{"title":"Christopher Linforth","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"the-distortions","title":"The Distortions","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\"Frayed relationships populate...\u003ci\u003eThe Distortions\u003c\/i\u003e..., set in and around Zagreb during and after the Serbo-Croatian War. [...] These vivid stories remind us how quickly perceived difference can lead to conflict.\"\u003cbr\u003e—\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eThe Washington Post\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"This richly textured collection reminds us of the tether to our geographical homes.\"\u003cbr\u003e—\u003cb\u003eBuzzFeed\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv\u003eIn\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Distortions\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003ewe glimpse a pageant of characters struggling to understand their lives after the dissolution of Yugoslavia. Scarred by the Serbo-Croatian War, the women and men of these stories question what such a violent past can mean in comfortable, capitalistic modern Europe. From London and Brooklyn and Norway, to the Blue Grotto of Biševo and the war-torn fields of Slavonia, this collection blends Yugoslavian and American stories of great emotional and geographical amplitude.\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eA former resident of Zagreb, \u003cstrong\u003eChristopher Linforth\u003c\/strong\u003e is the author of two previous story collections, \u003cem\u003eDirectory \u003c\/em\u003e(Otis Books\/Seismicity Editions, 2020) and \u003cem\u003eWhen You Find Us We Will Be Gone\u003c\/em\u003e (Lamar University Press, 2014). Linforth's stories have appeared in \u003cem\u003eNotre Dame Review, Witness, The Arkansas International, Fiction International, Consequence\u003c\/em\u003e, and \u003cem\u003eBest Microfiction 2021\u003c\/em\u003e, among other places.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\"Linforth's chiseled, captivating stories follow scarred, haunted people who are struggling to heal from the Yugoslav Wars. […] With compassion and brutal honesty, the stories in \u003cem\u003eThe Distortions\u003c\/em\u003e deal with how war tears people apart, but also with the stubborn resistance of those who search for redemption.\" - \u003cstrong\u003eKristen Rabe, \u003cem\u003eForeword Reviews\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"\u003cem\u003eThe Distortions\u003c\/em\u003e takes us deep into the transgenerational trauma of the Croatian-Serbian war, but it does so with skill and nuance that make each story shine as a well-crafted gem. […] This book is a perfect example of how art can be a vehicle for remembrance, understanding, and most importantly, healing.\" - \u003cstrong\u003eSamrat Upadhyay, judge of The 2020 Orison Fiction Prize\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"In illuminating and perceptive prose, The Distortions bears witness to the haunt of postwar Croatia. These deeply felt stories illustrate the dilemma of a generation once removed from trauma, living amid the ghosts of war and tasked with the impossible—yet urgent—project of memorialization.\" - \u003cstrong\u003eKate McQuade, author of\u003c\/strong\u003e \u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eTell Me Who We Were\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"The remarkable Christopher Linforth is a storyteller at the top of his game, writing about shattered lives and broken dreams, about hopeless love and grieving families. […] You're not going to read many collections as powerful, as honest, and as compassionate as \u003cem\u003eThe Distortions\u003c\/em\u003e. Yes, it's that good, and you're going to thank me for telling you to buy this book of Chekhovian gems.\" - \u003cstrong\u003eJohn Dufresne, author of \u003cem\u003eI Don't Like Where This Is Going\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Orison Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":41321724215446,"sku":"9781949039313","price":18.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0477\/8731\/1254\/products\/img_proxy_95f75886-bbb8-4da3-8cb2-a6772fba5d9b.jpg?v=1642163940"},{"product_id":"directory","title":"Directory","description":"\u003cp\u003eIn the experimental \u003ci\u003eDirectory\u003c\/i\u003e, Christopher Linforth brilliantly renders a series of fractured voices which echo through a kaleidoscopic landscape of shared trauma, vanished identities, and American dread. Told through interconnected flash fictions that blur the line between individual and collective consciousness, the book unfolds like a spectral phonebook, each entry revealing another shard of a dark familial mythology. Choral, nightmarish, and claustrophobic, \u003ci\u003eDirectory\u003c\/i\u003e is a mesmerizing exploration of the unstable architecture of the self.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA collection of semi-related stories that accumulate, fragment, and finally rupture, \u003ci\u003eDirectory\u003c\/i\u003e commands sharp, quick, glass-like shards of story that embed in the reader. A hybrid book concerned with the blurring of identity and deatomizing a sense of self, Christopher Linforth's second collection sifts through experimental tendencies, fragmentation, kaleidoscopic identities and interpersonal ties, choral voices, gender fluidity, and corporeal experience to offer a lasting commentary on what it means to be-as one, as many, or as several-in the modern United States.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFirst published by Otis Books\/Seismicity Editions in 2020 before encountering the pandemic, \u003ci\u003eDirectory\u003c\/i\u003e will be reprinted by Indirect Books as the press' second project.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFind more coverage on \u003ci\u003eDirectory\u003c\/i\u003e below:\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Strikingly written and told with urgency…\" \u003cb\u003eWendy J. Fox\u003c\/b\u003e, \u003ci\u003eBuzzFeed\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"Christopher Linforth's splendid \u003ci\u003eDirectory\u003c\/i\u003e is composed of shrapnel selves, both aesthetic and existential, each shard sharp, concentrated, biting, brutal, devastating, and astonishing.\" —\u003cb\u003eLance Olsen\u003c\/b\u003e, author of \u003ci\u003eMy Red Heaven\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"Christopher Linforth's \u003ci\u003eDirectory\u003c\/i\u003e offers prose that twins no others. Original crisp writing, taking its readers on an unforgettable journey, through portals of the unknown. A wonderful, surprising, powerful read.\" —\u003cb\u003eKim Chinquee\u003c\/b\u003e, author of \u003ci\u003eWetsuit\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eShot Girls\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"…refreshing at times, shocking, disorienting and puzzling at others, but throughout the entire book you follow a thread of tender humanity that begs you to identify with a perspective that squeezes, prods and stabs at the heart in a multiplicity of ways.\" —\u003cb\u003eLevi Noe\u003c\/b\u003e, \u003ci\u003eBending Genres\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"\u003ci\u003eDirectory\u003c\/i\u003e's rogues' gallery of rakes, rapscallions, and rascals, of hoydens, harridans, and doyennes, gestures semaphorically at abandoned subjectivity. This is evinced in this collection's recurrence of apparatuses, an unpacking of the colonization of the human by technologies, particular analog ones — pre-cellular telecom and pre-digital photography — familiar in the films, photography, and paintings of David Lynch.\" —\u003cb\u003eSean Hooks\u003c\/b\u003e, \u003ci\u003eNecessary Fiction\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"…what is distinctive about the book…its use of the story-fragment to both exploit brevity as a self-sufficient narrative strategy and to organize a series of such brief stories so that the result is a work that has structural coherence without strictly conforming to a pre-established form.\" —\u003cb\u003eDaniel Green\u003c\/b\u003e, \u003ci\u003eThe Reading Experience\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"Linforth's elegant and powerful prose invites the reader to join a chorus of collective voices that explore questions of identity, the constant uncomfortableness of growing up and the painful legacy of abuse.\" —\u003cb\u003eMaría Alejandra Barrios\u003c\/b\u003e, \u003ci\u003eSmokelong Quarterly\u003c\/i\u003e.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Indirect Books","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":51762000232765,"sku":"9798993679747","price":14.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0477\/8731\/1254\/files\/9798993679747ita.jpg?v=1779998581"}],"url":"https:\/\/itascabooks.com\/collections\/christopher-linforth.oembed","provider":"Itasca Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}