Public Works: Short Fiction and a Novella

By Christopher Grimes

The short fictions collected in Public Works explore the extremes of human nature and literary technique. From the manic, single-sentence fiction "Public Sentence" to the carefully structured and plot-twisting "We Stand Here, Swinging Cats," Grimes' stories have an idiosyncratic and associative quality-nothing follows predictably from anything, and beginnings never foreshadow ends. While reading, one has the sense that, despite recognizable voices and themes, this imagination seems alien, as though divvying up and parceling out the world by its own rules. In "Glue Trap," a one-legged shopkeeper offers expert instruction in the art of one-on-one combat with a rat. In "Making Love: a Translation," the stream of consciousness creates a fiction as simple as Hemingway, as wistful and dissociative as Julio Cortazar. Ultimately, Grimes' stories question the grids and schemas we impose on "reality." His is a formal defiance of the tyranny of traditional narrative, expressed with a thematic daring that moves between the contemplation of ordinary buckets and high art.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1573661244
• ISBN13: 9781573661249
• Release Date: October 2005
• Publisher: F2c
• Length: 177 Pages
• Weight: 0.60 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.9" x 8.4"

Customer Reviews

Amazing!

This book is absolutely amazing on every level. I don't know how Grimes does it, but these stories are innovative, edgy, funny, sorrowful, humane, everything all at once. And his sentences are really beautifully well crafted. He's a writer's writer for sure. I mean in tone, concept, execution and pacing, these stories are absolutely original. I honestly can't think of anyone to compare him with. Do yourself a favor and buy this book!

Metafiction got soul

Public Works tests the boundaries of fiction while remaining readable and affecting. The short pieces herein never stop commenting on themselves or on us. Grimes' writing is consistently hilarious and compelling.