Fish Cough
Craig Buchner
Buckman Publishing, 2023
In Buchner’s debut novel, a couple named Thom and Howard have their stagnant relationship upended by a once-in-a-lifetime meteoric storm. Like the best magic surrealist novels, Buchner deftly shapes the surreality of everyday life. Their lives are complemented by the magical events set in motion by the storm because life is already so bizarre. Everything that couldn’t happen in real life seems at once both plausible as well as supernatural. More literary than genre, this work exposes the horror in a regular life, filled with aging and all its quotidian anxiety.
Jesi Bender is an artist from Upstate New York. She is the author of the novels Rhododendron (forthcoming 2027), Child of Light, and The Book of the Last Word; the plays Crux and Kinderkrankenhaus; and the poetry collection Dangerous Women. Her shorter writing has appeared in FENCE, Denver Quarterly, Sleepingfish, and others. www.jesibender.com