How to Take Yourself Apart, How to Make Yourself Anew

by Aaron Burch

Restless, reckless, and wise, Aaron Burch throws stones across the mythological waters of identity formation, each bounce and ripple interrogating anew not only how we see ourselves and the world we inhabit, but how we got there and where we're going. Opening the door to his cabinet of curiosities, we accept as invitation Burch’s example of self-evisceration and learn to embrace with pride our messy contents as they spill out onto the table.

Genres: Short Stories

52 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2010

About the author

AARON BURCH grew up in Tacoma, WA. He is the author of the memoir/literary analysis Stephen King’s The Body; a short story collection, Backswing; and a novella, How to Predict the Weather. He is the founding editor of Hobart, which he edited from 2001–2022, and more recently he founded and edits HAD and WAS (Words & Sports). He lives in Ann Arbor, MI.

His first novel, YEAR OF THE BUFFALO, was released in November 2022 from American Buffalo Books, which is available here:

https://americanbuffalobooks.org/

Reviews

[Noah · Rating 4 out of 5]

A beautiful little book filled with writing that takes you apart sentence by sentence.

[Nik Korpon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Concise and beautiful and incredibly visceral, Burch's writing is as sharp as the scalpel his characters wield (eh? see what I did there?) For me, the stand-out story is... the one where the girl wants her hands to be birds (I don't have the book in front of me and can't for the life of me remember the title.) I heard him read it at AWP and was stoked to find it in the collection. In print, it was just as haunting as hearing it the first time, several months prior. I'm really looking forward to his next collection.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

I like the immediacy of the language of these poems. Gritty and tangible. I also like the kind of hidden metaphor that Burch uses. At least, it seems hidden to me. As I read I feel like the actions described are really something mental and I feel like I understand completely, even if I couldn't recite back exactly what I understand. Kind of- Yeah! Yeah! Wait, what? Gives quite a bit to think about in a short space.

[Brandon Will · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read this and you will: put yourself in majestic moments half-remembered from National Geographic television specials; put yourself in yourself; put yourself in something larger than yourself. It's very mysterious, a personal experience waiting for each person who reads it to use individual experiences and knowledges to feel out their own meanings or lacks of meanings -- so that's all I want to say about it.

[Steven · Rating 4 out of 5]

Winner of a PANK Magazine chapbook contest. Thought the whole better than the parts, although "Molting" in the middle section, stole the show. The prose style felt a bit repetitive when I read the collect front to back, but not so when I read a few at a time. Loved the heaping on of concrete details and the precise instructions for complex tasks.

[Ben · Rating 4 out of 5]

This beautiful looking and head-jangling collection is about myth, the creation of myths, the myths of the father and what we think we've learned from both even if what we've learned is myth as well.

[Sam · Rating 3 out of 5]

I should have read this book before How To Predict The Weather because many of the stories from that book were first published in this one (among other books and magazines). I enjoyed these stories, I liked being reminded of ones that stuck with me from HtPtW. My favorite was Antlers.

[Mel Bosworth · Rating 4 out of 5]

read my review here: http://www.outsiderwriters.org/archiv...

[Dylan Suher · Rating 2 out of 5]

Review forthcoming