Customer Reviews

Tell Borges If You See Him: Tales of Contemporary Somnambulism (Flannery O'Connor Award for Short Fiction) (Flannery O'Connor Award for Short Fiction)

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Here is a worthy heir to the Borgesian ideal of the elliptical, tantalizing narrative that unwinds along unexpected paths to achieve sometimes shocking, sometimes unbalancing, always breathtaking conclusions. I read these stories in sequence, each one building on the previous one, until together they achieved a tapestry of mystery and wonder. While La Salle clearly wants to follow Borges's tracks, he manages at the same time to create a personal, naturalistic springboard that surprises the reader with a uniquely contemporary vision. In the process, La Salle unleashes a torrent of language and imagery that builds with an almost symphonic power. This is the short story unfettered from formulas, in a voice that invites the reader to shed notions of comfort and expectation in order to enter a more perfect disorder -- a driven narrative that flirts with chaos, but delivers in the end a gentle, graceful landing.