Marshall Moore, author of the novel The Concrete Sky (2003), Black Shapes in a Darkened Room (2003, 2009), An Ideal for Living (2010), recently released a new collection, The Infernal Republic.
The Infernal Republic is an electric, eclectic collection of stories with topics ranging from Portland suicides to hell-dwelling demons.
In "Urban Reef," the opening story, a suicide bonds two lonely acquaintances in Portland, while "Everything Has Been Arranged" delivers a surreal, somber house-moving that hints at the diverse range of styles and subjects in the collection.
The surreal continues in other stories, such as "Marble Forest," about insomnia, family curses, and art-- "The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living" describes a psychic connection a psychologist shares with a shark.
Other wonderful experiences, such as embodying architecture in "215" and witnessing graduating levels of punishment in "Flesh, Blood, and Some of the Parts," give way to stories of relationships, such as in "Town of Thorns," about a gay man who, after being bashed, alters in troubling ways, and in "Toast, Belladonna, and the Heat Death of the Universe," in which a wonderful exchange of dialogue leads to attempted gunfire in a crowded restaurant.
These and so many other stories showcase Moore's craft.
