Tyler Barton's flash fiction chapbook, The Quiet Part Loud, is a collection of eleven very short stories about the restlessness and recklessness of youth. Winner of the 2017 Turnbuckle Chapbook Contest, this short book of stories has been called "precious and wild, each story sharp and twinkling."
Tyler Barton is the author of The Quiet Part Loud (2019) which won the Turnbuckle Chapbook Prize from Split Lip Press. He’s the event producer for FEAR NO LIT, a literary organization he co-founded with Erin Dorney. His short fiction has been published widely in journals and magazines and is forthcoming from Subtropics, The Iowa Review, Kenyon Review, and Paper Darts.
In the fall of 2018, Tyler attended the Anne LaBastille Writing Residency in the Adirondacks, where he finished the manuscript for his full-length story collection. His story, “The Orbit of Us” won the 2017 Fall Fiction Prize from the Chicago Review of Books. He was a runner-up in the 2018 Kenyon Review Short Fiction Contest and the 2016 Lake Prize from Midwestern Gothic. His story, “K,” was selected as a finalist in the 2017 Best of the Net. His stories have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, Best Small Fictions, and Best of the Net.
The Quiet Part Loud is a punchy, powerful little thing. It's about blowing your youth wide open - turning a freshy lawned cemetery into a temporary getaway, breakdancing on rooftops, suffocating the crushing boredom of being on the run by pranking everyone who rides the hotel elevators, and wreaking havoc down sleepy neighborhood streets on trash night....Each story showcasing both the beauty and brashness of shedding ones childhood on the strangest of stages.
Great collection of diverse short stories with realistic characters. Each story sucks you right into the scene and leaves you wanting just a hint more - perfect to let your imagination wander after reading.
Disclaimer: I am the Publicity & Reviews Manager for Split/Lip Press.
A lot of modern flash fiction can feel like it is written in the same voice, the same tones... But this collection absolutely does not. Barton has a voice here, a style that is all his own. It's a brutal and honest sort of voice, rough around the edges in all of the right ways. Yeah, I know this all sounds a bit cliché, but it is a darned good book.
I should boost it to 5 stars just for mentioning the Zune in a story. (Man, I miss my Zune...)
Definitely looking forward to more by this author.
Truly a loud book. Full of raucous, small-town youth and their antics. Powerful prose and characters fleshed out within paragraphs. Tragedy mixing with ambition, I feel this book is for anyone.
This book sings with joy and memories and hometown joy. I love the ways Barton brings the everyday to life! A writer for today’s storytelling. I am honored to have been his college professor and to watch him soar as a great writer!
WINNER OF THE 2017 TURNBUCKLE CHAPBOOK CONTEST, SELECTED BY KARA VERNOR
A collection of eleven flash fictions diving into the lives of restless, often lawless youths on the rural East Coast during late-aughts. Whether having lost a home or feeling like home is slowly disappearing, these characters act out in ways familiar and strange.
Blurbed by Kara Vernor, Lindsay Hunter, Ben Loory, Juan Martinez, this one pairs excellently with Tyler's collection "Eternal Night at the Nature Museum." Loory compares "The Quiet Part Loud" to "a jungle gym made of perfect sentences, the whole thing alive and bright and true."