Beautiful Blemish - Softcover

Kevin Sampsell

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0972820086 ISBN 13: 9780972820080

Publisher: Word Riot Press, 2005

Synopsis

Kevin Sampsell likes secrets. In the short story collection Beautiful Blemish, Sampsell dives deep into the human psyche to reveal the layers of secret desire, loneliness and hope buried in our hearts. The stories in Beautiful Blemish display an American voice that mixes humor, experimentation, and unflinching pathos to full effect.

About this title

About the Author

Kevin Sampsell is the publisher of the influential micro-press, Future Tense Books, in Portland, Oregon. His work has been published widely in magazines and on the internet. He is also the editor of The Insomniac Reader: Stories of the Night (Manic D Press) and the author of many small books such as A Common Pornography, Etiquette For Evil, and The Patricia Letters.

Reviews

Sampsell, editor of The Insomniac Reader and publisher of fringe fiction at "micro-press" Future Tense Books, concocts a diverse, convincing world of romantic perversion governed by impulses at turns whimsical, hilarious and cryptic in a slim collection of very short stories ranging from one to 11 pages. In the title story, an elderly couple engages in bizarre sexual congress involving Magic Markers and extreme dirty talk, only to end their romp on a note of piquant tenderness. In "Gloves," a man collects lost gloves from the street and vainly looks for ways to give them away. In "The Plant," a man casually mourns his "inept nurturing" of the plant in his care and his own frustrated self. Sampsell's prose ranges from taut to indifferent, bearing occasional whiffs of Charles Bukowski and Richard Brautigan, as well as Chris Ware and Dan Clowes, and his stories are full of horniness and wonder, morbid speculation and strange coincidence. For readers with tastes that range outside the mainstream, this is a gem of warmhearted idiosyncrasy and oddball observation. (Apr. 30)

Edition details

• Publisher: Word Riot Press
• Publication date: 2005
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0972820086
• ISBN 13: 9780972820080
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 100