Country: USA/UK/Canada
Genre: Crime/Horror/Fantasy
Pages: 187 kb (eOriginal)
Order BURNING BRIDGES here
I grabbed the kid when he came out of Sal's Tavern in Boston. It was easy enough to do; two a.m. after a night of heavy drinking would dull anyone's reflexes. Plus, I knew the punk suffered from the incurable disease afflicting nineteen year old tough guys everywhere: he thought he was invincible.
He was wrong. (DEAD WEIGHT, A.Leverone)
Earlier this year, a certain group of authors got burned doing business with a certain indie publisher with unprofessional work habits. I'm not going to name and point fingers, because the short story collection BURNING BRIDGES: A RENEGADE FICTION ANTHOLOGY never does, but most of you will remember the players in this scandal. Cult author Heath Lowrance decided to turn all that negative energy into something constructive and mark this new beginning. He invited every author that got burned by "the said publisher" to submit a story. Since then, most of the authors have fell back to their feet, found other publishers or self-published their titles over, mostly to better results. But they left their old boss a parting gift. A short story collection that parts ways with the old ties in all sorts of ways. The bridges get burned again and again and again...
Burning Bridges is a fun concept. Take something your parents told you never to do and turn it into something life-affirming. The authors of BURNING BRIDGES: A RENEGADE FICTION ANTHOLOGY do a great job exploring the broad scope of the theme. It starts with Allan Leverone's DEAD WEIGHT, which is one of the best and most literal stories in the collection. Leverone impressed me in Paul D. Brazill's DRUNK ON THE MOON, but here, he damn near steals the show with his story of a scorned father, narrated in the first person, but who's actions always betray his irritation and psychological exhaustion more than his speech would. Leverone keeps you on your toes, because what you read and what his main character tells you isn't the same at all.
Three other stories stood out to me, all for different reasons. Heath Lowrance's A FREEWAY ON EARTH, is spectacular and fun, but treats of the idea of "burning bridges" in a lot more intimate way. His character doesn't exactly break free, more than he lets go of what doesn't matter. Julia Madeleine wrote a touching story that goes just a few lines too long. She went for a twist that didn't really worked for me, as the tragic elegance of her story worked just fine beforehand. Once again, she "burned bridges" in a way that had nothing to do with how Lowrance and Leverone did it. But the unsung star of this book is George S. Geisinger, who I had no idea existed, before I read his story ASYLUM. In a few pages only, he crafted an intriguing and seducing character, who's given the task to part with a big chunk of his life. It was my favorite story overall, one of the most complete, dense shorts I've read so far this year. I would've taken a 400 pages novel of that character.
The night is for sleeping, at least for most people. Some few know the night, like some few know the rain and the snow. There are homeless people walking around the streets all over America, all hours of day and night, all across the nation, who know more about the hardships of life than they know about anything else. They are the street people. (ASYLUM, G. Geisigner)
I could give you many reasons to buy BURNING BRIDGES: A RENEGADE FICTION ANTHOLOGY, but the best one is probably that all the anthology profits are going to Literacy for Incarcerated Teens. Literally, you're paying to help troubled youth to burn bridges with their past and build a better future for themselves. It's cheap, there are many great stories (the Brazill, Maxwell, McDroll, Sobieck, Vera,, all turn in some quality stuff) and you're paying for something that practices what it preaches, so it's hard not to like it. There were stories I flat out didn't get, but the fun thing with a short story collection is that there's a new beginning every ten pages or so. When true professionals part way with a problem, something cool like BURNING BRIDGES happens. Pick it up, there is a lot of bang for your buck in there.
THREE STARS