Scorch Atlas: A Belated Primer is a 2009 short story collection written by Blake Butler and published by Featherproof Books. It is a work of post-apocalyptic fiction with a despairing outlook.
 | |
| Author | Blake Butler |
|---|---|
| Genre | Literary fiction |
| Publisher | Featherproof Books |
Publication date | 2009 |
| ISBN | 9780977199280 |
Background and publication
editBlake Butler is the author of several books, including Ever (2009), Nothing: A Portrait of Insomnia (2011), and There Is No Year (2011).[1] Featherproof Books published Butler's Scorch Atlas in 2009,[2] a 188-page collection of 13 short stories in the post-apocalyptic fiction genre.[3] The book is designed to appear damaged; one reviewer writes that "the thing seems charred [...] splattered with blood and ink".[4]
Reception
editLiterary critic Lee Quinby writes that although Scorch Atlas presents a powerful image of post-apocalyptic life, its descriptions are so despairing that readers may experience "boredom in the face of repeated anguish".[3] Anne-Laurre Tissut, a scholar of American literature, writes that the text "absorbs the reader" through its language and its focus on the body.[5] Tissut particularly comments on the representation of the body in "Television Milk", writing that in Butler's writing, "the essence of life is summed up here".[6] Reviewer Nina MacLaughlin writes that the essential point of the novel is not "narrative arc or character development" but the accumulation of particular images and words.[4]
References
editCitations
edit- ^ Tissut 2012, p. 49.
- ^ Tissut 2012, p. 48.
- ^ a b Quinby 2013, p. 9.
- ^ a b MacLaughlin 2009, p. 30.
- ^ Tissut 2012, p. 62: "absorbe le lecteur".
- ^ Tissut 2012, p. 60: "l’essentiel de la vie se trouve ici résumé".
Works cited
edit- MacLaughlin, Nina (11 September 2009). "Have a nice future: Blake Butler rains gravel and glass". Boston Phoenix. Vol. 38, no. 37. p. 30.
- Tissut, Anne-Laurre (2012). "Corps rêvés dans Scorch Atlas, de Blake Butler" [Dreamed bodies in Scorch Atlas, by Blake Butler]. Revue française d'études américaines (in French). 132 (2): 48–62. doi:10.3917/rfea.132.0048.
- Quinby, Lee (2013). "Holding onto despair". American Book Review. 34 (2): 9. doi:10.1353/abr.2013.0010. S2CID 144195325.