New Book Out from Larry Lynch

New Book Out from Larry Lynch

Larry Lynch

In this, his first collection of short stories, Larry Lynch demonstrates an exciting range of motion. Learning to Swim presents seven variations on the circumstances and obstacles of male adulthood, from single parenting and attempted first dates, to dead-end jobs and the family dog.

These stories contain generous doses of understated tragedy and grit, with all the back hair and old band-aids of human experience. Heroes seek escape and release from the patterns and repeated failures in their lives.

One rises above the mountain town where each day and every generation remains eerily the same, another discovers the truth about the end of the assembly line. These are stories about subversion and mastery of modern existence through the eyes of several less-than-successful men.

Lynch’s characters wrestle with potent imagery. Some look to art for answers, while others are governed by the continuity and layering of generations upon generations. Family dynamics can be as predictable as a litter of pigs, fate foretold in a flea market painting and romance charted like a map.

Lynch’s work is the product of an accomplished sense of curiosity and an experimental approach to form. The more conventional narrative of “Topography,” the hints of magic realism in “The Weight of a Blind Dog” and the self-conscious inward spiral of the title story each have a place in Lynch’s wide and engaging spectrum.

Larry will officially launch the collection with a reading in his hometown of Miramichi, New Brunswick, on Wednesday October 13th, 7 pm at the Newcastle Public Library, 100 Fountain Head Lane.

Catch Larry at the Fifth Annual Gaspereau Press Wayzgoose in Kentville, Nova Scotia, on Sunday, October 24th at 2 pm. His prose reading will take place in the Cornwallis Inn Dining Room at 325 Main Street.

Larry will be in Toronto on Friday, November 5th, reading as part of the  IV Lounge Reading Series, 326 Dundas Street West, beginning at 8 pm.

Then he’s off to participate in Hamilton’s gritLIT Writers’ Festival with Jonathan Campbell on Sunday, November 7th. The authors will be reading from 11am at the Staircase Theatre Café, 27 Dundurn Street North.

From there Larry and Jonathan head to St. Catharine’s and the Grey Borders Reading Series on Tuesday, November 9th from 8 pm at Merchant Ale House, 98 St. Paul Street.

Then he returns to New Brunswick for a reading with Jean Dohaney at the Fredericton Public Library, 12 Carlton Street, on Friday November 19th beginning at 7 pm.

Larry’s debut novel, An Expectation of Home, was published by Gaspereau Press in 2002. The Moncton Times and Transcript called it “paced and remarkably confident.” Many of the pieces in this collection have appeared in Canadian journals and anthologies including the 1999 Journey Prize Anthology, Victory Meat (Doubleday), the New Brunswick Reader, Gaspereau Review and Pottersfield Portfolio.

Learning to Swim retails for $25.95 Canadian and can be purchased from your local bookseller.