Monday, July 25, 2011

A Great review of Monkeybicycle8 and "Donald Mason"


The Review Review just added their stamp of approval for the inventive, experimental, and quirky writing found in Monkeybicycle8. Lynn Holmgren wrote the review and gushes about the great fiction in this issue. The Review Review singles out stories by Ben Nickol and Scott Geiger, as well as my story, "Donald Mason's City Inspection and the Stakeout Standoff."

You can read the whole review here, but I'll post the bits about my work below:

"Meet Donald Mason: one overgrown Papa Gino’s employee brazenly standing up for autonomy and his slice of the American dream: his un-shoveled winter sidewalk. The plot thickens faster than the ice as Donald Mason nurses whiskey/Cokes and fingers the closed blinds at his stakeout post, waiting to confront his unsuspecting ex-technical college classmate turned city official: 'Now it’s just a matter of time, like Dan and I are caught in a two-man tug-of-war and within the day one of us will be singing the blues and Dan is essentially Napoleon sending his troops to Russia at the height of winter…'

When Donald Mason’s power play inevitably erupts in his own face, it seems like enough fall to send even the biggest of hubris’ home with tail between legs, but author Blake Kimzey hits pitch perfect by having Mason resurrect his battle with even more confidence and scathing humor: 'I hold the red notice and turn it over in my hands. I picture Dan Lowery watching me from some barely camouflaged location just down the street, maybe eating pita and listening to “Eat, Pray, Love” on tape. I resist the urge to scan the neighborhood. That’s what he’d want.' With Donald Mason, Kimzey manages to capture small town pride and paranoia in a delightfully original voice."

Thanks again to Monkeybicycle for publishing my work, and to The Review Review for reading the issue and reviewing it for the masses.

If you love great fiction, and I know you do, you can pick up your copy of Monkeybicycle8 here.

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