The novella and the seven short stories that make up Okla Elliott's debut collection include a wide variety of characters and events. A disabled Iraq Veteran reconnects with his high school prom date. A grieving father examines his life after his daughter drowns. A psychologist attempts to write a memoir about a family member's neurological disorder. These and other tales of contemporary American life await readers of From the Crooked Timber.
From the Crooked Timber
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Review
"... a terrific variety of characters -- all of them credible, sympathetic, and complex, presented in Elliott's lean, compelling, breezy style." Thomas E. Kennedy, best-selling author of In the Company of Angels
"... an imagination such as his is one the culture would do well to hear." Jonathan Monroe, author of Demosthenes' Legacy and Professor of Comparative Literature at Cornell University
"What so galvanizes me about Okla Elliott's prickly fiction is his generous sympathy for and his cold-eyed honesty about the underclass, those at the margins for whom the American Dream is as much an elaborate hoax as it is a cruel joke." Lee K. Abbott, author of All Things, All at Once: New and Selected Stories
"Okla Elliott's work will thrill you. His characters are as real as your own family." Kelly Cherry, three-time winner of the PEN/Syndicated Fiction Award
"Darkly luminous. Bleakly beautiful." Duff Brenna, author of Too Cool (a New York Times Notable Book)
"...gritty and hard-edged in all the right ways." Lee Martin, Pulitzer Prize-finalist author of The Bright Forever
"... an imagination such as his is one the culture would do well to hear." Jonathan Monroe, author of Demosthenes' Legacy and Professor of Comparative Literature at Cornell University
"What so galvanizes me about Okla Elliott's prickly fiction is his generous sympathy for and his cold-eyed honesty about the underclass, those at the margins for whom the American Dream is as much an elaborate hoax as it is a cruel joke." Lee K. Abbott, author of All Things, All at Once: New and Selected Stories
"Okla Elliott's work will thrill you. His characters are as real as your own family." Kelly Cherry, three-time winner of the PEN/Syndicated Fiction Award
"Darkly luminous. Bleakly beautiful." Duff Brenna, author of Too Cool (a New York Times Notable Book)
"...gritty and hard-edged in all the right ways." Lee Martin, Pulitzer Prize-finalist author of The Bright Forever
About the Author
Okla Elliott is the Illinois Distinguished Fellow at the University of Illinois, where he works in the fields of comparative literature and trauma studies. He also holds an MFA from Ohio State University. His drama, nonfiction, poetry, short fiction, and translations have appeared in Another Chicago Magazine, Indiana Review, The Literary Review, Natural Bridge, New Letters, A Public Space, and The Southeast Review, among others. He is the author of three poetry chapbooks and is the co-editor, with Kyle Minor, of The Other Chekhov.
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More About the Author
OKLA ELLIOTT is the Illinois Distinguished Fellow at the University of Illinois, where he works in the fields of comparative literature and trauma studies. He also holds an MFA in creative writing from Ohio State University. His fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and translations have appeared in such literary journals as Another Chicago Magazine, Indiana Review, Jacket Magazine, The Literary Review, Natural Bridge, New Letters, North Dakota Quarterly, and A Public Space. He is the author of three poetry chapbooks -- The Mutable Wheel; Lucid Bodies and Other Poems; and A Vulgar Geography -- and is the co-editor, with Kyle Minor, of The Other Chekhov.
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
By jentheauthor
Format:Paperback
I loved these stories - especially They Live on the Water. The subject matter is grim and I didn't want to keep reading but couldn't stop. The writing holds you and makes you feel these characters' pain and what it means to live life in all its messy glory. As for the novella The Names of Distant Galaxies - I wished it wouldn't end. I could have read that story forever. Okla is one of a kind - both in his being and in his writing. Don't miss out!
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
Okla Elliott's debut short story collection is auspicious indeed. Elliott illuminates the inner lives and loves of everyday people, displaying a gift for the mesmerizing open and for wrapping up his stories with endings that are at once unexpected and inevitable.
"The Long Walk Home" employs a fascinating structure to communicate the whole of a veteran's short, eventful life. Reynolds has just returned from war missing far more than part of his leg. The man is working through the meaning of his existence along with the reader, all the while trying to uncover what it means to "come home."
Jasper, the protagonist of "The Queen of Limbo," is Carver-esque in his disconnection from the world and from himself. Jasper, a middle school math teacher, has lost his way and his wife when he gives a young woman a ride to the skate rink. Elliott communicates the wistfulness adults have for a simpler time, when the simple act of winning a limbo contest could bring happiness.
As a whole, the collection stands up to nearly any other and will very much appeal to fans of writers such as Raymond Carver, T.C. Boyle and Tom Perrotta.
"The Long Walk Home" employs a fascinating structure to communicate the whole of a veteran's short, eventful life. Reynolds has just returned from war missing far more than part of his leg. The man is working through the meaning of his existence along with the reader, all the while trying to uncover what it means to "come home."
Jasper, the protagonist of "The Queen of Limbo," is Carver-esque in his disconnection from the world and from himself. Jasper, a middle school math teacher, has lost his way and his wife when he gives a young woman a ride to the skate rink. Elliott communicates the wistfulness adults have for a simpler time, when the simple act of winning a limbo contest could bring happiness.
As a whole, the collection stands up to nearly any other and will very much appeal to fans of writers such as Raymond Carver, T.C. Boyle and Tom Perrotta.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
By T. Baughman
Format:Paperback
From The Crooked Timber is a debut collection consisting of a novella and seven stories by Okla Elliott. It is a uniformly fine collection of work that should be shelved alongside Robert Olmstead's River Dogs and The Stories of Breece Pancake.
Each of the stories are excellent in their own way, but several stand out as the jewels of the collection. "The Queen of Limbo" details the chance meeting of a divorced forty -something man with a young girl on her way to a skating rink. This encounter forces the man to reflect upon his life and his own shortcomings. In "They Live on the Water," a daughter's sudden death reveals to a couple the emptiness of middle-class comfort and the surprising strength of marriage. Finally, "The Kidnapping' reveals the depth of a son's love for a father whom society labels as a deficient parent.
"The Names of Distant Galaxies," the novella of the collection, is a sort of metafictional meditation by a young man on his relationship with his deceased stepmother. It is a stylistic tour-de-force seems to embody and unify all of the themes expressed in the previous stories.
In short, From The Crooked Timber is well-worth the reader's time and attention. Okla Elliott is a promising young writer and it will be fascinating to see how his writing develops.
Each of the stories are excellent in their own way, but several stand out as the jewels of the collection. "The Queen of Limbo" details the chance meeting of a divorced forty -something man with a young girl on her way to a skating rink. This encounter forces the man to reflect upon his life and his own shortcomings. In "They Live on the Water," a daughter's sudden death reveals to a couple the emptiness of middle-class comfort and the surprising strength of marriage. Finally, "The Kidnapping' reveals the depth of a son's love for a father whom society labels as a deficient parent.
"The Names of Distant Galaxies," the novella of the collection, is a sort of metafictional meditation by a young man on his relationship with his deceased stepmother. It is a stylistic tour-de-force seems to embody and unify all of the themes expressed in the previous stories.
In short, From The Crooked Timber is well-worth the reader's time and attention. Okla Elliott is a promising young writer and it will be fascinating to see how his writing develops.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
From the Crooked Timber
4 1/2. This was an extremely well composed collection--contemplative, subdued, pieced together of very real concerns, and (most notably) authentically rural, middle-class... Read more
Published 12 months ago by Kyle Muntz
5.0 out of 5 stars
Elliot's both a poet and a philosopher
I acquired a copy of Okla Elliot's collection a few months back, sat down to read it, and consumed it in a weekend. I only regret not cracking the spine sooner. Read more
Published 13 months ago by GirlWonders
5.0 out of 5 stars
Okla Elliott's Crooked Timber
Human confusion and a desperate need to love and be loved are the secret sharers of the lives pictured in the spare, clear-eyed language of From the Crooked Timber. Read more
Published 14 months ago by Duff Brenna
5.0 out of 5 stars
fantastic collection
Okla Elliott's collection covers a true range of emotion. These are characters who aren't sure where they're going but hope for somewhere as "here" isn't the best place to be. Read more
Published 15 months ago by Brent Allard
5.0 out of 5 stars
A truly excellent read...
Okla Elliott's _From the Crooked Timber_ had me hooked with the first story, "The Queen of Limbo," in which a man with a drinking problem befriends a little girl at a skating rink... Read more
Published 15 months ago by Shaindel Beers
5.0 out of 5 stars
A great read to begin the New Year!
Yesterday I finished reading FROM THE CROOKED TIMBER by Okla Elliott. This morning, I reread "The Names of Distant Galaxies"--the most engaging, most challenging, most ambitious... Read more
Published 16 months ago by R. C. Petersen
5.0 out of 5 stars
Pessimistic yet deeply satisfying
Okla Elliott's debut book of stories takes its title from Immanuel Kant: "From the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing can ever be made," an aphorism which one can... Read more
Published 16 months ago by Eric Kroczek
5.0 out of 5 stars
Random Outcomes
From the Crooked Timber, Okla Elliott's first collection of stories, can only add to his stature as an up and coming writer and intellectual of the highest caliber. Read more
Published 16 months ago by William T. Pancoast
