Showing results by author "Kevin Brockmeier" in All Categories

By turns funny, moving, romantic and surreal, and filled with unexpected twists and turns, each of the tales on this lineup has a magical element.

A spirit who appears in a law firm reliving the exact moment she lost her chance at love, a man haunted by the trees cut down to build his house, nefarious specters that snatch anyone who steps into the shadows in which they live, and parakeets that serve as mouthpieces for the dead - these are just a few of the characters Kevin Brockmeier presents in this extraordinary compendium of spectral emanations and their wildly various purposes in (after) life.

All residents of the City have recently died, and they will remain in the City only as long as someone still living on Earth remembers them. On Earth, however, the population has been devastated by a terrible pandemic. Laura Byrd, isolated at an Antarctic research station, may be the only person to have survived the pandemic. But she's running out of time and supplies, and her memories are fading.

Author Kevin Brockmeier counts the O. Henry Prize among the many accolades his speculative fiction has earned. In The Illumination he offers “an inspiring take on suffering and the often fleeting nature of connection” ( Publishers Weekly, starred review). When physical pain suddenly manifests itself as shining light, the wounded nature of humanity is revealed.

Kevin Brockmeier draws you in with poetic prose that paints a picture of beauty and purity, and becomes a part of a love story that tests the boundaries of morality without ever quite crossing them.

A Few Seconds of Radiant Filmstrip follows 12-year-old Kevin Brockmeier over the course of a single school year as he sets out in search of himself: losing old friends and gaining new ones, happening into his first kiss, writing plays and stories, dressing as Dolly Parton for Halloween, booby-trapping his lunch to deter a thief. With the same deep feeling and oddly dreamlike precision that are the hallmarks of his fiction, Brockmeier now explores the dream of his own past.