The View from the Seventh Layer by Kevin Brockmeier

The View from the Seventh Layer

author: Kevin Brockmeier
Publisher: Pantheon Books, Random House
Published: March 4th 2008
isbn: 9780375425301

Kevin Brockmeier is such a wonderful writer. I have a notebook in which I transcribe beautiful sentences I've read. I have happily made several entries from this new book. I usually read a book quickly and quickly move on to another, especially since opening the bookstore. However, I have forced myself to slow down and read one story per night so that I can truly appreciate the beauty of these stories. We are so lucky that Kevin is writing; don't pass up the opportunity to read his books. - Lisa


Kevin Brockmeier--award -winning author of "The Brief History of the Dead"--has been widely praised for the richness of his imagination, the lyrical grace and playfulness of his language, and the empathic emotional complexity of his storytelling. And this dazzling collection once again affirms his place as one of the most creative and compassionate writers of his generation. In the haunting title story, a young, asocial woman remembers the oddly honest things she wrote in her high school classmates' yearbooks and contemplates her scarred life, imagining an escape with an apparition she calls the Entity. In "Father John Melby and the Ghost of Amy Elizabeth," a formerly dull and turgid pastor is touched by a spirit that turns his sermons into crowd-pleasers--that is, until he discovers his inspiration is a little less than divine. "The Human Soul as a Rube Goldberg Device" is a gorgeous homage to the classic, young readers' choose-your-own-adventure novels. But this one is for grown-ups who can navigate through imagery and dead ends, and toward a resolution that only Kevin Brockmeier could have invented. From the fantastical to the concrete, the range of this collection is breathtaking. It moves fluidly, finding beauty in the quiet, often overlooked corners of the world. By turns daring and moving, "The View from the Seventh Layer" is crafted with the remarkable voice and vision that have become hallmarks of Brockmeier's acclaimed fiction.

April 2008 Book Sense Pick
Matt Kandarian, Books on the Square, Providence RI
Heartfelt confessions scrawled in yearbooks, 'Choose-Your-Own-Adventure, ' Captain Kirk's love life, and spontaneous periods of absolute silence--these are just a few subjects touched upon in the new short story collection from the author of The Brief History of the Dead. Once again, Brockmeier beautifully demonstrates his unique gift for making the commonplace extraordinary and the extraordinary wonderfully ordinary.