Chris Tusa

1) Vernon God Little by DBC Pierre
2) The Death of Sweet Mister by Daniel Woodrell
3) Ice at the Bottom of the Sea by Mark Richard
4) The Worthy by Will Clarke
5) Eden by Olympia Vernon
6) Talking Dirty to the Gods by Yusef Komunyakaa
7) Day of the Locust by Nathaniel West
A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
9) Paris Trout by Pete Dexter
10) Lawrence Booth’s Book of Visions by Maurice Manning

Just finished Mark Richard’s The Ice at the Bottom of the World, and it was fantastic. Lyrical prose filled with gritty, dysfunctional characters. What else could you ask for?

From Library Journal
In Richard’s collection of short stories, we are in familiar but updated Faulkner/Caldwell territory, the gothic American South. Specifically, we are in the country of that endangered species, the redneck. In sharply detailed stories presented without excuse or judgment, and often with a sharp bite of humor, Richard offers creditable characters in the middle of their singular lives. Though full of peculiarly Southern connections, these stories transcend Southern particularity. They are about universals: love and loss and birth and death. –Marcia Tager, Tenafly, N.J. Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.