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Big Venerable
A darkly surreal yet absurdly funny short-fiction writer, Matt Rowan has been a Chicago local secret for years; but now this latest collection of pieces, all of which originally appeared in the pages of the CCLaP Weekender in 2014 and '15, is set to garner him the national recognition his stories deserve, a Millennial George Saunders who is one of the most popular authors in the city's notorious late-night literary performance community. Shocking? Thought-provoking? Strangely humorous? Uncomfortable yet insightful on a regular basis? YES PLEASE.
"Big Venerable reads like a collection of modern fables, peppered with workplace anxiety, mutating families, absurd quests, and faulty sages delivering self-centered advice. A very funny book from a very funny man." - Halle Butler, author of The New Me and Jillian
"Big Venerable reads like a collection of modern fables, peppered with workplace anxiety, mutating families, absurd quests, and faulty sages delivering self-centered advice. A very funny book from a very funny man." - Halle Butler, author of The New Me and Jillian
- GenresContemporary
258 pages, Paperback
First published April 13, 2015
1 person is currently reading
31 people want to read
About the author
Matt Rowan
12 books104 followersMatt Rowan lives in Los Angeles. He edits Untoward Magazine and is an editor emeritus of Another Chicago Magazine, the oldest independently published literary magazine in Chicago.
He’s author of the story collections, Why God Why (Love Symbol Press, 2013), Big Venerable (CCLaP, 2015) and How the Moon Works (Cobalt Press, 2021).
He's on BlueSky at @veryrealbatman.bsky.social.
He’s author of the story collections, Why God Why (Love Symbol Press, 2013), Big Venerable (CCLaP, 2015) and How the Moon Works (Cobalt Press, 2021).
He's on BlueSky at @veryrealbatman.bsky.social.
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
May 23, 2015
Even better than my first book! How do I keep doing it?
December 9, 2015
Big Venerable is the second story collection from Matt Rowan, fiction editor at Another Chicago Magazine. Comprised of pieces originally published in the Chicago Center for Literature & Photography’s Weekender magazine, this new book is intricate as it is odd and as hilarious as it is thought provoking.
Fans of Rowan will no doubt notice how these seven tales have evolved from those found in his first book, Why God Why. In Venerable, Rowan abandons the flash forms that have made him a standout in the Windy City’s late night literary scene in favor of lengthier, more traditional narratives. Did I just say this book skewed toward the traditional? That’s not true, unless you consider stories featuring a family of living bread people or forests full of “molded-polyethylene” trees to be traditional.
Take for example, the story “The Baker’s Family,” featuring the aforementioned bread creatures. This story builds upon a fantastic conceit—an accident in the kitchen of a lonely baker brings his dough supply to life. These newly risen (see what I did there?) bread persons embrace the baker, Herbert, as their father/creator and form as normal a family unit as one could expect given the circumstances. With Herbert’s encouragement, the dough children even take up the baker’s craft, with less-than-perfect results. Rowan writes:
‘The problem was their appendages, which were flaky beard loaves themselves. Their flaking was constant, and that meant someone would have to clean up after the flakes. Two members of his bread family were given brooms to sweep up after everyone (including themselves, which made the task always something imperfectly completed), all to avoid an infestation of vermin.”
Rowan’s description of the bread workers’ Sisyphean task calls attention to the nature of work and creation, a subject no doubt the author is concerned with. Throughout this collection, we find imperfect creators (some humble, some bold) and are forced to deal with the bodies of work they leave behind. For some readers, Rowan’s own work may seem imperfect or unturned. It is true that his characters materialize quickly and his plots are sometimes dodgy, taking severe right turns that might catch his reader off guard. But I think in most cases the payoff is worth the somewhat jarring ride.
Big Venerable is absurd at times, but it’s always absurdly funny, as evidenced by the following passage from the collection’s title story. Here, the recently promoted general manager of a large multinational retail discount department store named Big Venerable® (which has been overtaken by a mysterious, Mad Max-esque revolution) contemplates the pitfalls of her new position:
“She tried to be smart, but she’d known people who had slipped up. Gary Casig had slipped up, confusing one faction for another in an attempt to bribe their countenancing his suppliers to move through a war zone without fear of being harassed and stopped and looted.
They found Casig’s burned corpse hanging by its leg from a highway overpass, his shriveled, dried out entrails pulled from his body in what looked like a weeping willow. ‘WISE UP, MAKE GOOD FRIENDS’, written in spray paint somewhere nearby. Someplace visible, not as visible as the hanging corpse—but a hanging corpse is perhaps one of the great attention getters of all time, gauche as it is to say.”
For those new to Rowan’s work, it is moments like this, moments when a reader finds herself amused by a subject matter far more tragic than comic, that make reading him so enjoyable, and impactful.
We aren’t supposed to laugh at the image of an innocent man’s gruesome death, especially when that death comes by fire and evisceration, but we do. And once we do, Rowan’s comedy falls away like a booster rocket after delivering its payload to a previously determined altitude. In other words, his comedy gets us to where we need to be, to a place where we can grapple with our own reaction and the resulting insights. Rowan’s work makes us uncomfortable to make us more insightful.
If your tastes in literature run a little outside of normal, if you enjoy the short stories of Arthur Bradford, Donald Barthelme, Patricia Highsmith, or Ben Loory, pick this book up. I hope it makes you laugh just as often as it causes you to question your place on this absurd planet. I hope too that it propels Rowan to the orbital altitudes a writer with his seemingly infinite comedic powers deserves to occupy.
Fans of Rowan will no doubt notice how these seven tales have evolved from those found in his first book, Why God Why. In Venerable, Rowan abandons the flash forms that have made him a standout in the Windy City’s late night literary scene in favor of lengthier, more traditional narratives. Did I just say this book skewed toward the traditional? That’s not true, unless you consider stories featuring a family of living bread people or forests full of “molded-polyethylene” trees to be traditional.
Take for example, the story “The Baker’s Family,” featuring the aforementioned bread creatures. This story builds upon a fantastic conceit—an accident in the kitchen of a lonely baker brings his dough supply to life. These newly risen (see what I did there?) bread persons embrace the baker, Herbert, as their father/creator and form as normal a family unit as one could expect given the circumstances. With Herbert’s encouragement, the dough children even take up the baker’s craft, with less-than-perfect results. Rowan writes:
‘The problem was their appendages, which were flaky beard loaves themselves. Their flaking was constant, and that meant someone would have to clean up after the flakes. Two members of his bread family were given brooms to sweep up after everyone (including themselves, which made the task always something imperfectly completed), all to avoid an infestation of vermin.”
Rowan’s description of the bread workers’ Sisyphean task calls attention to the nature of work and creation, a subject no doubt the author is concerned with. Throughout this collection, we find imperfect creators (some humble, some bold) and are forced to deal with the bodies of work they leave behind. For some readers, Rowan’s own work may seem imperfect or unturned. It is true that his characters materialize quickly and his plots are sometimes dodgy, taking severe right turns that might catch his reader off guard. But I think in most cases the payoff is worth the somewhat jarring ride.
Big Venerable is absurd at times, but it’s always absurdly funny, as evidenced by the following passage from the collection’s title story. Here, the recently promoted general manager of a large multinational retail discount department store named Big Venerable® (which has been overtaken by a mysterious, Mad Max-esque revolution) contemplates the pitfalls of her new position:
“She tried to be smart, but she’d known people who had slipped up. Gary Casig had slipped up, confusing one faction for another in an attempt to bribe their countenancing his suppliers to move through a war zone without fear of being harassed and stopped and looted.
They found Casig’s burned corpse hanging by its leg from a highway overpass, his shriveled, dried out entrails pulled from his body in what looked like a weeping willow. ‘WISE UP, MAKE GOOD FRIENDS’, written in spray paint somewhere nearby. Someplace visible, not as visible as the hanging corpse—but a hanging corpse is perhaps one of the great attention getters of all time, gauche as it is to say.”
For those new to Rowan’s work, it is moments like this, moments when a reader finds herself amused by a subject matter far more tragic than comic, that make reading him so enjoyable, and impactful.
We aren’t supposed to laugh at the image of an innocent man’s gruesome death, especially when that death comes by fire and evisceration, but we do. And once we do, Rowan’s comedy falls away like a booster rocket after delivering its payload to a previously determined altitude. In other words, his comedy gets us to where we need to be, to a place where we can grapple with our own reaction and the resulting insights. Rowan’s work makes us uncomfortable to make us more insightful.
If your tastes in literature run a little outside of normal, if you enjoy the short stories of Arthur Bradford, Donald Barthelme, Patricia Highsmith, or Ben Loory, pick this book up. I hope it makes you laugh just as often as it causes you to question your place on this absurd planet. I hope too that it propels Rowan to the orbital altitudes a writer with his seemingly infinite comedic powers deserves to occupy.
January 29, 2015
[DISCLOSURE: I am the owner of the small press that published this book.]
I'm happy to say that CCLaP is finally getting its original books finished and online a lot faster this year than we ever have before; and here's our title for this coming April, the first of three new story collections by Chicago authors we have coming out in 2015, all of them tied intricately to the weekly electronic magazine we've been publishing for several years now, the CCLaP Weekender at [cclapcenter.com/weekender]. Matt's a real secret weapon of our local literary community who not a lot of people outside of Chicago know about yet, a tireless penner of short stories who is frequently out in our city's infamous late-night open-mic circuit; you can think of his work as essentially a young person's version of George Saunders, with the same kind of warped, ultra-dark, science-fiction-informed sensibility but in his case tackling a lot more issues having to do with Millennials and their particular pop-culture detritus. The three Chicago short-fiction authors we're publishing this year -- Matt, Joseph G. Peterson, and Ben Tanzer -- are all going on tour together this summer, so I hope you'll have a chance to pick this up soon and then make it out to one of their appearances!
We are actively seeking lots of feedback on this particular title, so we are handing out free ebooks of this book to each and every Goodreads members who wants one. To request yours, simply drop me a line at ilikejason@gmail.com, or just send me a message here. The finished book comes out to the public this April 13th, but the advance reading copy is available as we speak, so I hope to hear from you soon!
I'm happy to say that CCLaP is finally getting its original books finished and online a lot faster this year than we ever have before; and here's our title for this coming April, the first of three new story collections by Chicago authors we have coming out in 2015, all of them tied intricately to the weekly electronic magazine we've been publishing for several years now, the CCLaP Weekender at [cclapcenter.com/weekender]. Matt's a real secret weapon of our local literary community who not a lot of people outside of Chicago know about yet, a tireless penner of short stories who is frequently out in our city's infamous late-night open-mic circuit; you can think of his work as essentially a young person's version of George Saunders, with the same kind of warped, ultra-dark, science-fiction-informed sensibility but in his case tackling a lot more issues having to do with Millennials and their particular pop-culture detritus. The three Chicago short-fiction authors we're publishing this year -- Matt, Joseph G. Peterson, and Ben Tanzer -- are all going on tour together this summer, so I hope you'll have a chance to pick this up soon and then make it out to one of their appearances!
We are actively seeking lots of feedback on this particular title, so we are handing out free ebooks of this book to each and every Goodreads members who wants one. To request yours, simply drop me a line at ilikejason@gmail.com, or just send me a message here. The finished book comes out to the public this April 13th, but the advance reading copy is available as we speak, so I hope to hear from you soon!
September 7, 2015
Here's a strange suggestion you should definitely give a shot to when the time comes to read BIG VENERABLE. Do it out loud. In front of an audience. Preferably inside a moving car.
It's how Josie and I read the majority of this collection over a road trip because radio kept rehashing Nickelback songs we didn't know and Loverboy's Working for the Weekend. It ended up being a great decision even if Matt Rowan's athletic grammar is not always your friend, because it blew up every little detail and subtleties of his storytelling and the man is influenced by the American avant-garde so details and subtleties there are, as Yoda would say.
My favorite stories were Infant Flight and The Bureau of Everything Fitting Into Its Rightful Place, which are patient and rewarding pieces that not only obfuscate their original meaning, but that expand upon it and reveal more ambitious aims as they go along. Not that many people will read these challenging little puzzles in this day and age, but it's a shame because Matt Rowan cares about tangibly to his readers lives, probably more than the readers care about getting something from their books.
It's how Josie and I read the majority of this collection over a road trip because radio kept rehashing Nickelback songs we didn't know and Loverboy's Working for the Weekend. It ended up being a great decision even if Matt Rowan's athletic grammar is not always your friend, because it blew up every little detail and subtleties of his storytelling and the man is influenced by the American avant-garde so details and subtleties there are, as Yoda would say.
My favorite stories were Infant Flight and The Bureau of Everything Fitting Into Its Rightful Place, which are patient and rewarding pieces that not only obfuscate their original meaning, but that expand upon it and reveal more ambitious aims as they go along. Not that many people will read these challenging little puzzles in this day and age, but it's a shame because Matt Rowan cares about tangibly to his readers lives, probably more than the readers care about getting something from their books.
April 10, 2015
One of the things that Matt Rowan does very effectively in the stories that constitute BIG VENERABLE is misdirection. That's a tricky thing to do in a short story. You can do it in a novel, easily enough. In fact, you sort of need to do it in a novel. A novel is like a long ride in a small car with a chatty driver, and if all you ever do in your drive is start out in New Jersey and head straight and level down Interstate 80 all the way to San Francisco, things can get boring in a hurry. You have to take the occasional off-ramp and head down the occasional side-road to keep the story rolling along.
Short stories aren't like that. Short stories take you from your house to Lowe's to pick up some rubber washers and back. You might have an interesting adventure or two on the way there, and that's fine, but what you don't have is the time you'd need to stop in that little Oaxacan place in the strip mall where you get your hair cut and get a couple of tacos and sit in your car and eat them while you listen to old Ryan Adams CDs. You may want to do that, and it's understandable, because, really, don't we all want to spend at least a little time eating the occasional puffy taco and listening to modern rockabilly. You could even get a Dr Pepper and a Little Debbie oatmeal cream pie at that bodega next to the dry cleaners if you had the time, but you don't, because after all, you need to fix the garden hose before it gets dark, and misdirections in short stories only work if they lead you back home again.
Rowan's previous collection, WHY GOD WHY, had a very anarchic, childish sensibility that's largely gone from these pages. The tone here is more adolescent, and Rowan populates this collection with characters that are stupid enough to deserve our pity, and well-written enough to deserve our compassion. The no-account burger flippers and wanna-be reality TV show contestants that populate BIG VENERABLE are scuffling around in a world that God never made, but Matt Rowan did.
This does not often turn out well for them, because where Rowan's worldview differs from ours, it's always grotesque and usually awful. Many horrible and painful things happen in BIG VENERABLE. The good news is that sometimes the horrible and painful things happen to the right person at the right time. Sometimes, that's all you can really expect.
Short stories aren't like that. Short stories take you from your house to Lowe's to pick up some rubber washers and back. You might have an interesting adventure or two on the way there, and that's fine, but what you don't have is the time you'd need to stop in that little Oaxacan place in the strip mall where you get your hair cut and get a couple of tacos and sit in your car and eat them while you listen to old Ryan Adams CDs. You may want to do that, and it's understandable, because, really, don't we all want to spend at least a little time eating the occasional puffy taco and listening to modern rockabilly. You could even get a Dr Pepper and a Little Debbie oatmeal cream pie at that bodega next to the dry cleaners if you had the time, but you don't, because after all, you need to fix the garden hose before it gets dark, and misdirections in short stories only work if they lead you back home again.
Rowan's previous collection, WHY GOD WHY, had a very anarchic, childish sensibility that's largely gone from these pages. The tone here is more adolescent, and Rowan populates this collection with characters that are stupid enough to deserve our pity, and well-written enough to deserve our compassion. The no-account burger flippers and wanna-be reality TV show contestants that populate BIG VENERABLE are scuffling around in a world that God never made, but Matt Rowan did.
This does not often turn out well for them, because where Rowan's worldview differs from ours, it's always grotesque and usually awful. Many horrible and painful things happen in BIG VENERABLE. The good news is that sometimes the horrible and painful things happen to the right person at the right time. Sometimes, that's all you can really expect.
July 20, 2015
While some of the less fantastical stories are good and have heart this book really shines in the short stories that are over the top and have one foot in reality and another in scifi/fantasy. If you love George Saunders or movies like Brazil this book will be right up your alley. Sincerely looking forward to a full length novel from Matt .
May 28, 2017
review to come
October 10, 2015
Some critic compared author Matt Rowan to, like, a millennial version of George Sanders.
First of all, who wants to be any kind of version of George Saunders?
Also, I’m pretty sure the majority of millennials have never even heard of George Saunders, probably because he doesn’t publish via Vice/Boost House.
Finally, Matt Rowan is no spring chicken, I’ll tell you that right now.
I don’t know what the word “venerable” means.
Is it like an STD?
Not going to look it up.
The first story is about the rise and fall of an old-timey burger joint, and it doesn’t end well, but I can’t remember why.
These stories are sooooo long.
They’re the kind of stories you’d read in The Paris Review, or maybe McSweeney’s.
Unfortunately, I don’t read the Paris Review.
Plus, I gave up on McSweeney’s years ago.
Come to think, I’ve pretty much given up on everything.
I liked the ending of the second story because (SPOILER ALERT) the main character crashes his car into a Chinese restaurant (it took a while to get there but, boy, what a payoff!).
There’s a lot going on in these stories.
Unfortunately, I’m stupid and can’t keep up with any of it.
Rowan’s funny and his characters are quirky but there’s so much to take in, plot-wise, that the funny characters don’t breathe.
I couldn’t breathe, either.
Rowan’s rambling narrative style suffocated me, which isn’t to say this style is bad because lots of readers need to be suffocated, myself included.
Rowan’s rambling narrative style is kind of like how Donald Barthelme (or maybe Barry Hannah) would write if he were on Adderall, so maybe the comparison to a millennial version of Saunders isn’t too far off; millennials love their Adderall.
There’s a story about a baker whose pastries come to life and murder him (I think).
I think someone drowned in one story (?).
I basically didn’t properly read this book.
Perhaps someday I’ll read it properly.
That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t.
Rowan is handsome, funny, and a wicked talented writer.
That’s all you can hope for in this world: good looks, a sense of humor, and wicked talent.
Rowan’s got this.
3 and 1/2 starz.
First of all, who wants to be any kind of version of George Saunders?
Also, I’m pretty sure the majority of millennials have never even heard of George Saunders, probably because he doesn’t publish via Vice/Boost House.
Finally, Matt Rowan is no spring chicken, I’ll tell you that right now.
I don’t know what the word “venerable” means.
Is it like an STD?
Not going to look it up.
The first story is about the rise and fall of an old-timey burger joint, and it doesn’t end well, but I can’t remember why.
These stories are sooooo long.
They’re the kind of stories you’d read in The Paris Review, or maybe McSweeney’s.
Unfortunately, I don’t read the Paris Review.
Plus, I gave up on McSweeney’s years ago.
Come to think, I’ve pretty much given up on everything.
I liked the ending of the second story because (SPOILER ALERT) the main character crashes his car into a Chinese restaurant (it took a while to get there but, boy, what a payoff!).
There’s a lot going on in these stories.
Unfortunately, I’m stupid and can’t keep up with any of it.
Rowan’s funny and his characters are quirky but there’s so much to take in, plot-wise, that the funny characters don’t breathe.
I couldn’t breathe, either.
Rowan’s rambling narrative style suffocated me, which isn’t to say this style is bad because lots of readers need to be suffocated, myself included.
Rowan’s rambling narrative style is kind of like how Donald Barthelme (or maybe Barry Hannah) would write if he were on Adderall, so maybe the comparison to a millennial version of Saunders isn’t too far off; millennials love their Adderall.
There’s a story about a baker whose pastries come to life and murder him (I think).
I think someone drowned in one story (?).
I basically didn’t properly read this book.
Perhaps someday I’ll read it properly.
That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t.
Rowan is handsome, funny, and a wicked talented writer.
That’s all you can hope for in this world: good looks, a sense of humor, and wicked talent.
Rowan’s got this.
3 and 1/2 starz.
July 26, 2015
This book is an amazing follow-up to Matt Rowan's first book. The stories are much longer, and you get a better grasp of how talented Rowan is. He can create these characters that manage to make you relate to them in only a couple pages. The characters are so human, and they are placed in these insane situations. Yet somehow you are still drawn into the stories so well that you find yourself hoping that the next story you read follows those same characters you found yourself rooting for so quickly. This book definitely makes you hope there is a Matt Rowan novel coming soon.
August 15, 2015
I highly recommend this story collection. My review can be found here at The Collagist...
http://thecollagist.com/the-collagist...
July 3, 2015
The absurdities.
More - http://bentanzer.blogspot.com/2015/07...
More - http://bentanzer.blogspot.com/2015/07...
April 11, 2024
I hear the drums echoing tonight
But she hears only whispers of some quiet conversation
She's coming in, 12:30 flight
The moonlit wings reflect the stars that guide me towards salvation
I stopped an old man along the way
Hoping to find some old forgotten words or ancient melodies
He turned to me as if to say, "Hurry boy, it's waiting there for you"
It's gonna take a lot to drag me away from you
There's nothing that a hundred men or more could ever do
I bless the rains down in Africa
Gonna take some time to do the things we never had
The wild dogs cry out in the night
As they grow restless, longing for some solitary company
I know that I must do what's right
As sure as Kilimanjaro rises like Olympus above the Serengeti
I seek to cure what's deep inside
Frightened of this thing that I've become
It's gonna take a lot to drag me away from you
There's nothing that a hundred men or more could ever do
I bless the rains down in Africa
Gonna take some time to do the things we never had
Hurry boy, she's waiting there for you
It's gonna take a lot to drag me away from you
There's nothing that a hundred men or more could ever do
I bless the rains down in Africa
I bless the rains down in Africa (I bless the rain)
I bless the rains down in Africa (I bless the rain)
I bless the rains down in Africa
I bless the rains down in Africa (gonna take the time)
Gonna take some time to do the things we never had
But she hears only whispers of some quiet conversation
She's coming in, 12:30 flight
The moonlit wings reflect the stars that guide me towards salvation
I stopped an old man along the way
Hoping to find some old forgotten words or ancient melodies
He turned to me as if to say, "Hurry boy, it's waiting there for you"
It's gonna take a lot to drag me away from you
There's nothing that a hundred men or more could ever do
I bless the rains down in Africa
Gonna take some time to do the things we never had
The wild dogs cry out in the night
As they grow restless, longing for some solitary company
I know that I must do what's right
As sure as Kilimanjaro rises like Olympus above the Serengeti
I seek to cure what's deep inside
Frightened of this thing that I've become
It's gonna take a lot to drag me away from you
There's nothing that a hundred men or more could ever do
I bless the rains down in Africa
Gonna take some time to do the things we never had
Hurry boy, she's waiting there for you
It's gonna take a lot to drag me away from you
There's nothing that a hundred men or more could ever do
I bless the rains down in Africa
I bless the rains down in Africa (I bless the rain)
I bless the rains down in Africa (I bless the rain)
I bless the rains down in Africa
I bless the rains down in Africa (gonna take the time)
Gonna take some time to do the things we never had
May 30, 2024
An excellent read for anyone who is not an absolute dumbass
June 16, 2016
"So Many Old Rickety Bridges" is one of the funniest stories I've read in a long time.
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews