Parallel Rivers

by Michael Kenyon

Parallel Rivers is a collection of stories that were coaxed into existence from Michael Kenyon’s interest in seeing what fiction might learn from film, particularly the German, French, Italian, and Japanese cinema of the 70s.

The collection has two sections that run stylistically parallel to each other. The first section consists of short, often surreal or uncomfortable fictions; the second contains longer stories of larger, more realistic worlds. In the shorter fictions, each story creates its own world order, and presents hyper-utilizations of point of view, time shifts, and disconnected physical detail. In the longer pieces considerably more tradition and familiarity are used.

These fictions exist as dreams exist, yet within this framework truth is revealed and the full play of language exercised.

267 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 2014

Reviews

[Heather · Rating 4 out of 5]

These stories read like a fever dream bordering on a nightmare. Melancholic, cynical, cruel, claustrophobic, pragmatic in terrifying ways, the characters and their lives, though separate, seem to grow out from the same dark origin like a creeping mould. Between the stories' edges are beautiful sentences that would make standalone poetry.

A caveat: there is very little joy in these stories. They are mostly of hopeless people suffocating under the weight of their own wrong choices. Some of the suffering is beautiful; some is just suffering.