It's always a good sign when a writer goes five to ten years between publishing because it usually means he or she is obsessively vetting the manuscript. I recently discovered Brad Watson, who is from Mississippi. Like Larry Brown, Flannery O'Connor, Faulkner and Cormac McCarthy, Watson seems genetically inlaid with the same southern tradition of overpowering language to describe the life and death of everything around us. I've just finished reading "The Last Days of the Dogmen," which is a 140 page short story collection about people and their dogs. Old people, young people, married people, and all the various breeds are here, and the way he entwines the canine world with our own is both heartbreaking and sincere. When a couple is in the process of divorcing, the wife does something unspeakable in order to hurt her husband, but instead just destroys them both. In another, an old woman is left with the dog after her husband is placed in a nursing home. But the dog is blind and becoming incontinent, so she cooks him a feast worthy of a king before taking him to the vet to be put to sleep. Each story is crafted and devastating in its own way. It's a quick read well worth your time
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AuthorTom Trabulsi was born in the Midwest, attended high school in Rhode Island, and graduated from Boston University with a degree in American History. He was a bike courier in Boston and New York City, worked construction in the mountain west and east coast, and is currently a firefighter in a northeast city. Archives
August 2022
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