Dirty Little Numbers

 

I'm going to write a review right now.  I don't usually review fiction, but I'm going to do it anyway.

There's a book that's just come out called Dirty Little Numbers.  It's published by Go Deeper Press.  One of my stories is in it--actually, at 100 words, "What Does the Bunny Say?" is the shortest story I've ever written, but it's weird and wild enough to pack a punch.

Dirty Little Numbers: Erotic Flash Fiction of 500 Words or Less

I love short stories.  I've written novels and novellas, but short stories are my first love--the shorter, the better.  These ones are all under 500 words.  Heaven!

So I figured I'd pick one story from my contributor's copy, at random, and write a little review of it.  Here we are.  Live blogging.  I'm just going to scroll through the PDF and... huh, okay this story is called "Anonymous" (hey, my first novel was called Anonymous!) and the author is Daniel Burnell--new to me.

"Anonymous" by Daniel Burnell is a wall.  It tells you so, right off the bat: "I'm a wall. A big, fat wall. A barrier." HA!  I'm laughing already: a wall of words informing the reader, self-reflexively, that it is a wall.  But it's not just the story itself that acts as a wall; the character, Anna, is a wall as well.  She's a "huge, fat, forbidding" pregnant wall in her husband's bed.  The quick, choppy sentences work for me, especially within a wall of words.  I feel like I'm in a cardboard box with a flashlight, wondering how this dirty little number is going to end.

...and...

...and...

Sorry, I read the rest without you.  I just got so engrossed I forgot you were sitting there waiting for me to say something.  But, I'll tell you this, I found "Anonymous" clever and heartwarming and real. REAL real.  Wow, what a great little story.  Good things come in small packages and big, fat walls.

I wonder what else is in this book... 

http://godeeperpress.com/?projects=dirty-little-numbers