Sunday, February 21, 2010

Pg. 69: Justin Taylor's "Everything Here Is the Best Thing Ever"

Today's feature at the Page 69 Test: Everything Here Is the Best Thing Ever: Stories by Justin Taylor.

About the book, from the publisher:
Each story in this crystalline, spare, oddly moving collection cuts to the quick. Taylor′s characters are guided by delusions and misapprehensions that quickly bring them to impasses with reality. Moving through this collection the reader will meet a young man who has reasoned away certain boundaries in relation to his budding, girl cousin; a high schooler whose desire to win back his crush leads him to experiment with goth magic; a man whose girlfriend is stolen by angels; and a Tetris player who, as the advancing white wall of the Apocalypse slowly churns up his driveway, decides that Death is a kindness.

Fearless and funny, Taylor imagines this and more, in a collection that paints a dark picture of his generation -- one that is upwardly mobile yet adrift, fumbling for connection but hopelessly self-involved. And it′s all held together by a thread of wounding humor and candid storytelling that marks Taylor as a distinct and emerging literary talent.
Read "Tennessee," a story from Everything Here, at Fifty-two Stories, and learn more about the book and author at Justin Taylor's website.

Writers Read: Justin Taylor.

The Page 69 Test: Everything Here Is the Best Thing Ever.

--Marshal Zeringue