The next review is in, by Susan Russo Anderson. You can click here to read it. Here’s my fave snippet:
Themes of the achingly sad “The Third Pile” include love and friendship, surviving loss and grief. I thought I’d read it all when it comes to grief, but I hadn’t met Brosky’s storytelling, his way with words and imagery—the ‘almosting’ of his prose, the slight withholding nature of it, the significant but seemingly minor detail in the lives of his characters held up to the light and examined. Most of all, I hadn’t met the possum in “The Third Pile,” I’m not going to give away the scene. You’ll have to read it for yourself, and I urge you to do so. In the opinion of this reviewer, the story is a masterpiece.
It’s nice to know someone else likes that possum. I really liked writing about that possum. I feel vindicated in a way. Thank you, Susan, for putting so much time into this.
I won’t spoil the rest of the review, but I’ll just say this: the review is good. Scary good. Very nice. Nice enough that today, I allowed myself fifteen wonderful minutes of fantasy in which I pictured myself having sold some wild number of books. I’ve noticed recently that in these fantasies, I’m always wearing one of my really nice shirts my girlfriend picked out. It’s the same shirt I wore to my interview with a local Madison newspaper reporter. It’s really just a nice shirt.
One small note: when I sent this review copy out, it didn’t yet have the wonderful cover designed by Chris Smith. The cover referred to in this review was indeed ugly, and I’m thankful that it no longer exists on this planet.
