"From the Book of Atmospheres" by Robert Scotellaro

From the Book of Atmospheres by Robert Scotellaro is a collection of micro and flash stories that explore life at a slant. Often surreal/fabulistic, there is a universality that threads their fabric in unexpected ways. In these tales, imagination is a welcomed guest. And it is clear that light and dark can, in easy union, inhabit these small but flexible spaces.

“The spirit of my father was trapped inside my ballpoint pen,” Robert Scotellaro starts one of his truly delightful new stories. “Must have slipped in when I was changing the refill.” Hilarious, inventive, audacious, Scotellaro’s quick fictions pack a real punch, whether they involve a Peruvian language based on the word “llama,” or a guy in a Fat Elvis band being dumped by his girlfriend for somebody in a Skinny Johnny Cash band. And that father whose spirit is trapped in a fountain pen? Surely not the same father whose wife takes his temper in for an ultrasound, dragging their son along. Robert Scotellaro’s wit and creativity are all over the thirty-two gems that make up From the Book of Atmospheres.

—Charles Rammelkamp, author of Presto and The Trapeze of Your Flesh

There is an ethereal, almost otherworldly, quality about Scotellaro’s surreal collection of micro stories. One story is a tale about a woman whose husband is possessed by a “cliché demon” and speaks only in timeworn platitudes. Yet another, a political parable of our time, rues the day when the meek finally do inherit the earth and vengefully vent their long-simmering resentments. Throughout this fabulous book, Scotellaro illuminates the odd and the mysterious by deftly plumbing, in ever-so-brief fictions, the atmospheres that envelop the incongruous and offbeat dimensions of the real. From the Book of Atmospheres is a masterwork.

—Brad Rose, author of Lucky Animals and I Wouldn’t Say That, Exactly.

Robert Scotellaro

Robert Scotellaro is the author of 9 flash and microfiction collections, most recently: Breath and Shadow: Six-Sentence Stories (in collaboration with Meg Pokrass) by MadHat Press, and a collection of prose poems: The Weight of Certain Moments by Červená Barva Press. He is also the author of 7 poetry chapbooks and has, along with James Thomas, co-edited New Micro: Exceptionally Short Fiction, published by W.W. Norton & Company. His work has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies including the Norton anthologies: Flash Fiction International and Flash Fiction America, and has been included in 5 Best Small Fictions and 3 Best Microfiction award anthologies.