Murmuration

by Ryan Werner

A Midwestern story cycle. Desperate, self-contained, and home.

"The five stories in Ryan Werner's Murmuration, which are dedicated to the Midwest, bring me into the heart of a world where boys drive cars off cliffs and have least favorite strippers, where dreams must be revised into "necessary shapes" by playing guitar in the street at night. Ryan writes with authority, skill, and passion, not only about the Midwest, but about youth and what it means to be young." - Mary Miller author of Big World and Less Shiny

19 pages, Chapbook

First published June 3, 2013

About the author

Always a busboy, never a bride.

Reviews

[Samuel Snoek-Brown]

I don't know if this is a zeitgeist thing or just a Ryan Werner thing, but I have yet to read any other writer who makes disenchanted ennui feel so charming and so essential, at least not today. Imagine a young John Cheever in the midst of a long Midwestern winter. Werner has been doing this kind of work for a while now, at least since he came into his own with his Our Band Could Be Your Lit project and his debut collection, Shake Away These Constant Days. But Murmurationdisplays that distinctive perspective in its full maturity, and brief as this little chapbook is, it's hard not to see in it a weightier work: evidence of a writer we'll be reading decades from now. I will be, anyway.

[David]

There's something about the prose style in these stories that makes me think of a girl's name carved into a kid's arm with the blade of a pocketknife. I'm not sure if that makes sense, but if you're going to rely on my impression instead of reading for yourself, that's the best I can do. There's just something about the calm, somewhat disaffected, tone that I get from the narrators that just makes the moments of emotion that are revealed all that more shattering, surprising, and bare. But again, you're not going to understand what I'm talking about from me talking. You're just need to read the stories to see what I mean.

[Ryan Werner]

I wrote this book, so I'm going to give it five stars because I'm a scumbag.

[Eirik Gumeny]

Read this, God damn it.

[Joseph Michael Owens]

Yeah Werner!! (...and more thoughts to come!)

[Michael]

"Printed in the United States of America, dude."

This brief collection was the first from Passenger Side--a Midwest gem that has only just started down the long windy road. It successfully elevates the everyday boredom that pervades the minds so often found within the desolate, sparse, glacially vapid states to which these stories are dedicated.

I'd recommend it to most people, especially those interested in obituaries, cheap trick mix tapes from 80's babies, or a strong writer on the up and up.

****

[T.C.]

I liked Ryan before reading his book. He published a couple other writers I like, and enclosed hand-written notes with my order. We have similar tastes in music, and both play guitar (he legitimately, me a poser). Then I spent a few weeks with his book, which could be read in an hour or so; but why do that, why not toke at it, stretch it out, make it linger. He writes like I want to write, and like I want to read. Is there a genre for male fiction? Literature with a rock star vibe, morally detestable, spiritually longing, funny, authentic. A good book to have around, an artist to follow.

[Natalie]

I've actually read twice now, but...
Rating and review soon.

[Wendy]

Ryan Werner knocks me out. Murmuration is a one-two punch--it's beautifully written and it's interesting.