Guest Post: Chris Heavener: A Sentence About a Sentence I Love
“Dim eyes down the length of the bar swivel in our direction, the ripple effect of their cattle-prodded curiosity is like an old television warming up, weird distortions yielding to something banal and dull.”
–From the story “The Eggman,” by Jim Ruland.
I’m reading Jim’s story collection Big Lonesome right now and I’m really impressed by his voice (this strange cocktail of hard-boiled pulp and surfer sage that straddles generations and genres) which, for some weird reason, makes you trust that he’s going to take you on an interesting ride and possibly show you something special that you haven’t seen before.
John Madera is the author of Nervosities (Anti-Oedipus Press, 2024). His other fiction is published in Conjunctions, Salt Hill, The &Now Awards 2: The Best Innovative Writing, and many other journals. His nonfiction is published in American Book Review, Bookforum, The Review of Contemporary Fiction, Rain Taxi: Review of Books, The Believer, The Brooklyn Rail, and many other venues. Recipient of an M.F.A. in Literary Arts from Brown University, New York State Council on the Arts awardee John Madera lives in New York City, Rhizomatic and manages and edits Big Other.
Jim Ruland is a beast!