 | |
| Author | Blake Butler |
|---|---|
| Genre | Literary fiction |
| Publisher | Featherproof Books |
Publication date | 2009 |
| ISBN | 9780977199280 |
Scorch Atlas: A Belated Primer is a 2009 short story collection written by Blake Butler and published by Featherproof Books. It is a work of post-apocalyptic fiction with a despairing outlook.
Blake Butler is the author of several books, including Ever (2009), Nothing: A Portrait of Insomnia (2011), and There Is No Year (2011). [1] Featherproof Books published Butler's Scorch Atlas in 2009, [2] a 188-page collection of 13 short stories in the post-apocalyptic fiction genre. [3] The book is designed to appear damaged; one reviewer writes that "the thing seems charred [...] splattered with blood and ink". [4]
Literary critic Lee Quinby writes that although Scorch Atlas presents a powerful image of post-apocalyptic life, its descriptions are so despairing that readers may experience "boredom in the face of repeated anguish". [3] Anne-Laurre Tissut, a scholar of American literature, writes that the text "absorbs the reader" through its language and its focus on the body. [5] Tissut particularly comments on the representation of the body in "Television Milk", writing that in Butler's writing, "the essence of life is summed up here". [6] Reviewer Nina MacLaughlin writes that the essential point of the novel is not "narrative arc or character development" but the accumulation of particular images and words. [4]
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