The Man Who Shot Out My Eye Is Dead : Stories
Author(s): Chanelle Benz
*LONGLISTED FOR THE 2018 PEN/ROBERT W. BINGHAM PRIZE FOR DEBUT FICTION*
*SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2018 WILLIAM SAROYAN INTERNATIONAL PRIZE FOR WRITING*
Named a Best Book of 2017 by The San Francisco Chronicle
Named one of Electric Literature’s 15 Best Short Story Collections of 2017
A stunningly original debut collection about lives across history marked by violence and longing.
A brother and sister turn outlaw in a wild and brutal landscape. The daughter of a diplomat disappears and resurfaces across the world as a deadly woman of many names. A young Philadelphia boy struggles with the contradictions of privilege, violence, and the sway of an incarcerated father. A monk in sixteenth century England suffers the dissolution of his monastery and the loss of all that he held sacred.
The characters in The Man Who Shot Out My Eye Is Dead, Benz's wildly imaginative debut, are as varied as any in recent literature, but they share a thirst for adventure which sends them rushing full-tilt toward the moral crossroads, becoming victims and perpetrators along the way. Riveting, visceral, and heartbreaking, Benz’s stories of identity, abandonment, and fierce love come together in a daring, arresting vision.
Review(s):
“These are bloody, unredeemed tales told with wit and unbounded invention. It’s impossible to guess what Ms. Benz’s first novel will look like, but it’s one to be impatient for.”
“[Benz’s] unconventional tales consistently startle and charm.”
“Benz’s short stories reel you in...A gripping trip... Striking...You won’t have any problems turning the page, and, in fact, you might wish that each story was the beginning of a novel. Not a bad place to start a career in writing fiction.”
“The Man Who Shot Out My Eye Is Dead” marks the debut of a startling talent; its opening story stops your breath
“A mixture of semi-Gothic tales told in wide-ranging time and place, it presents a vision of a world stained and haunted by the past....Benz pulls the reader into this vortex of past/present with brutal skill and grace...an ambitious debut.”
“Yes to Chanelle Benz and the skill, fluency and panache with which her voices interrogate and elevate narrative. There’s lots more I could say about these brilliant stories, but you’ll find out all about it and get your own joy when you read them.”
“A strange and alien intelligence thrums throughout Chanelle Benz’s surprisingly deft and assured debut collection of stories. With humor and heartache, Benz demonstrates once again the elasticity of the short story and proves why it’s perhaps the perfect art form for our modern existence.”
“Chanelle Benz conjures startling, amazing worlds out of her fierce and wild imagination, out of her hard-cut sentences and through her strange and original characters. Her wicked intelligence and electric talent are evident in everything she writes.”
“Benz’s debut collection of 10 stories is impressive... taut, inventive language... emotionally compelling and historically vivid... Powerfully nuanced... the collection explores violence, identity, and otherness in sharply observed, fiercely eloquent prose.”
“Dazzles readers with its many different writing styles.... As Benz’s adventurers and dreamers attempt to remake their worlds in small and big ways, there are no easy happy endings here. Yet these lyrical stories capture the urgency of lives lived with daring and concern for others.”
ISBN: 9780062490780