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Small Moods
Like a cracked crystal ball tagged with black spray paint, these discomforting and darkly hilarious stories unveil a past, present, and future of unexplainable yet bizarrely poetic prophesies and moods. In ninety-five flash fictions, Shane Kowalski's Small Moods presents lovers, dogs, bathtubs, hands, jewels, bananas, peasant boys, cuckolds, Jesus, dildoes, shoes, nudes, cults, sadness, the movie Carrie, and much much more. Can you imagine a love child of Lydia Davis and Richard Brautigan? How about Russell Edson's ghost having tea with Diane Williams? Reading Small Moods is like entering a weird and private room of reject fairy tales and goofball fables. It's a room that belongs to Shane Kowalski, and he is welcoming you with strong, open, sweat-drenched arms. Don't be afraid. He made you something.
I am in love with this weird, gross, hilarious, beautiful book, and with Shane Kowalski’s cursed sentences, which enchant you, seduce you, then drop you off in hell. Every story is a perfect little snow globe of sidesplitting misery.
— J. Robert Lennon, author of Pieces for the Left Hand and Let Me Think
"I loved Small Moods. Shane Kowalski's short prose pieces are surreal, bleak, sly, and utterly original."
—Amy Fusselman, author of Idiophone
"These runically truthful miniatures—some just outbursts of a few staggered sentences, others in the form of anecdotes and parables, still others reading like entire novels scaled down to just a clutch of hectic paragraphs—are by turns sweet-hearted and ruthless, loopy and doleful, otherworldly and ribald, but always inventively off-kilter and entirely on the mark in their raucous sweeps of human ache and ecstasy. In the hands of Shane Kowalski, Small Moods is in fact a very big deal."
—Garielle Lutz, author of Worsted
I am in love with this weird, gross, hilarious, beautiful book, and with Shane Kowalski’s cursed sentences, which enchant you, seduce you, then drop you off in hell. Every story is a perfect little snow globe of sidesplitting misery.
— J. Robert Lennon, author of Pieces for the Left Hand and Let Me Think
"I loved Small Moods. Shane Kowalski's short prose pieces are surreal, bleak, sly, and utterly original."
—Amy Fusselman, author of Idiophone
"These runically truthful miniatures—some just outbursts of a few staggered sentences, others in the form of anecdotes and parables, still others reading like entire novels scaled down to just a clutch of hectic paragraphs—are by turns sweet-hearted and ruthless, loopy and doleful, otherworldly and ribald, but always inventively off-kilter and entirely on the mark in their raucous sweeps of human ache and ecstasy. In the hands of Shane Kowalski, Small Moods is in fact a very big deal."
—Garielle Lutz, author of Worsted
154 pages, Paperback
First published February 10, 2022
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Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews
January 17, 2022
One of the strangest and most enjoyable books of stories I've ever had the pleasure to work on (published by my press, Future Tense Books, next month). Kowalski is an unpredictable blend of Russell Edson, Lydia Davis, Chelsey Minnis, Richard Brautigan, James Tate, Diane Williams, Gogol, and Kafka. My new favorite oddball.
May 12, 2022
This book is strange, odd, irreverent, and layered in all the best, complex ways. Several times I laughed aloud. Kowalski does not shy away from the bizarre or unusual. A wonderful read!
March 12, 2022
This is just a fantastic, and secretly, important, book. I picked it up randomly at a bookstore and was hooked by the small stories - (easy to read when dealing with a baby and your mind is scattered). What really hooked me though was the weird sense of humor. There is something darkly Brautigan about Kowalski's work, a hilarious reticence at the strange horror of living. Kowalski is a post office worker in real life, and there is something truly human about his work. That sounds stupid, but it doesn't seem like it's born of literary classrooms and academic daisy chains, but that these stories travel their own path and mark the entrance for a wildly distinctive voice.
I say this book is important simply for that reason. It is a small bomb - or more of a soft grenade, announcing the small boom of this beautiful writer who balances humor while frankly looking at the human condition. I've often said that my go-to emotion is schadenfreude, and I think that's why this book resonates with me so much. It's Kowalski laughing, yet in deep wonder, of the pain and hilarity of being alive. I don't understand or strive to understand most of the stories, but there is a fine needle pulling through the collection, and I'm excited about how these stories seem to help unravel the world.
I say this book is important simply for that reason. It is a small bomb - or more of a soft grenade, announcing the small boom of this beautiful writer who balances humor while frankly looking at the human condition. I've often said that my go-to emotion is schadenfreude, and I think that's why this book resonates with me so much. It's Kowalski laughing, yet in deep wonder, of the pain and hilarity of being alive. I don't understand or strive to understand most of the stories, but there is a fine needle pulling through the collection, and I'm excited about how these stories seem to help unravel the world.
January 27, 2022
Tiny moments that startle and delight. Lopsided and quietly unhinged. These are not prose poems but these are not not prose poems. Small Moods is officially my mood for the rest of the year*
*or until the world ends
*or until the world ends
February 7, 2022
"How do we stop ourselves from stopping ourselves from being gentle?"
These stories are like if a Diane Williams story did a little too much ecstacy and was now oversharing to total strangers in a crowded parking lot
These stories are like if a Diane Williams story did a little too much ecstacy and was now oversharing to total strangers in a crowded parking lot
December 14, 2022
Who knows if you will agree, but nearly every one of these bite-size pieces felt fresh, different, surprising, strange, uncomfortable, larger than their skin and beautiful.
With this style, the line is thin between amazing work and mediocre gesturing. Call it what you will: 'kooky', 'postmodern', 'Barthlemaic' it never quite captures the essence. At worst you have the hyper intellectualized 'non-sequiters for non-sequiter's sake' of 'My Cousin, My Gastroenterologist'. Kowalski is doing the opposite. All of the strangeness and dislocation is for a very pointed purpose, generally to create a mood or feeling, a sense of strangeness, humor or sadness, and it is extremely effective.
After slogging through so much of these sterile, endless stories that leave the reader totally flat, this sort of work, where your entire internal state can shift over the course of five sentences, is magnificent. It seems worthwhile to read only a few of these at a time, then take a break and do something else.
Amazing collection.
With this style, the line is thin between amazing work and mediocre gesturing. Call it what you will: 'kooky', 'postmodern', 'Barthlemaic' it never quite captures the essence. At worst you have the hyper intellectualized 'non-sequiters for non-sequiter's sake' of 'My Cousin, My Gastroenterologist'. Kowalski is doing the opposite. All of the strangeness and dislocation is for a very pointed purpose, generally to create a mood or feeling, a sense of strangeness, humor or sadness, and it is extremely effective.
After slogging through so much of these sterile, endless stories that leave the reader totally flat, this sort of work, where your entire internal state can shift over the course of five sentences, is magnificent. It seems worthwhile to read only a few of these at a time, then take a break and do something else.
Amazing collection.
March 16, 2022
I don't read a lot of flash fiction, so I was happily surprised at the advantages of the form. A wild and pretty collection of imagery, from erudite to coarse and everywhere in between. Exactly 95 stories for the exact 90 possible moods a human can have during a lifetime. The 5 others are transcendental moods not available to living humans unfortunately. Loved it.
February 19, 2022
Like drinking freshly made potions from the wizard who moved in next door. He promises they will do things to you. And you gulp them greedily!
December 17, 2022
This was the weirdest collection of stories I’ve ever read and I was so confused just about all of the time. It was great
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April 19, 2023In this review I want to talk about how I haven't read any of the writers this author is compared to on the back cover---Diane Williams, Russell Edson, Lydia Davis, Garielle Lutz. I have never read these people.
I've read Richard Brautigan, however, who Mr. Kowalski is also compared to here. I can agree with that, I guess. I can imagine at least one half of the "love child of Lydia Davis and Richard Brautigan.”
The writing is kind of like a little figure speaking calmly to you while the Dianoga slithers underfoot inside the trash compactor, and you're wondering how the little figure can remain so calm with a monster underfoot and the walls closing in... and why you are inside of a Star Wars scene inside of a book review, I can’t really say.
Hats off. Tchuss and whatnot!
I've read Richard Brautigan, however, who Mr. Kowalski is also compared to here. I can agree with that, I guess. I can imagine at least one half of the "love child of Lydia Davis and Richard Brautigan.”
The writing is kind of like a little figure speaking calmly to you while the Dianoga slithers underfoot inside the trash compactor, and you're wondering how the little figure can remain so calm with a monster underfoot and the walls closing in... and why you are inside of a Star Wars scene inside of a book review, I can’t really say.
Hats off. Tchuss and whatnot!
September 29, 2022
I loved this. In many ways reminiscent of Russell Edson and Daniil Kharms, but more *now,* if that makes sense. If those names mean nothing to you, think delightfully minimalist prose + dreamlike shifts in unexpected directions + existential despair + profound hilariousness. Seriously probably one of the funniest books I've read in quite a while, and I needed it. Among the few books I expect I'll come back to and read again and again.
July 10, 2023
very unusual
This book is strange, odd, irreverent, and layered in all the best, complex ways.
Hilarious and bizarre poetic prophesies and moods from the past, present, and future. Ninety-five flash stories, poetry, random thoughts about lovers, dogs, bathtubs, hands, jewels, bananas, peasant boys, cuckolds, Jesus, dildoes, shoes, nudes, cults, sadness, Octopi, and much much more.
Kowalski does not shy away from the bizarre or unusual.
This book is strange, odd, irreverent, and layered in all the best, complex ways.
Hilarious and bizarre poetic prophesies and moods from the past, present, and future. Ninety-five flash stories, poetry, random thoughts about lovers, dogs, bathtubs, hands, jewels, bananas, peasant boys, cuckolds, Jesus, dildoes, shoes, nudes, cults, sadness, Octopi, and much much more.
Kowalski does not shy away from the bizarre or unusual.
March 7, 2022
Review at Bending Genres:
https://bendinggenres.com/with-the-he...
https://bendinggenres.com/with-the-he...
April 26, 2023
I’ve read better flash fiction collections, however this did fit into my idf uniform pockets so big plus
June 10, 2023
Many layers of storytelling through “Small Moods.” Tone can turn on a dime, some turns worked better than others, in my opinion, but an overall fascinating collection of moments in mood.
December 3, 2024
Sometimes a bit too clever and a bit eye-rolly, at other times really engaging, really funny, and really admirable in what, to me, is a very singular exercise
July 18, 2025
Somewhere out in all the dark of the world is your life waiting for you to fall asleep so it can do its work.
December 7, 2023
Small Moods is inventive and unorthodox. The title itself, Small Moods, is the only way one can begin to approach this book, being that each flash fiction piece seems to capture snippets of peculiar, ludicrous, and even charismatic moods of the human soul. With everything from dogs, teapots, goats, Jesus, erotic Garfield, dildos, dolphins, paradisiacal sludge, and underwear, Kowalski captivates sneak peeks into the disposition of being and the vibes of the human mind.
In a small book, Kowalski has managed to take what most would consider being small or insignificant moments of life and thoughts of people everywhere and collect them to make quite the avant-garde collection.
In a small book, Kowalski has managed to take what most would consider being small or insignificant moments of life and thoughts of people everywhere and collect them to make quite the avant-garde collection.
Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews