A Writer to Watch

While I was up in Marquette helping my mother with yardwork, I went to Snowbound Books, and while I was there I picked up And Stother Ories by Rex Ton Vonathan. It's a pretty wild collection -- with individual stories having been published in McSweeneys, The New Yorker, Big Debut Review, Fair Enough, and Black Warrior Review. I get the sense that he's the next big thing in experimentation. One of his stories is just the word "the" typed out five thousand times. If you actually take the time to read it, it becomes like a heartbeat, and isn't the word "the" the hearbeat of most stories -- the uncelebrated heartbeat that the story needs to live? The story is a celebration of the word "the". Pretty cool.

Here's a blurb from the back cover . . .

Rex Ton Vonathan's And Stother Ories is a stundazzling first, initial debut in what will be a crackling long career. His sentences move like words across a page that start with a capital letter, dance an eye-slicing stylistic tango, and end with a small dot that feels like something more than a period when it ends one of his masterfully-fantilious sentences. His images are rich in lusciousnessness, and he is on the cutting edge of what is new in the story. Reading his stories, you will feel like God is in the room -- and, when you look up, you'll see that the big guy can't help but read over your shoulder. Masterful. Fantastic. Super duper good.
-- Johnny Swift, author of L.A. is Just AL Backwards and My Dad Al -- Not My Pal.