Fondly

In two artfully crafted novellas, Colin Winnette offers a sly and sinister portrayal of lineage and loss, and the roles we all play in writing our own family history. Written in a seamless, entrancing style, Gainesville follows the twisted branches of a restless family tree in a small Texas town. As tragedy strikes each generation in a slightly skewed fashion, what remains is the relentless passage of time toward an eerily familiar pattern. In One Story, The Two Sisters is woven from an array of beautifully haunting short stories. It details the lives of two sisters, both cast as wildly imaginative entities, each more bizarre than the next. Winnette joyfully plays with life forms as he presents the sisters as (1) an olive at the bottom of a dirty martini; (2) Shel Silverstein; (3) transoceanic swimmers, and so on. The result is an entertaining, skillful meditation on art, love, family, the creative impulse, and what can and cannot be communicated in a single story, or a single life.

Colin Winnette is the author of two previous books, "Revelation" and "Animal Collection." He lives in San Francisco.