titles / Trouble
with the Machine by Christopher Kennedy
read an excerpt | read selected reviews
March, 2004 -- The
Village Voice
An Editor's Pick: "The irreducibility of Kennedy’s
Trouble With the Machine may be the point: Prose poems verge on micro-stories,
upturning mini-mythologies of irresolute gods, Aesopean parables,
and trivialities etched with the surety of epitaphs—leading
to the overwhelming question: Is God 'a frail, chain-smoking woman
named Jean'?" --Darren Reidy
February, 2004 -- The
Believer
Named one of the Underappreciated Books of 2003:
"Kennedy's book is the prose counterpart to David Berman's Silver
Jews lyrics. These short pieces (like, half a page) feature titles
such as 'The Drunken American Winter Boat Club' and 'God Is a Frail,
Chain-Smoking Woman Named Jean.' Also like Berman, Kennedy spins the
skewed American cultural landscape into a profoundly sad, empty, and
yet somehow fortifying experience. (How do they do that?)"
December, 2003 -- Publisher's
Weekly
Authors' Favorite Titles of 2003: "Trouble
with the Machine by Christopher Kennedy. Is this prose? Poetry?
Short stories or sketches? A weird kind of novel? Perhaps a new genre
is required to adequately describe Kennedy's sorrowful, skewed little
book--the prose album. These intensely brief morsels--most no longer
than half a page, and all sporting titles like 'The Drunken American
Winter Boat Club' and 'God Is a Frail, Chain-smoking Woman Named Jean'--play
like songs in your head, creep into your blood stream like a melodic,
irreverent dirge." --Heidi Julavits, author of The Effect
of Living Backwards
read an excerpt | read selected reviews
