Short, intense and mesmerizing. Read these very short
stories on a train, a tram, a bus, or waiting in the check out line. Captives by
Angela Meyer will fit into your pocket, your handbag or tucked into the cover of
your ipad. Captives opens with a husband pointing his gun at his wife. Theres a
woman who hears the hiss of Beelzebub behind peoples voices, a photographer who
captures the desire to suicide, a man locked in a toilet who may never get out,
a couple who grow young, and a prisoner who learns to swallow like a python. Movie
stars appear throughout reminding us that people live on through images: Paul Newman,
Anthony Perkins, Divine, and a girl who died in a car crash are all caught eternally
on film. Theres a touch of Annie Proulx in these stories, the way a lonely death
can creep up on you and the way our sexuality will not be denied, though we may
try to cover it up.
'Angela Meyer's Captives is a collection of shimmering story-wafers, each of which hovers at exactly the sweet spot of just enough. Individually piercing, Meyer's fiction-slices fit together like the best poetry does, amplifying what came before and chiming with what comes after.' - Tania Hershman, author of My Mother Was An Upright Piano: Fictions, and The White Road And Other Stories.