“How rare, how wonderful, when a book arrives with the ambition and desire of this one, such a complete set of interests, fully lacking the pitfalls and pratfalls which typically characterize its innovative ilk. The work is animate in its aims, pressing you to go on. Speaking as someone who has seen what it can do, I’d suggest you do as it says.”
—Amelia Gray, author of Isadora, Gutshot, and Museum of the Weird
Excerpt from A Brief Alphabet of Torture
Thighs of Nymphs
Sexual Dogs
Colon
The Bald Sparrow
Winter Rose
The Watermelon Body
“Donald Barthelme said that he wanted to be on the leading edge of the junk phenomenon, and with these exquisite effervescent, eviscerating fictions of A Brief Alphabet of Torture, Vi Khi Nao is out there with him, whittling away at the whole anatomic nominative scrapheap of our layered and laminated lexicon. Edgy, you bet! These pieces are elaborate piecework—perforated, whip stitched, and distressed field-dressed dissections of language. Tortured? Maybe. But lusciously junked and juxtaposed, turned inside out and every which way but…No, in every way they make way. These tales tax and tantalize, a taxidermy of turnt transcendence.”—Michael Martone, author of Michael Martone and Winesburg, Indiana