Everything Flows by James Greer (1-Oct-2013) Paperback

by James Greer

Coming September 2013, Everything Flows is the first collection of short fiction by novelist and screenwriter James Greer. Pre-order at eighteen stories range from short and surreal to long and surreal, but all share a consistency of to fracture traditional narrative tropes and reassemble the shards into coherent, if occasionally undulant and meandering forms ( the title). Greer mixes anachronistic pseudo-history and unserious/serious digressions into pop culture, pop physics, pop philosophy and pop music ( the title), to arrive at something both universal in scope and intensely personal, twisting language(s) into sometimes-strange shapes to devise new ways of looking at familiar things.Everything Flows also features the art of Guided by Voices front man Robert Pollard. Besides being known as one of today's most prolific song-writers, Mr. Pollard's irrespressible creativity has been an inspiration to many. His stunning color collages make a fantastic compliment to Mr. Greer's writing."James Greer writes within the grand tradition of American postmodern, pessimistic, philosophic geniuses. Like William Gass or Guy Davenport, he unites sly humor, erudition, and a certain classical cast of mind, as aware of Heraclitus as he is of Teenage Fanclub. These stories are remarkable. They’re also a total freaking blast." -- Mathew Specktor, author, American Dream Machine, senior editor, Los Angeles Review of Books"Dazzling, swirling, ridiculous and disconcerting. James Greer doesn't follow paths, he's a thing of the air." --Ben Loory, author of Stories for Nighttime and Some for the Day

Paperback

First published December 2, 2012

About the author

James Greer is a novelist, screenwriter, musician and critic. He was born in Portland, ME on April 23 1971. As a screenwriter, he's written UNSANE (directed by Steven Soderbergh, starring Clare Foy and Juno Temple) and many other films and TV series. As a novelist, he's written BAD EMINENCE, THE FAILURE, and ARTIFICIAL LIGHT. He's also written books about R.E.M. and Guided By Voices (a band for which he played bass guitar in the mid-90s), the short fiction collection EVERYTHING FLOWS, and was Senior Editor of SPIN Magazine in its early 90s heyday. He lives in Los Angeles.

Reviews

[Art Edwards · Rating 4 out of 5]

I can't claim to understand everything that happened in this collection of 18 short fiction pieces, but Greer's talent for voice and aphorism kept me engaged most of the time. There are a few sublime moments here, especially in the first story, but poignant lines and scenes and twisted tension are peppered throughout. Referencing REM albums doesn't hurt either.

[Brooke · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lovely phrases, by sound or meaning and sometimes by both. Don't quit if you don't like the first story; the style changes even if the overall theme does not. At the end if at least three pieces, I re-read the beginnings to see if the narrators were who I'd thought they were -- which is a good thing.

I wish I could have read this book as part of a course so I was guaranteed to have others to discuss with me. I'll be reading again.

Insofar as no art has to be created for everyone else to understand, this is a five.

[Victor Giron · Rating 5 out of 5]

Word.

[Samuel Moss · Rating 4 out of 5]

Unusually enjoyable for how experimental these stories are. Greer's knowledge base is very large. The piece includes passages in French and German and references a huge array of sort of scientific and esoteric information. In spite of this he still somehow manages to make the stories interesting and engrossing. Most of the stories are stand alone, other share characters or other bits. It is hard to tell how (if at all) the connected stories 'connect' and gives these more of a dreamy feel than that of a cohesive whole. Most importantly Greers prose is magnificent. He writes unlike any other writer I know and still manages to make his sentences subtle in a way. There is a lot to potentially unpack here and many pieces have a great musicality to them as well.