Fourteen Stories, None of Them Are Yours
A Novel
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5.0 • 2 Ratings
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
In this dazzling debut about life after loss, Luke B. Goebel’s heart-hurt, ultra-adrenalized alter ego leads us on a raucous RV romp across what’s left of postmodern America and beyond. Whether it’s gobbling magic cacti at a native ceremony in Northern California, burning bad manuscripts in a backyard bonfire in East Texas, or travelling at top speed to an infamous editor’s office in Manhattan (with a burnt-out barista and an illegal bald eagle as companions), scene by scene, story by story, Goebel plunges us into a madly original fictional realm characterized by heartbroken psychedelic cowboys on the brink—onely men who wrestle wild dogs on cheap beaches and kick horses in the face to get ahead.
Fourteen Stories, None of Them Are Yours is a rare book: Goebel’s ingenuity, humanity, and humor streak through every page.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Here's what we know about the narrator of the 14 stories that make up Goebel's debut: he's a Catholic boy from Ohio who moved to East Texas. He has a dog named Jewely, loves a woman named Catherine, and has lost a brother named Carl. The stories are raw footage of life in clever, contemporary idiom in which thoughts and feelings spill out onto the page uncurated. Goebel is clearly a very talented writer, and his experiment in this collection is noble. We know his narrator misses his beloved brother, "with a laugh like Christmas was today," but we catch such disparate glimpses of the rest of his life snatches of memories of his love affair with Catherine (in the story "Boot of the Boot"), strange stories involving an eagle's feather ("The Adventures of Eagle Feather"), or a fierce man with half a hand ("Apache") that nothing else much adds up. Even if the sum of this character's parts is compelling, there is in the end only a snappy voice-over, not a whole being to know or love.
