Unsurprisingly, the longest pieces here are the most satisfying. This is to say nothing of the truly atrocious cover. There are a few head-scratchers as well, to be expected in any sampling of short fiction. Some familiar themes crop up-there are a lot of wayward souls here, lost adolescents and substance abuse-and plenty of compelling writing. His newest collection, The Heyday of the Insensitive Bastards, may not do a great deal to further that rep, but it’s unlikely to hurt it much, either.
It’s fair to say that these works have all served to consolidate his reputation.
Since then he has published five novels, including the well-received Century’s Son and Mystery Ride, and another story collection, Living to Be 100, and two works of nonfiction. On the basis of this slender collection alone, Boswell was clearly a literary voice to be taken seriously. The title story, concerned with themes of romantic and racial disharmony and set in the milieu of heroin users following Bob Marley’s death, was also notable for its unflinching portrayal of a heroin trip. He shares the Cullen Chair in Creative Writing at the University of Houston with his wife, Antonya Nelson.Robert Boswell’s 1985 collection of short stories, Dancing in the Movies, was an impressive debut that showcased a rare talent-a writer able to immerse himself so thoroughly in the consciousness of his characters that it was startling to realize they were nothing more than constructs of words and sentences. He has received two National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships, a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Iowa School of Letters Award for Fiction, the PEN West Award for Fiction, and the Evil Companions Award. His play Tongues won the John Gassner Prize. His cyberpunk novel, Virtual Death (published under the pseudonym Shale Aaron) was a finalist for the Philip K. Robert Boswell is the author of eleven books, including, The Heyday of the Insensitive Bastards, a story collection recently chosen by Oprah for her summer reading list, "25 Books You Can't Put Down." He is the author of the novels Century's Son, American Owned Love, Mystery Ride, The Geography of Desire, and Crooked Hearts the story collections Living to Be 100 and Dancing in the Movies and the nonfiction books The Half-Known World, a book on the craft of writing, and What Men Call Treasure: The Search for Gold at Victorio Peak, a book about a real-life treasure hunt in New Mexico (co-written with David Schweidel).
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