The University at Buffalo’s English Department is presenting a series of readings of new fiction in collaboration with Hallwalls. The first installment features Dave Kress, Assistant Professor of English at the University of Maine-Orono, where he teaches creative writing and contemporary literature. HIs new novel, Glorified—or—Thermometers of God, will be published in 2007. What you need to know about Dave Kress is that he’s apparently the much-sought Loch Ness monster of post-modern fiction, a true stylist, perhaps an heir of Pynchon and Calvino.
Kress’s earlier works, Counting Zero, a novel, and Martians, a creature have featured fractured perspective and non-narrative format, “subtractive” learning about main characters (by removing understanding, instead of adding to it), intelligent and detailed asides that have been described as “tedious, tendentious, and tangled — and worth it”. Fans have said, “If you want trite formula, with plotline you can see coming down the pike, forget Kress. If you’re intelligent, want an absorbing and stimulating tale, you can’t miss.” (taken from amazon.com)
His own characters muse, “Why doesn’t anyone really appreciate the everyday applicability of quantum mechanics, the uncertainty principle?” which may give further insight, although I’m not promising anything. From where I sit, he seems to be a true language artist, pushing the boundaries of even post-mordernism, with no “zero point” in sight, but working to reveal a heart of our culture that is visible in no other way — one that “chills the blood, shrivels the soul and reveals a part of the contemporary American scene that is all too real.” (from a review by Sam Coale, Sam Coale, an English professor at Wheaton)
Reviewer Paul West states “Dave Kress’s first novel reminds us how intelligent a form the novel can be, in the right hands.” If your a fan of intelligent writing, BRO recommends you see those hands for yourself.
Wednesday, February 21, 2007, 8 PM
Free
Hallwalls, 341 Delaware Avenue, Buffalo, 14202, 716.854.1694
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