas has never hit rock bottom, you wouldn’t know it by reading his short stories. His characters, marvelous in their misery, are all up shit creek some way or another, but they aren’t always interested in finding a paddle. They are sexy pool sharks in dirty city apartments. They are suburban dads with road rage. Whatever the world of each story, thanks to Thomas’ trademark attention to detail and animal honesty, the reader is thrust into it and kept there long enough to know its pain. In his first collection, Herniated Roots, Thomas isn’t afraid to put his underdogs in a corner, to let them fail and find agony, comfort, or some mix of the two in the loneliest part of the room.
The collection begins with “Unzipped,” a seemingly standard be-careful-what-you-wish-for tale. A guy dreams of the girl everybody wants, then finally gets her and things go to hell. In “Your Enemies Will Devour You,” another man falls hard for the wrong woman and the abortion she chooses sends him spiraling into booze, coke, and porn. But there is a sparkle here in these twists on the stories you think you already know, a kind of dark, nauseous magic in the pool hall stench of “urine and lavender,” in a pair of pink heart panties, a stack of dirty dishes, a tenderness, a hacksaw, and the perfect straddle of a lust/hate line.
Midway through the collection, you’ll find “Three Mistakes,” about a father who ends up homeless and begging for drinking money. Despite the fact that the events leading up to the man’s despair aren’t delivered with heft (or perhaps it’s patience) enough to warrant the total despair in which we find him, nonetheless, the story dazzles with Thomas’ trademark lyrical prose: “I carved out my own niche of depravity, and thought that I could keep it there. It’s never that clean.” And later, in the story’s most dark and beautiful moment, a kind young woman stops to drop a few dollars in the man’s hat, a man who hasn’t touched a woman in years. His response is heartbreaking in its simplicity: “I’d sell my soul just to shove her pretty foot in my mouth.”
Outshining everything is the inconspicuously placed “Tinkering with the Moon.” This time, Thomas goes for a change of pace and puts the troubled adults on the sideline, giving the voice in the story to Tyler, a seven-year-old boy stuck in the middle of two freshly divorced parents—a father, whose only presence is essentially in the form of money, and a self-important mother, who lets her son see more than his fair share of adult problems. Tyler copes by building with Tinkertoys. The story reads like an imagistic poem, weaving a magical trail throughout, and the metaphor is thoughtful and well-controlled. The mother, a bent woman who makes her mark, leaves her bent, lipstick-stained cigarette butts all over the place. The mother keeps buying more and more Tinkertoys, and Tyler builds his towers too high to hold steady, a subtle reminder of the ways in which she forces him to grow up too soon.
The bottom line is that Thomas knows short fiction, and his first collection doesn’t disappoint. For less than the price of a coffee, you can have sixteen solid stories that’ll bitch slap you into a darkhot world of the outskirts, eyelids sewn shut, bloody hay bales, the back streets, or even a suburban garage, where you can hitch a ride with a kid to the moon. What becomes of the broken hearted? Richard Thomas can show you.
November 9, 2012
In Terrapin Station, the ninth short story in Richard Thomas' Herniated Roots, Jameson is sitting on his bench "carving away every part of the stick that does not look like a turtle." With this collection, Thomas has done the same thing, only with our lives.
Thomas deftly sculpts away everything that lacks cohesion with his vision, be it of the moment or the lifetime, and he leaves the reader with a beautifully terrifying glimpse at what could be, what might be, and, maybe, what is. The stories vary greatly in length, from the 26 pages of Terrapin Station to the three pages of Daybreak, and in texture, from the silvery thrust of betrayal in A Bird in the Hand to the leaden cloud of regret in Kiss Off, but what never varies is the impetus to keep reading. The need to find out what happens next. And the need to know if what you're looking at is really what you think it is.
Richard Thomas' web site
Herniated Roots - Barnes & Noble
Herniated Roots - Amazon
October 23, 2012
I've ever done a review for any book I read...ever.
BUT this book was a worthy exception. Herniated Roots is a collection of short stories that are mostly driven by characters suffering from the wrong choices, rough pasts and other ill fates. Each story in this book affects you in some way, while reading you can spot a piece of yourself from these stories. My favorite was the self titled, Herniated Roots. This one ripped out my heart and almost gave me a steady flow of tears, damn you Richard.
Now about this Richard Thomas. This guy can write. He has this cheeky way of using language I wish I had. His descriptive diction really fleshes out the story that I haven't seen many authors produce. His story conclusions usually give you a kick in the nuts. Really wish there was a paperback version of this.
If you're interested in anymore of Richard's work he's got a wicked short story in the Warmed and Bound anthology and his debut novel Transubstantiate.
BUT this book was a worthy exception. Herniated Roots is a collection of short stories that are mostly driven by characters suffering from the wrong choices, rough pasts and other ill fates. Each story in this book affects you in some way, while reading you can spot a piece of yourself from these stories. My favorite was the self titled, Herniated Roots. This one ripped out my heart and almost gave me a steady flow of tears, damn you Richard.
Now about this Richard Thomas. This guy can write. He has this cheeky way of using language I wish I had. His descriptive diction really fleshes out the story that I haven't seen many authors produce. His story conclusions usually give you a kick in the nuts. Really wish there was a paperback version of this.
If you're interested in anymore of Richard's work he's got a wicked short story in the Warmed and Bound anthology and his debut novel Transubstantiate.
February 15, 2013
This is a collection of broken people. They aren't necessarily good people, some are anything but. Most of them have brought tragedy upon themselves, but they are very human, part of a generation that thought they were special, only to find out they were only as special as everyone else.
Richard Thomas writes broken characters very well. He is unflinching and yet nonjudgmental of his creations. They aren't fantastical creatures, nor horrible monsters. Chances are you will recognize at least a couple of them from your own life.
This is a great collection of neo-noir transgressive short fiction. The stories are short and sweet, but the characters stick with you in all their dirty, bruised glory.
Richard Thomas writes broken characters very well. He is unflinching and yet nonjudgmental of his creations. They aren't fantastical creatures, nor horrible monsters. Chances are you will recognize at least a couple of them from your own life.
This is a great collection of neo-noir transgressive short fiction. The stories are short and sweet, but the characters stick with you in all their dirty, bruised glory.
January 11, 2013
I have a confession for the few people close to me who do not know this already- I’m not a very big fan of short fiction. When Michael Chabon criticized the current state of the form I agreed with his contentions. The titular collection by leading velveteer Richard Thomas is one of the few volumes of short fiction I greedily read while I was working out or hiding in the garage from baby sister. The title and concluding stories stand out the most in my mind. This review is brief, but a positive short review from me is something which rarely happens. Kudos to Mr. Thomas. Pick this collection up for your e-reader now.
November 19, 2012
How else can this reviewer sum up Herniated Roots without calling the work pragmatic? The words run deep and hit you in the left side of the brain. The words stick on your brain, a fist imprint that would show up on an MRI scan. The prose in Herniated Roots is lean unforgiving. Every story in this book stands on its own feet, ready to blow your expectations out of the water as you progress. No character is safe in this writer's novels. Put on your seat belt, because this book is a hell of a ride.
February 26, 2013
I'm not sure what to say about this little story collection. It came recommended and I was seduced by the $1.99 price for Amazon Kindle. I didn't like all the stories, but a few are excellent. He should stay away from science fiction based on the two that are included. The noirish style of leaving spaces for the reader to fill in, doesn't necessarily crossover to sci-fi. These are really short stories, and have all appeared in zines or anthologies. He's got some cred, so I'll be on the lookout for other things. I'd like to sample his horror.
October 4, 2012
From the first page, it is obvious that you are reading the work of someone that has a love and respect for the written word. Richard Thomas has gift that shines through this whole collection. In a genre that is plagued by stories that rely on shock factors and twist endings, Richard Thomas emerges with a unique voice. If you want to read work with some substance, you will find it in Herniated Roots.
September 19, 2012
Richard Thomas is truly a master of the short story. In a few thousand words he tells stories that grip you by your insides and follow you around for weeks after you are done with them. This collection is no disappointment. Thomas's short stories cut deeper than most novels and leave you feeling heavy and satisfied.
October 11, 2012
A stunning collection of shorts from Richard Thomas; each story a good hard slug to the stomach.
Why Richard is not yet an internationally famous writer remains a mystery to me. These are just *that* good.
Why Richard is not yet an internationally famous writer remains a mystery to me. These are just *that* good.
July 5, 2014
It gets said all the time, but Richard Thomas is easily one of the most underated writers in the game. This is a great collection and I regret letting it sit on my Kindle for as long as I did. I think 'Kiss Off' was my favorite.
July 2, 2017
The prose somehow telegraphs the entire scene
without any effort. As you read these stories, all of your senses are
involved. You can taste and smell the things that Thomas describes. There are 16 (count them) stories in this collection and they are all
worth reading. In fact, there are some that are just terrific including
Unzipped, Herniated Roots, Terrapin Station, Three Mistakes, and Dyer.
There are few anthologies that, as soon as I finish, I have an urge to
reread to catch anything I missed. I am ready to read this book again
to enjoy all the details that i missed the first time through. The style is
noirish but it feels more dreamy and ethereal rather than gritty and
dirty and harsh. Even though that's the case, the stories are populated
with sexy pool hall hustlers, cheating spouses, deadbeat dads, repo
men, and hell hath no fury like more than one scorned woman. Does
the phrase make your life a living hell come to mind in some stories.
Wow. These stories are in a class by themselves. I recommend this
selection very highly and intend to read anything else I can find by this
writer.
without any effort. As you read these stories, all of your senses are
involved. You can taste and smell the things that Thomas describes. There are 16 (count them) stories in this collection and they are all
worth reading. In fact, there are some that are just terrific including
Unzipped, Herniated Roots, Terrapin Station, Three Mistakes, and Dyer.
There are few anthologies that, as soon as I finish, I have an urge to
reread to catch anything I missed. I am ready to read this book again
to enjoy all the details that i missed the first time through. The style is
noirish but it feels more dreamy and ethereal rather than gritty and
dirty and harsh. Even though that's the case, the stories are populated
with sexy pool hall hustlers, cheating spouses, deadbeat dads, repo
men, and hell hath no fury like more than one scorned woman. Does
the phrase make your life a living hell come to mind in some stories.
Wow. These stories are in a class by themselves. I recommend this
selection very highly and intend to read anything else I can find by this
writer.
July 4, 2017
Different
The book was ok, a little different. Some of the stories were really out there. It's not much fun for me when I read a book or story and after I'm done with it, I wonder what the hell that was all about.
The book was ok, a little different. Some of the stories were really out there. It's not much fun for me when I read a book or story and after I'm done with it, I wonder what the hell that was all about.
May 30, 2016
These intense stories tunnel into the world of damaged characters in the process of tapping out. The damage is mostly self-inflicted or about to become so and although the language stays close to the characters the narration is not trapped in their heads, instead we see what they see and the descriptions reflect the inner turmoil. Powerful character-centered writing. These are not stories where showing character change is the aim, so the endings are mostly closed, which pushes back against the trend in short fiction to end with ambiguity.
December 19, 2016
Great short story collection by a dark, compelling voice.
Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews