Dark Optimism : Selected Short Tales, 1989-1998

by Alex Stein

This book is well worth the read and re-read that the amazingly layered poetry/prose inspires. Dark Optimism also has short shorts - "flash fiction", which the author is a master of. You will enjoy this book even more the second time through. The small bits it is composed of hang like jewels of dew on a spider web and intice you to laugh and cry and awake in recognition of the spiritual in the mundane. The only similiar book I have read in the past 20 years that reaches this level of excellence is translated from the Japanese and called Palm of the Hand Stories. Dark Optimism is equally compelling.

177 pages, Paperback

First published December 31, 1998

About the author

Alex Michael Stein is the author of the story collection, Dark Optimism (Emerson’s Eye Press, 1999) and of Weird Emptiness: Essays and Aphorisms (Wings Press, 2007). The Life and Art of Josan, a collection of line drawings inhabited by poetry is due out from Wade Rosen Publishing in 2009. He lives in Boulder, Colorado and works in the library at the University of Colorado.