In his introduction to this issue, Bradford Morrow, founder of Conjunctions magazine, writes:
“'The Graveless Doll of Eric Mutis' is narrated by a young adolescent named Larry Rubio who, with his three Anthem City, New Jersey, buddies Mondo, Gus, and Juan Carlos, discovers a scarecrow lashed to an oak tree in the city park. As always in Karen's work, the narration is heartbreakingly empathetic and intimate, but the boys are nonetheless clearly drawn as violent bullies, and the scarecrow is an unsettlingly lifelike—or deathlike—doppelgänger of one of their victims, the titular Eric Mutis...Described that way, the story sounds emotionally wrenching, and that's undoubtedly true. This is a Karen Russell tale, though, and that means that with each jolt of sorrow or anger, with each queasy thrill of the unheimliche that the reader experiences, comes the ecstatic experience of Karen’s rich, delightful prose, her knack for conjurings of character and of time and place that are so evocative as to feel almost physical."
About Recommended Reading:
Great authors inspire us. But what about the stories that inspire them? Recommended Reading, the latest project from Electric Literature, publishes one story every week, each chosen by a great author or editor. In this age of distraction, we uncover writing that's worth slowing down and spending some time with. And in doing so, we help give great writers, literary magazines, and independent presses the recognition (and readership) they deserve.
About the author:
Karen Russell, a native of Miami, won the 2012 National Magazine Award for fiction, and her first novel, Swamplandia! (2011), was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. She is a graduate of the Columbia MFA program, a 2011 Guggenheim Fellow, and a 2012 Fellow at the American Academy in Berlin. Her most recent book is Vampires in the Lemon Grove: Stories. She lives in Philadelphia.
About the Guest Editor:
Founded in 1981 by editor Bradford Morrow and the poet Kenneth Rexroth, Conjunctions has always provoked and published risk-taking, groundbreaking, wildly imaginative, formally innovative, immaculately realized fiction, poetry, and creative non-fiction. The book-length print edition comes out twice a year, and usually revolves around a centralizing theme—compulsive obsessions, evil twins, impossible realism, children's secrets, cinema, black comedy, Caribbean writing, novellas, or works in progress, to name just a few. There's also an online magazine of separate content, which publishes one new piece of writing each week; and a huge online audio vault of author readings. Whether in print or online, the magazine is committed to launching emerging writers such as Benjamin Hale, Julia Elliott, Chinelo Okparanta, Brian Conn, Miranda Mellis, or Jedediah Berry, and was among the first journals to publish work by David Foster Wallace or William T. Vollmann. It also provides a space for contemporary masters to experiment and explore new styles; Conjunctions frequently publishes such writers as Joyce Carol Oates, Jonathan Lethem, Robert Coover, C. D. Wright, John Ashbery, Can Xue, Rick Moody, and many others. The current print issue, Conjunctions:59, Colloquy includes a portfolio of letters by William Gaddis, a collection of essays on monstrosity, and a symposium on The Word, as well as work by Lydia Davis, China Miéville, Rae Armantrout, Shelley Jackson, William H. Gass, and more. Coming up in May is Conjunctions:60, In Absentia, an issue of phantom limbs, amnesias, Atlantises, and other missing pieces, featuring work by authors including Yannick Murphy, Maxine Chernoff, Stephen O'Connor, Charles Bernstein, Carole Maso, and Kim Chinquee, as well as a trio of short plays by the renowned Swiss writer Robert Walser.
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