Reviews

A June Night in the Late Cenozoic

Stephen Osborne

Robert Allen's new book of stories, A June Night in the Late Cenozoic (Oolichan) is full of near-worlds with dimensions that intersect the three (or is it four) that we navigate by in this world. A man wakes up to find the Gaza Strip being relocated in his back yard; Bluto ponders the significance of his life with Popeye and Olive Oyl; a young man rebuilds butterflies on the kitchen table. These stories are constructed like prisms: they bend the light. Allen writes in the near-tradition of the 17th century metaphysicals by way of Jorge Luis Borges and Donald Barthelme. Great titles too, like "Retsina on Venus"; "The Indigo Hotel"; "Thoume Kene Kimte Cacounche."

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Stephen Osborne

Stephen Osborne is a co-founder and contributing publisher of Geist. He is the award-winning writer of Ice & Fire: Dispatches from the New World and dozens of shorter works, many of which can be read at geist.com.


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