Fast Machine

Fiction. The stories in FAST MACHINE come in three sizes: flash, regular, and too-long-for-journal-publication. Some were previously published. Some are brand-spanking new. The opening story, "State Liquor," concerns a twenty-five-year-old woman and her eighteen-year-old husband trying to buy alcohol on their way to their strip mall jobs, the afternoon of their wedding. In "Fistful," a pregnant teenager gets revenge on the young man who both impregnated and beat her, before leaving town with another man. In "Habitrail," a woman returns home after the death of her father, to find her husband in communication with the television set and a god he calls Chaos, rather than her. There are over ninety stories in this collection. Repeated themes include: driving, smoking, teenagers, drinking, escape, the Midwest, masturbation, self-loathing, blood and loneliness.

Elizabeth Ellen is the author of the novel PERSON/A, the story collections SAUL STORIES and FAST MACHINE, and the poetry collections Elizabeth Ellen and Bridget Fonda. She is the recipient of a Pushcart Prize, is a deputy editor at Hobart, and lives in Ann Arbor.