This is a collection of short fiction, long fiction and one play, whose title comes from an expression used by Mircea Eliade, an expert on (among many other things) yoga and shamanism.
Magic Sweat... More > is not without moments of fey humor, but it is mostly a troubling array of tilted viewpoints, tangled karma and slow learners that we see here, moving around at night and with purpose (if not direction).< Less
Did you manage to live through the Seventies? Did you start out your adult life in or near that dark and musically desolate decade as did young Nash DeRouge, the affable narrator of this (putatively)... More > fictional memoir? You might enjoy this book. Lyrics are prominently featured throughout, and it's obvious which authors this author loves most. Not "southern writing" but writing created in the southern U.S.< Less
This collection of poetry, songs and haibun is, as one perceptive reader put it, "like living a little while inside the author's head." The haibun is a relatively unknown literary form... More > which combines a brief block of prose with a haiku -- several included here were previously published elsewhere.< Less
Did you manage to live through the Seventies? Did you start out your (putative) adult life in that dark decade as did young Nash DeRouge, the affable narrator of this (putatively) fictional memoir?... More > You might enjoy this book.< Less
This is a collection of short fiction, long fiction and one play, whose title comes from an expression used by Mircea Eliade. We again encounter Nash, a character from the earlier "Beautiful... More > Illusions." Many trips are taken: a young, stricken preacher-criminal in “Seeing the Grey” takes off for a while with a latter-day dope-smoking obese man named Fingerwood, and Aiken in the opening “Ways Home” is subjected to a most unpleasant, yet somehow satisfyingly insane series of fugue-like movements as he festinates about. “Dipsocryptamnesia” documents the binge drinker’s DUI night and subsequent trials. “No Prozac For Hamlet” explores the connections between fathers and sons, madness and pretense, as seen on stage and presented by a media shill.
Magic Sweat is not without moments of fey humor, but it is a troubling array of tilted viewpoints, tangled karma and slow learners that we see here, moving around at night and with purpose (if not direction).< Less
