{"id":763,"date":"2022-11-05T16:02:44","date_gmt":"2022-11-05T16:02:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/wordpress\/greenblotter\/?p=763"},"modified":"2022-11-05T16:02:44","modified_gmt":"2022-11-05T16:02:44","slug":"review-of-bob-thurbers-in-fifty-words-micro-fictions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/greenblotter\/2022\/11\/05\/review-of-bob-thurbers-in-fifty-words-micro-fictions\/","title":{"rendered":"Review of Bob Thurber\u2019s In Fifty Words!: Micro Fictions"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Reviewed by Isaac Fox<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Fiction | Single-Author Collection. 94 Pages. Independently Published: 2019. Available here.<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n

Bob Thurber\u2019s 2019 collection In Fifty Words!: Micro Fictions<\/em> is made up of eighty-five works of flash fiction, each exactly fifty words long. In those tiny spaces, Thurber offers up an array of fleshed-out characters and worlds.<\/span><\/p>\n

These stories range from science fiction (such as \u201cLegally Blind,\u201d which is about a bionic grandfather) to romance (pieces like \u201cThe First Time I Gazed Into My Wife\u2019s Eyes\u201d) and even surrealism (\u201cPiercing Arrows,\u201d a slippery narrative about memory and time that literalizes cliches and refuses easy answers). However, despite the diversity of his work, Thurber\u2019s collection feels cohesive, with numerous themes and tropes recurring across stories. Parent-child relationships, loss of loved ones, and religious ambiguity pop up again and again, as do fairy-tale retellings.<\/span><\/p>\n

Other connections feel more specific, almost personal. For example, in \u201cThe Breathtaking Stink of This World,\u201d the narrator describes what their father says he\u2019ll miss most after death\u2014the diverse, vibrant scents of life. Several stories later, the narrator of \u201cThe Stench of a Lifetime\u201d (perhaps the same character narrating \u201cThe Breathtaking Stink of this World\u201d?) describes their father\u2019s smell lingering in his home after he passes away.<\/span><\/p>\n

Thurber\u2019s control of tone in these miniature narratives is masterful. The premise of \u201cLegally Blind\u201d is absurd, but the piece itself has a melancholy, hard-edged weight to it. \u201cThe Leaking and the Legacy\u201d\u2014a story about two balloons\u2014becomes something multifaceted and even tragic through its spare, understated dialogue. And just as pieces with absurd premises become surprisingly serious, stories that start with beauty or tragedy become suddenly funny. \u201cThe Mapmaker\u2019s Calligraphist Daughter,\u201d for example, carefully describes a woman\u2019s intricate calligraphy before clarifying what she\u2019s printing: false maps that her father commissions to send her suitors on wild goose chases. And even then, the joke isn\u2019t only<\/em> a joke. Sure, it sounds funny, but does this woman want her father meddling in her relationships? Has he forced her to turn her craft, her art, into her own prison?<\/span><\/p>\n

The precision of \u201cThe Mapmaker\u2019s Calligraphist Daughter\u201d is not unique within In Fifty Words!: Micro Fictions<\/em>. Thurber\u2019s stories frequently evoke similarly complex reactions and questions despite their incredibly short length, or maybe because of it.<\/span><\/p>\n

Isaac Fox is a student at Lebanon Valley College, where he majors in English and creative writing. When he\u2019s not reading or writing something assigned, he\u2019s probably reading or writing something unassigned. His prose, reviews, and photography have appeared in <\/span>Tiny Molecules<\/span><\/i>, <\/span>Rune Bear<\/span><\/i>, <\/span>Heart of Flesh<\/span><\/i>, <\/span>Green Blotter,<\/span><\/i> and <\/span>Rejection Letters<\/span><\/i>. You can find him on Twitter at @isaac_k_fox.<\/span><\/span><\/p><\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reviewed by Isaac Fox Bob Thurber\u2019s 2019 collection In Fifty Words!: Micro Fictions is made up of eighty-five works of flash fiction, each exactly fifty words long. In those tiny […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[12,20,3],"class_list":["post-763","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-craft-book-review","tag-flash-fiction","tag-isaac-fox","clearfix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/greenblotter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/763","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/greenblotter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/greenblotter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/greenblotter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/greenblotter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=763"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/greenblotter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/763\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/greenblotter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=763"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/greenblotter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=763"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/greenblotter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=763"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}