The Story of How All Animals Are Equal & Other Tales, by Matt Runkle
A diverse compendium of imaginative flights—into fantasy, science fiction, realism, techno-politics, mythology, and the surreal—The Story of How All Animals Are Equal & Other Tales introduces Matt Runkle as a fearless writer allergic to boring sentences. Driven by fascinating characters and the technical and lyrical possibilities of language, these stories share an overt kinship with Donald Barthelme and Aimee Bender in their playfulness and scope, yet there’s an inquisitiveness in the various twists and turns that reminds one of John Ashbery, and at times, when certain dark undercurrents break the surface, Paul Bowles. Runkle has the uncanny ability to extract meaningful psychological drama from absurd situations, which he serves to the reader with a dash of dark humor and wit.
Animals Are Equal
& Other Tales
by Matt Runkle
Pub Date: December 1, 2014
158 pages
ISBN-13: 978-1-936767-26-7
Print: $15.95
eBook: $9.99
Pleiades:
“Runkle proves to be a fearless proponent of imaginative power and willingness to push boundaries.”
Heavy Feather Review:
“The images, in addition to the sentences, are crystalline, pretty, and border on bizarre. On the sentence level, readers will be driven forward by language that feels like one of Runkle’s texturized collages.”
Pank:
“[T]he stories I enjoyed most were ones that broke my heart, that showed me something about the strangeness of being human.”
Foreword:
“Runkle has a gift for delicately crafted prose, and there are passages that read so exquisitely that they are worth the price of the book in themselves.”
Kirkus Reviews:
“Runkle excels at openings, delicately placing the reader into even the most absurd scenarios with only a few words. . . . [H]ighly imaginative and uncanny . . . these stories, however, are told with fresh, stunning language. Runkle creates an array of worlds that will at different times surprise, confuse and entertain.”
Interview with Michelle Embree:
“This collection is striking. I am taken with the use of language– it is almost as if any word could have a double meaning in these stories and that expands to the sentences and the characters.”
MATT RUNKLE is a writer, cartoonist, book artist, and letterpress printer. His short fiction collection, The Story of How All Animals Are Equal & Other Tales, was published in 2014 by Brooklyn Arts Press. He has read and performed at spaces including Prairie Lights Bookstore, Unnameable Books, and Headlands Center for the Arts. His limited-edition artist book, Catholics, is held in permanent collections at the Library of Congress, the Newberry Library, Virginia Commonwealth University, and others. Recent zines include (Great) Catholics no. 1, which adapts and evolves material from the artist book, and DISH!: In Defense of Vicious Gossip. He has taught at venues including San Francisco Center for the Book, University of Iowa Center for the Book, University of Nevada–Reno, and Penland School of Crafts. His workshops often incorporate letterpress, zines, comics, sequential collage, and other modes of writing for visual and material genres.
Photograph by Barry Phipps.
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