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The Architect Of Flowers: Short Story Anthology Where Beauty Becomes Antidote to Life's Grief and Loss
Acclaimed for The Wasp Eater, his first collection of stories, Lychack focuses now on a fascinating range of human behavior. With a fluency of tone and a gifted eye, he examines the dark and unfathomable moments in the most committed relationships; the small distances that stretch into miles between generations and couples when long-buried secrets tumble out into the light; or the eccentricities that may label us as odd yet mark us as unique. Capturing the bewilderment and tenderness in failed connections or missed moments, his characters stand vivid in their human frailty and we warm to them almost despite ourselves. A lonely wife determined to gather her far-flung family for a reunion invents the perfect lie to persuade them; an old woman recalls how she once trained a black crow the art of thieving; and the off-duty small-town cop on his last round of the evening who does a distressed family a great service when he summons the courage to shoot their gravely injured dog.
These poignant tales reveal the subtleties in love and indifference or the strange, sad, breathtaking tricks of chance that can change a life in a second. As Lychack moves among these characters with all their virtues and failings, he observes the inevitable disparity between their realities and their dreams even while investing their stories with wit, humility, and a large measure of grace. That he succeeds so remarkably in transferring it all to the page is evidence of his prodigious talent.
These poignant tales reveal the subtleties in love and indifference or the strange, sad, breathtaking tricks of chance that can change a life in a second. As Lychack moves among these characters with all their virtues and failings, he observes the inevitable disparity between their realities and their dreams even while investing their stories with wit, humility, and a large measure of grace. That he succeeds so remarkably in transferring it all to the page is evidence of his prodigious talent.
161 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2011
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272 people want to read
About the author
William Lychack
13 books18 followersWilliam Lychack is the author of two novels: The Wasp Eater and the forthcoming Cargill Falls, along with a collection of stories, The Architect of Flowers.
His work has appeared in The Best American Short Stories, The Pushcart Prize, and on National Public Radio's This American Life.
He currently teaches at the University of Pittsburgh.
His work has appeared in The Best American Short Stories, The Pushcart Prize, and on National Public Radio's This American Life.
He currently teaches at the University of Pittsburgh.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 41 reviews
August 6, 2011
Long after you have finished reading The Architect of Flowers and set it aside to move on to other books, the cadence of William Lychack’s prose will continue to click like a metronome in your head. You may forget the plots of these stories (an old woman trains a crow to steal for her, a boy confronts memories of his father at his funeral), you may forget some of the characters (a ghost-writer, a pregnant woman raising chickens, a mother and her gun-toting son), but I’m willing to bet you’ll have a hard time shaking loose Lychack’s distinct voice.
It’s a style that boldly announces itself on the first page of the first story, “Stolpestad,” which is told from the second-person point of view, putting us in the shoes of a small-town cop as he patrols the streets:
Away we go indeed. We drive over to the house with the cop, past “the apartments stacked with porches, the phone poles and wires and sidewalks all close and cluttered,” and answer the call which turns into an emotional wrenching event—both for Stolpestad the cop and for us the reader.
Each of Lychack’s thirteen stories is a miniature emotional event. We read a story and then, overwhelmed, we put the book aside to go walk the dog, cook the dinner, or just stare blankly into space, giving ourselves time to process what we just went through.
The action in these stories is relatively small, contained in moments of compressed drama. Witness, for instance, the way “Hawkins” opens:
Lychack’s strength lies in his ability to render details in language so precise—at once familiar and fresh—that the stories demand multiple re-reads just to savor the gorgeous flavor of the words. In “Chickens,” we sit in a “house so quiet you could hear the clock chewing minutes the way an insect chews a leaf.” In “Thin Edge of the Wedge,” a lawn is “the green of frozen peas.” In “Like a Demon,” a roadside diner has the “slushy sound of cutlery and voices, walls of quilted aluminum.” And in the title story, which centers around a plant hybridizer and his wife trying to hold the family together, Lychack turns a mere buttonhole into poetry:
In some stories, like “Griswald” in which an elderly neighbor takes a too-keen interest in a nine-year-old boy, a feeling of menace hums like a barely-discernable bass note below each sentence. The language is beautiful but you can’t shake that clammy unease. This is how Lychack gets us—he lulls us with music, then turns us sharply around to face the mirror. Why do you think “Stolpestad” is told in that direct-address narrative style? Lychack’s characters are us.
I can think of no better way to summarize The Architect of Flowers than this description which can be found on Lychack’s website: “all the characters in this collection yearn to somehow re-enchant the world, to turn the ordinary and profane into the sacred and beautiful again, to make beauty serve as an antidote to grief.”
Lychack takes all the hard, ugly, misshapen realities of our world, waves his pen like a magic wand, reaches into the hat, and pulls out—not rabbits or doves, but something infinitely better: words. Language like we’ve never seen before and probably won’t see again for a long time. At least until Lychack's next book.
(This review originally appeared at The Quivering Pen blog: www.davidabramsbooks.blogspot.com)
It’s a style that boldly announces itself on the first page of the first story, “Stolpestad,” which is told from the second-person point of view, putting us in the shoes of a small-town cop as he patrols the streets:
Was toward the end of your shift, a Saturday, another one of those long slow lazy afternoons of summer—sun never burning through the clouds, clouds never breaking into rain—odometer like a clock ticking all those bored little pent-up streets and mills and tenements away. The coffee shops, the liquor stores, laundromats, police, fire, gas stations to pass—this is your life, Stolpestad—all the turns you could make in your sleep, the brickwork and shop fronts and river with its stink of carp and chokeweed, the hills swinging up free from town, all momentum and mood, roads smooth and empty, this big blue hum of cruiser past houses and lawns and long screens of trees, trees cutting open to farms and fields all contoured and high with corn, air thick and silvery, as if something was on fire somewhere—still with us?
That sandy turnaround—always a question, isn’t it?
Gonna pull over and ride back down or not?
End of your shift—or nearly so—and in comes the call. It’s Phyllis, dispatcher for the weekend, that radio crackle of her voice, and she’s sorry for doing this to you but a boy’s just phoned for help with a dog. And what’s she think you look like now, you ask, town dogcatcher? Oh, you should be so lucky, she says and gives the address and away we go.
Away we go indeed. We drive over to the house with the cop, past “the apartments stacked with porches, the phone poles and wires and sidewalks all close and cluttered,” and answer the call which turns into an emotional wrenching event—both for Stolpestad the cop and for us the reader.
Each of Lychack’s thirteen stories is a miniature emotional event. We read a story and then, overwhelmed, we put the book aside to go walk the dog, cook the dinner, or just stare blankly into space, giving ourselves time to process what we just went through.
The action in these stories is relatively small, contained in moments of compressed drama. Witness, for instance, the way “Hawkins” opens:
Killed a deer last night. Kate and me and this creature almost completely over us. Flash of animal, tug of wheel, sound we felt more than heard, poor thing lying on the side of the road as we pulled around.
Should have just kept driving, gone home, felt bad. Don’t know what possessed us to get out of the car. November and nothing but trees around. No cars, no houses, deer small and slender, tongue powdered with sand.
Lychack’s strength lies in his ability to render details in language so precise—at once familiar and fresh—that the stories demand multiple re-reads just to savor the gorgeous flavor of the words. In “Chickens,” we sit in a “house so quiet you could hear the clock chewing minutes the way an insect chews a leaf.” In “Thin Edge of the Wedge,” a lawn is “the green of frozen peas.” In “Like a Demon,” a roadside diner has the “slushy sound of cutlery and voices, walls of quilted aluminum.” And in the title story, which centers around a plant hybridizer and his wife trying to hold the family together, Lychack turns a mere buttonhole into poetry:
Back in the city he worked in buttons. Glass buttons, plastic buttons, buttons of silver, copper, brass, coral, leather, lacquer, amber, pewter, gold. Buttons of broken china. Buttons of shipwrecked coins. Five, seven, eleven years in buttons and beads and able to recite the breathless rise of the lowly button in his sleep, its underdog days as hopeless decoration, early alliance with suspender and belt, marriage to buttonhole, love affairs with safety pin and clasp hook, mentor to the metal snap, arch-nemesis of the zipper.
In some stories, like “Griswald” in which an elderly neighbor takes a too-keen interest in a nine-year-old boy, a feeling of menace hums like a barely-discernable bass note below each sentence. The language is beautiful but you can’t shake that clammy unease. This is how Lychack gets us—he lulls us with music, then turns us sharply around to face the mirror. Why do you think “Stolpestad” is told in that direct-address narrative style? Lychack’s characters are us.
I can think of no better way to summarize The Architect of Flowers than this description which can be found on Lychack’s website: “all the characters in this collection yearn to somehow re-enchant the world, to turn the ordinary and profane into the sacred and beautiful again, to make beauty serve as an antidote to grief.”
Lychack takes all the hard, ugly, misshapen realities of our world, waves his pen like a magic wand, reaches into the hat, and pulls out—not rabbits or doves, but something infinitely better: words. Language like we’ve never seen before and probably won’t see again for a long time. At least until Lychack's next book.
(This review originally appeared at The Quivering Pen blog: www.davidabramsbooks.blogspot.com)
August 29, 2011
The publicists at Author Exposure provided me with a complimentary copy of William Lychack's short story collection, The Architect of Flowers. Such a title drew up mystical visions: expectations that the book might treat the reader to not just stories, but perhaps a brush with the Creator Himself. While this might seem like a high expectation, the writer in a way, is the God of their own universe, and in the case of William Lychack’s writing, there can be no question that he is a powerful one.
The Architect of Flowers consists of thirteen stories, most of which have appeared elsewhere including the Harvard Review and National Public Radio. Brought together as a collection, the reader begins to link them as a whole, so the book is indeed like a field of flowers, each with a unique grace and beauty.
Just as some flowers have a dark thorny side, so do some of Lychack’s stories. For example, “Stoplestad” is the story of a police officer called upon to put a family dog out of his misery. The routine of this small town police officer doesn’t normally demand crossing such a line, but his story, told by him in the present and in near staccato notes, communicates the sharp edge that separates his civic duty from his personal experience.
Nearly every sentence tells the actions as they occurred, rather quickly, as if the speaker must be numb from the experience, but must relate the event to you... almost as a confessional. This portrayal of Officer Stopelstad’s experience manages to reveal his underpinnings, makes us see him as a vulnerable man, imperfect, in fact so much so that as it turns out, he failed to perform the duty thoroughly. You see, it seems he shot the dog, but it didn’t die; it only lay there suffering more. Yet officer Stoplestad doesn’t learn of this error until later that night when he’s visited by the dog’s very angry master.
Just like the everyday life of Officer Stoplestad, the rest of the stories most often address everyday life. The artistry of Lychack’s writing is his ability to shed light on the extraordinary elements that lie behind it. As we read these stories, in the universe of Lychack’s creation, relationships and people, no matter how mundane or tortured, are inevitably imparted a certain grace. The urge to carry this grace or see it restored to the world is a common theme. How Lychack accomplishes this is much the same way that indeed I imagine God would, by revealing the intricacies of flowers, the individual shape of a species, the flower’s petal, the soft underside of its thorny stem, all so one might appreciate its nature. In keeping with the gist of the title it’s this aspect that makes Lychack’s collection of short stories truly a beautiful “garden”.
If you like literary fiction or stories with poetic leanings, The Architect of Flowers will provide you with great reading. Lychack’s writing style telegraphs meaning in dialogue and narrative that is often clipped and direct, but it never fails to deliver a full punch. I highly recommend it with a full five stars!
The Architect of Flowers consists of thirteen stories, most of which have appeared elsewhere including the Harvard Review and National Public Radio. Brought together as a collection, the reader begins to link them as a whole, so the book is indeed like a field of flowers, each with a unique grace and beauty.
Just as some flowers have a dark thorny side, so do some of Lychack’s stories. For example, “Stoplestad” is the story of a police officer called upon to put a family dog out of his misery. The routine of this small town police officer doesn’t normally demand crossing such a line, but his story, told by him in the present and in near staccato notes, communicates the sharp edge that separates his civic duty from his personal experience.
Nearly every sentence tells the actions as they occurred, rather quickly, as if the speaker must be numb from the experience, but must relate the event to you... almost as a confessional. This portrayal of Officer Stopelstad’s experience manages to reveal his underpinnings, makes us see him as a vulnerable man, imperfect, in fact so much so that as it turns out, he failed to perform the duty thoroughly. You see, it seems he shot the dog, but it didn’t die; it only lay there suffering more. Yet officer Stoplestad doesn’t learn of this error until later that night when he’s visited by the dog’s very angry master.
Just like the everyday life of Officer Stoplestad, the rest of the stories most often address everyday life. The artistry of Lychack’s writing is his ability to shed light on the extraordinary elements that lie behind it. As we read these stories, in the universe of Lychack’s creation, relationships and people, no matter how mundane or tortured, are inevitably imparted a certain grace. The urge to carry this grace or see it restored to the world is a common theme. How Lychack accomplishes this is much the same way that indeed I imagine God would, by revealing the intricacies of flowers, the individual shape of a species, the flower’s petal, the soft underside of its thorny stem, all so one might appreciate its nature. In keeping with the gist of the title it’s this aspect that makes Lychack’s collection of short stories truly a beautiful “garden”.
If you like literary fiction or stories with poetic leanings, The Architect of Flowers will provide you with great reading. Lychack’s writing style telegraphs meaning in dialogue and narrative that is often clipped and direct, but it never fails to deliver a full punch. I highly recommend it with a full five stars!
July 8, 2017
This book was not what I was expecting and I will admit I only got through two of the short stories before I said enough was enough. Both stories that I read were not only just gross and unnecessary but pointless. I was under the opinion this book was suppose to be about life and seeing into different aspects and lives of other people but so far all I have gotten is a story of a miserable police officer shooting a dog wrong so the family has to deal with putting it down properly and a story about a pregnant woman buying chicks just to kill them in all sorts of ways when they grew up because she was angry at them. With no reason, no meaning behind it.
I would not recommend anyone read this unless they like to read pointless stories that involve animal abuse and people with no personality or dimension and no meaningful plot.
I would not recommend anyone read this unless they like to read pointless stories that involve animal abuse and people with no personality or dimension and no meaningful plot.
February 28, 2012
William Lychack's stories in The Architect of Flowers are dreamlike and ethereal. Each of them deals with a simple situation that could happen to any of us, yet there is something eerie and other-worldly about each story. All the stories are detailed reminiscences of something that happened and could be reinterpreted in more than one way. In one story, a police officer is called to a home where a dog is dying. Out of kindness, he shoots it. In another story, a woman buys a dozen chicks and all but one turn out to be roosters. The only hen she has develops a skin disease, has lice, and won't lay eggs. In another story, a family hears God tell them to give up their jobs and all their possessions and go to Peoria. Once they arrive in Peoria, the church is awaiting them and a journalist writes their story. In yet another story, a woman conjures up a horrific lie in order to get her son to return home. One of my favorite stories is 'Griswald'. A boy's childhood experience haunts him as an adult and he still is not sure what to make of it. 'A Stand of Fables' brought tears to my eyes. As a modern fairy tale it has the pathos and loveliness of my favorite childhood stories. 'To The Farm' is funny, poignant and sad. There were parts that made me laugh out loud and other parts where I turned inward, moving with the motion of the story.
The stories are written with great depth and are like portions of dream states. They are lovely and poetic, both down to earth and other-worldly. Lychack has a real talent. My only small criticism is that some of the depth of the stories are hard to access as the poetry and form sometimes take precedence over the meaning. He worked over twenty years on this collection and it shows. He is a true artist.
The stories are written with great depth and are like portions of dream states. They are lovely and poetic, both down to earth and other-worldly. Lychack has a real talent. My only small criticism is that some of the depth of the stories are hard to access as the poetry and form sometimes take precedence over the meaning. He worked over twenty years on this collection and it shows. He is a true artist.
June 19, 2011
This is one of those collections I will probably return to later, because much of it was beautiful but much of its charm was lost on me, here in June 2011. If I pick it up again in a year, it might be my favorite book. I don't know what pronouns ever did to this guy, but he really doesn't like to use them, and I guess the writers who praise him as poetic and lyrical were more able to appreciate the sentence fragments and odd constructions. I found them distracting. But there are gems in this book. "The Old Woman and Her Thief" was my favorite by far. Really moving.
September 4, 2011
I walked by the Discover New Writers shelf at B&N and picked this up. I'm not usually very into new short stories, but I was nearly unable to put this down. Lychack's style is so unique--very terse but somehow he says a lot with very few words. Gorgeous descriptions, lots of very odd and intriguing characters. LOVED it. I just got his novel The Wasp Eater in the mail a few days ago and am about to start it. Can't wait!!
September 6, 2018
The book is called the Architect of Flowers, more like funeral flowers. Dark stories in Families sadness and dysfunctional people. I hope all our secrets aren't this tragic..
November 8, 2012
Reading this reminds me why I long to be an author. The prose is pure synesthesia...lovely, melding every sense to each paragraph. We can feel, taste, smell, imagine the sights and yet the stories themselves are not grand and meaningful. Each compact story relates small moments and common idiosyncrasies that I could relate to, such as raising a brood of chicks that turn out to be all roosters, but one....or the pondering of an old woman who senses that her fear of her husband dying and leaving her alone, might not really be a fear, but a wish....or the pleasant, bright memories a man has of his boyhood neighbor might be hiding the secret that he was molested...
Lychack takes the tightly wound ball of yarn that is a memory, a worry, a childhood, a good deed gone wrong, the fanciful fable, and knits beautiful prose stories, just like the girl at the spinning wheel turning straw into gold. Here is an excerpt:
The birds were barking behind the gardens, calls so nagging and loud that she and the hybridizer circled around the porch to the sound. Past the gardens, past the green houses, and the crows weren’t even birds out in the trees. More like splashes of ink against the light. One swinging up and around as if on a string. Sunlight like lace over trees.
Caw, caw, caw.
Was hard to tell what the crows hated so much. No more than a handful of leaves. Some kind of squirrel’s nest in the branches. The hybridizer and his wife edging forward until they stood directly under the tree. Crows loud, then quiet, then loud again. A beehive, a clot of gypsy moths, the hybridizer and his wife trying to see, and then this pale mask swiveled around to them, face as sflat as a disk.
An owl!
She said it again—an owl—and the hair on her arms went electric. Those eyes just staring down. Tree so still it trembled. Bird smaller than she’d thought. Then the crows started up again. Perhaps they never stopped, loud and crass, harsh the way they hounded the poor thing. And all the while this face—such eyes—entire lifetime passing before its head tilted up again. Everything had moved closer in the dusk, and the owl loosened itself from the tree, dropped forward and started away toward the woods.
Even the crows fell quiet, owl strong and straight to that deep blue of trees in the distance, long strokes of its wings as it went. The crows so black they shone—one by one they started to peel away after the owl, feathers hissing as they rowed into the distance. And she felt herself in a dream as they followed—a dream, she would have liked to dream—this strange dream where once upon a time an old woman emerged from a long dark wood. (The Architect of Flowers)
Lychack takes the tightly wound ball of yarn that is a memory, a worry, a childhood, a good deed gone wrong, the fanciful fable, and knits beautiful prose stories, just like the girl at the spinning wheel turning straw into gold. Here is an excerpt:
The birds were barking behind the gardens, calls so nagging and loud that she and the hybridizer circled around the porch to the sound. Past the gardens, past the green houses, and the crows weren’t even birds out in the trees. More like splashes of ink against the light. One swinging up and around as if on a string. Sunlight like lace over trees.
Caw, caw, caw.
Was hard to tell what the crows hated so much. No more than a handful of leaves. Some kind of squirrel’s nest in the branches. The hybridizer and his wife edging forward until they stood directly under the tree. Crows loud, then quiet, then loud again. A beehive, a clot of gypsy moths, the hybridizer and his wife trying to see, and then this pale mask swiveled around to them, face as sflat as a disk.
An owl!
She said it again—an owl—and the hair on her arms went electric. Those eyes just staring down. Tree so still it trembled. Bird smaller than she’d thought. Then the crows started up again. Perhaps they never stopped, loud and crass, harsh the way they hounded the poor thing. And all the while this face—such eyes—entire lifetime passing before its head tilted up again. Everything had moved closer in the dusk, and the owl loosened itself from the tree, dropped forward and started away toward the woods.
Even the crows fell quiet, owl strong and straight to that deep blue of trees in the distance, long strokes of its wings as it went. The crows so black they shone—one by one they started to peel away after the owl, feathers hissing as they rowed into the distance. And she felt herself in a dream as they followed—a dream, she would have liked to dream—this strange dream where once upon a time an old woman emerged from a long dark wood. (The Architect of Flowers)
May 1, 2012
When I first saw this book at the store, I had only picked it up because I liked the title. After I read the first few pages, I was glad I picked it up. These short stories are all ones with such simple storylines and simple characters, yet there is something so captivating about William Lychack's writing.
He is able to describe things in almost a dream-like detail. In the story, "Griswald", the first few paragraphs have such great descriptions of the place and people. Also in "Like a Demon", in the third paragraph he writes about how a man is looking off into the sunlight, but it seems almost movie-like. He uses these vivid descriptions, but still manages to find a balance of beleivable and relatable characters.
Overall, I am very happy that I came across this book because it not only was a great read, but it also gave me the ability to see how descriptions can be so vivid and real. I really enjoyed this boom an would definitely recommend it to a friend!
He is able to describe things in almost a dream-like detail. In the story, "Griswald", the first few paragraphs have such great descriptions of the place and people. Also in "Like a Demon", in the third paragraph he writes about how a man is looking off into the sunlight, but it seems almost movie-like. He uses these vivid descriptions, but still manages to find a balance of beleivable and relatable characters.
Overall, I am very happy that I came across this book because it not only was a great read, but it also gave me the ability to see how descriptions can be so vivid and real. I really enjoyed this boom an would definitely recommend it to a friend!
July 26, 2013
I tried to get into this book, I really did. All short story collections have some stories that are amazing and some that are lackluster - unfortunately, I didn't find many in this book that engaged me and none were amazing. Something about the author's style was a miss for me. I found the third person narratives didn't engage me at all and enjoyed the first person stories much more.
October 30, 2011
An amazing book. Startling imagery and insights, too.
It brought me to tears may times, but not a difficult read, by any means.
It brought me to tears may times, but not a difficult read, by any means.
July 18, 2011
Great collection of stories. Edgy and tight. Beautifully written.
January 11, 2019
Thirteen short stories in one small 161 page novel. I don't know what I was thinking when I purchased it a year ago; I'm not one for enjoying short stories. It must had been the pretty cover that drew me to it, because I know better.
The stories didn't cut it for me. I'm not one for enjoying excess amount of descriptions. When sentences ramble on, and get into a whole paragraph or two, or even a page, you've lost me. This is one such book like that. I'd rather just have a sentence or two and get on with what's going on.
As I read each story I kept thinking, when am I going to like one? Will I like any? Am I going to hate all of them? It wasn't until the sixth story that I thought, hey this could be it! But, the ending, the ending blew it for me. I was so disappointed and I hated it. And so I kept reading, and reading thinking, here I go again. It wasn't until the second last story that I found myself, once again, thinking, okay, I'm liking this one. I bet you can figure out how I was felt about the ending? If you guessed, disappointment again, you are correct! As far as the story via the name of the book, The Architect of Flower chapter, it wasn't even the longest chapter, and it made me think, why was that story chosen, because I think that was my most least liked chapter.
Every story was depressing and sad, and I was grateful that the stories were short and the book was short, because I was glad to be done with it.
The stories didn't cut it for me. I'm not one for enjoying excess amount of descriptions. When sentences ramble on, and get into a whole paragraph or two, or even a page, you've lost me. This is one such book like that. I'd rather just have a sentence or two and get on with what's going on.
As I read each story I kept thinking, when am I going to like one? Will I like any? Am I going to hate all of them? It wasn't until the sixth story that I thought, hey this could be it! But, the ending, the ending blew it for me. I was so disappointed and I hated it. And so I kept reading, and reading thinking, here I go again. It wasn't until the second last story that I found myself, once again, thinking, okay, I'm liking this one. I bet you can figure out how I was felt about the ending? If you guessed, disappointment again, you are correct! As far as the story via the name of the book, The Architect of Flower chapter, it wasn't even the longest chapter, and it made me think, why was that story chosen, because I think that was my most least liked chapter.
Every story was depressing and sad, and I was grateful that the stories were short and the book was short, because I was glad to be done with it.
January 16, 2017
This review will not do the stories justice. I can say something like what others have said: that they are dreamlike; that they bring together imagination and reality, loneliness and amazement; that they turn everyday life into a gilded labyrinth; that they stay with you long after the reading--but there is more. Many of the stories take place between life and death, where people revel, grieve, forget, remember, and surprise. Their loneliness is broken and rich; they speak to a crow, take to the sea, get thrillingly lost, and somehow find their way home.
To read the book is to go to Peoria: to take part in the characters' risks and visions; walk into their gardens and driveways and kitchens; speak, as they do, with the animals and invisible presences; and to lose, along with them, what they do and do not want to lose.
I found Lychack's work by accident: I was searching for something else and came upon "The Ghostwriter" online. I quickly got the book. My favorites, besides that first glorious find, are "Stolpestad," "The Architect of Flowers," "Love Is a Temper," "The Old Woman and Her Thief," and "To the Farm." I look forward to rereading the collection (many times) and seeing where the author goes from here.
To read the book is to go to Peoria: to take part in the characters' risks and visions; walk into their gardens and driveways and kitchens; speak, as they do, with the animals and invisible presences; and to lose, along with them, what they do and do not want to lose.
I found Lychack's work by accident: I was searching for something else and came upon "The Ghostwriter" online. I quickly got the book. My favorites, besides that first glorious find, are "Stolpestad," "The Architect of Flowers," "Love Is a Temper," "The Old Woman and Her Thief," and "To the Farm." I look forward to rereading the collection (many times) and seeing where the author goes from here.
November 5, 2020
When I searched about this book in Goodreads, I found mixed reviews about it while I was already so invested in its cover (yeah this was a cover buy) but eventually it was surprisingly a hidden gem. I understand if some readers don’t really grasp the whole picture or can relate to the writing style or the plot because to be honest, I also found myself questioning if I really like this book since it’s unusual. It’s not like character driven short stories where we can be sure how the characters develop throughout the plot. This book is more like a collection of random images of our everyday life put together to show both sides of our life, the mundane ordinary and brutal truths. From a story of a police officer who has to put an end to a dog’s dying life, a pregnant woman who raises a dozen of baby chickens and an old woman who trains a crow to steal for her. Despite of its strange plots, this book is beautifully and gracefully written.
June 9, 2019
The signature narrative style of this book--long fragments of spoken-sounding lyricism--is thrilling to read, and even though the technique (you'll notice it from paragraph one) is used frequently throughout, it doesn't get old. The first few stories do an excellent job of balancing this stylistic beauty with gripping (and funny, in the case of Chicken and Ghostwriter) narrative and storytelling. A few stories in the middle let up on the idea of "making something happen" and sort of spiral into navel gazing. So, it gets spotty. But there were enough fantastic pieces in this to make me very happy to have come across this book.
Favs: Stolpestad, Chickens, Ghostwriter, Hawkins, Like a Demon, The Old Woman and her Thief
Un-favs: Stand of Fables, Calvalry, Love is a Temper
Favs: Stolpestad, Chickens, Ghostwriter, Hawkins, Like a Demon, The Old Woman and her Thief
Un-favs: Stand of Fables, Calvalry, Love is a Temper
August 22, 2022
December 21, 2020: Today is Celebrate Short Fiction Day, a time to honor and enjoy short stories of all kinds, as well as the writers who create them. It’s also the first day of winter (winter solstice) and the shortest day of the year — the perfect opportunity to embrace the early sunset and curl up with a short story (or two, or three!). The Architect of Flowers by William Lychack is one of our favorite short story collections. This poignant, breathtaking collection includes 13 stories that explore individual struggles, familial relationships, and the nuances of human behavior. Available through Hoopla (e-book).
October 2, 2024
This book was gifted to me by my mother, whom I hold very near and dear to my heart. I did not know what to expect but when I opened this book and indulged in these pages but it was magnificent. That is why I can say with my whole heart, even my whole being if you shall, this is the greatest gift my mother has ever given me, aside from my own life. To all the haters (you know who you are) you don’t know what you speak of. Your cruel words punctured my heart and took away the last breath of happiness in my body!! Please reconsider your foul and unkind words. Thank you.
November 26, 2017
A few of the stories honestly fell a bit short for me but I found the rest of them to be beautifully written. The author presents an innovative voice to the realm of popular fiction and I admire his writing style.
December 24, 2021
Maybe short stories arent for me.
December 8, 2025
Beautiful collection of short stories that are so real and intimate for every day life as humans. I definitely had some favorites over some, lots of creativity inside some of these short stories!
March 15, 2017
Lovely short stories for those quick reading days.
February 22, 2017
The Architect of Flowers by William Lychack (2011)
May 21, 2011
This book of short stories really is one of the most lyrically pleasing collections of prose I've read in a long time. Though I'm not sure Lychak's style is all that varied, or even always rooted in the stories he tells, he writes beautiful sentences and layers them one after the other into this mood of disappointed reminiscence.
The stories here are, to a surprising degree, haunted by parental death. Or at least that's how I'm reading it-- it might be something grander, the end of one world and the reluctant embrace of the next by those who remain, but it's easier to say it's about mom or dad dying. This situation, of an older person dying, recurs in nearly all of the stories, unless it is subtly shifted in another direction: the death of a child this time, or the death of two elderly parents, one at a time. And I'm not sure I always understood what Lychak was saying about the characters, or the subject-- instead, the sentences conjure that mood I mentioned without, at least in a way I could discern, revealing much beyond that narrative ground.
It's an intriguing collection to read-- there's a lot going on here that's weird and spooky, and occasional stories are even funny, deliberately and successfully so. But I felt like any one paragraph contains everything that is good in the book-- a strange, otherworldly language that casts an odd pall over me as a reader, without actually showing me something I recognize.
The stories here are, to a surprising degree, haunted by parental death. Or at least that's how I'm reading it-- it might be something grander, the end of one world and the reluctant embrace of the next by those who remain, but it's easier to say it's about mom or dad dying. This situation, of an older person dying, recurs in nearly all of the stories, unless it is subtly shifted in another direction: the death of a child this time, or the death of two elderly parents, one at a time. And I'm not sure I always understood what Lychak was saying about the characters, or the subject-- instead, the sentences conjure that mood I mentioned without, at least in a way I could discern, revealing much beyond that narrative ground.
It's an intriguing collection to read-- there's a lot going on here that's weird and spooky, and occasional stories are even funny, deliberately and successfully so. But I felt like any one paragraph contains everything that is good in the book-- a strange, otherworldly language that casts an odd pall over me as a reader, without actually showing me something I recognize.
June 18, 2011
It's fairly recent that I've become a short stories lover. Deborah Willis' Vanishing and Other Stories converted me and I've been on the lookout for other collections that would wow me as much as that book did.
While Lychack's collection in The Architect of Flowers didn't quite do that, it still impressed me. There were a few stories in this collection that had me gasping at the beauty, laughing at the turn of bad luck involving a set of chicks and crying with sorrow at the circumstances surrounding everything from a dog's death to the premature death of a husband.
I found Lychack's writing to be gorgeous and what I've come to expect of well-written short stories. It continues to amaze me that so much information, backstory, character development and life can be infused into so few pages. It's like sitting down in the middle of a movie for one scene, but not feeling as if you have missed anything by not seeing the beginning of the end - or nothing worth seeing because you were given the heart of the story right then and there.
Put this on your list if you enjoy short stories. You won't be disappointed (and I'd love to talk with you about them too!)
While Lychack's collection in The Architect of Flowers didn't quite do that, it still impressed me. There were a few stories in this collection that had me gasping at the beauty, laughing at the turn of bad luck involving a set of chicks and crying with sorrow at the circumstances surrounding everything from a dog's death to the premature death of a husband.
I found Lychack's writing to be gorgeous and what I've come to expect of well-written short stories. It continues to amaze me that so much information, backstory, character development and life can be infused into so few pages. It's like sitting down in the middle of a movie for one scene, but not feeling as if you have missed anything by not seeing the beginning of the end - or nothing worth seeing because you were given the heart of the story right then and there.
Put this on your list if you enjoy short stories. You won't be disappointed (and I'd love to talk with you about them too!)
January 3, 2015
I've adored, and devoured this book of novels.
My love for novels is growing from almost nothing to big things, Lychack is part of the process.
His characters are profoundly human, they have resonated in my heart though I'm not aware or keen to know the exact feelings of some of the situations his characters evolve through.
I worried for them while following their stream of consciousness and their memories.
It is a beautiful collection of novels, I know it would be one of the few unique books I'd carry with me through my life.
Thank you Mr.Lychack, I can't wait to discover your Wasp-Eater.
My love for novels is growing from almost nothing to big things, Lychack is part of the process.
His characters are profoundly human, they have resonated in my heart though I'm not aware or keen to know the exact feelings of some of the situations his characters evolve through.
I worried for them while following their stream of consciousness and their memories.
It is a beautiful collection of novels, I know it would be one of the few unique books I'd carry with me through my life.
Thank you Mr.Lychack, I can't wait to discover your Wasp-Eater.
November 26, 2010
I Review William Lychack’s “Architect of Flowers” in the March 26 Boston Globe.
Poetic writing drives the best stories in Lychack’s first collection: Thirteen stories, two of which were collected in the Best American Short Stories and the Pushcart anthologies. These tales of sometimes anonymous middle-class New Englanders read like vignettes or character studies; others are full-blown stories.
http://josephpeschel.com/HaveWords/?p...
--Joe
Poetic writing drives the best stories in Lychack’s first collection: Thirteen stories, two of which were collected in the Best American Short Stories and the Pushcart anthologies. These tales of sometimes anonymous middle-class New Englanders read like vignettes or character studies; others are full-blown stories.
http://josephpeschel.com/HaveWords/?p...
--Joe
July 4, 2012
Though a few of the stories in this collection missed for me, I can't help but marvel at the way Lychack uses language and point of view. Of particular interest to me are the opening sentences of each story. Lychack thrusts readers into the story in ways I've never really seen. Stylistically speaking, Lychack reminds me a little of Darrell Spencer and Jack Driscoll, though the content of each writer's stories are quite different.
Good stuff.
Good stuff.
December 3, 2019
This book was amazing; the writing is powerful, emotive, thoughtful, and gripping. "The Wasp Eater" is written in this same stunningly masterful style, and though the content of these short stories deeply disturbed and upset me at times, this further evidenced how completely effected by and drawn into it I was.
November 1, 2011
I picked up this book on a whim, with the intention of just reading one story and then never seeing it again, but I couldn't put it down. The stories are only vaguely related, with the general theme of broken relationships and atypical love. While some are sad, some are nostalgic, and some have hint of humor, they are all beautifully written.
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