Controlled Burn

Just finished Scott Wolven's collection of 13 short stories, Controlled Burn.

Brilliant.

These are the most raw, brutal, lyrical and hard stories I've read in an age.

I meant to read a story a night and ended up consuming the entire book at once. There is a part of every human being capable of creating only grief and ruin, leaving chaos in their wake. Wolven writes of these people.

The stories are intertwined over years, location or happenstance who's protagonists cross over into oblivion of their own making. It is an oblivion we've all at least set a toe into, scuttling away, scared by what we saw and felt. The men in these stories embraced it, breathing it into every cell.

I've linked to one story, Controlled Burn, to give you a taste.

Wolven's work has appeared in the Mississippi Review and three (2002, 2003, 2004) Best American Mysteries collections. He is a master and a must read for any connoisseur of the short story.