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Short Lean Cuts
by
Alex M. Pruteanu (Goodreads Author)
America is sick. Maybe you wouldn't even notice at first glance—all of the shiny, happy people with their smart phones and dumb ideas—but that's just the honey glaze on a week old ham that is starting to rot in the heat of a summer that never seems to end. Take a razor, cut a slice or two, and see what lies beneath the gloss of modern life... WARNING: For mature audiences....more
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Review copy kindly provided by author and GR friend Alex M. Pruteanu.
2012 is definitely the year of reading dangerously. There was 1Q84, Absalom, Absalom!, and Travel To the G-Spot -- The Guide Book! At least this one wasn't a sprawling epic novel like With Fire and Sword which I had to cram down in three weeks because I had it on inter-library loan. (The things I read for friends. Just kidding!) I read it in one sitting. But it has plenty of food for thought to sit down to.
First, the title. Sh...more
2012 is definitely the year of reading dangerously. There was 1Q84, Absalom, Absalom!, and Travel To the G-Spot -- The Guide Book! At least this one wasn't a sprawling epic novel like With Fire and Sword which I had to cram down in three weeks because I had it on inter-library loan. (The things I read for friends. Just kidding!) I read it in one sitting. But it has plenty of food for thought to sit down to.
First, the title. Sh...more
i've followed http://swine.wordpress.com/ for a couple years now? alex consistently bangs out bits of short flash that immediately rip and plunk the reader into another mindset, another scene. he writes the common line of the too self aware: being the banality of both hope and despair. capturing such inversion isn't an easy feat in writing. to break it down and bleed it out is an entirely brittle process and alex m. pruteanu has mastered such constructive nihilism with "short lean cuts".
"It has...more
"It has...more
Short Lean Cuts is a novella that blasts through the concrete of the brain from the first page. Alex M. Pruteanu is a master of language and the never ending subterfuge of americana that hides itself like a kid pretending to be a tree. Every chapter slices another slab of fat from the globular bullshit that keeps all truth draining into the liposuction bags as they are discarded and a leaner cut is sent out into the world wearing a girdle to obscure the flabby flesh that is held hostage behind s...more
This is a hard review to write for two reasons: I know the author; I didn't read the book correctly.
Let's get the "knowing the author" out of the way first. I don't *know* him in the biblical sense. I've read a lot of Mr. Pruteanu's work before, some of it fiction, some of it non-fiction (I will be saving those emails for when he is rich and famous and I can use them in a "kiss-and-tell" moment...maybe there was something biblical?). All of this means that any review is automatically coloured by...more
Let's get the "knowing the author" out of the way first. I don't *know* him in the biblical sense. I've read a lot of Mr. Pruteanu's work before, some of it fiction, some of it non-fiction (I will be saving those emails for when he is rich and famous and I can use them in a "kiss-and-tell" moment...maybe there was something biblical?). All of this means that any review is automatically coloured by...more
1 like · like · see review
Short Lean Cuts is a knife-fight of a book, and as the title suggests, the story is served up to you in a series of slices, each one exploring the rank, odious disease that we call the modern world. Darkly comic, scathing in its world view, this is nonetheless a book that engages with you on a philosophical level, and for such a short book, provokes your preconceptions about society and how we live. Alex Pruteanu's prose is taut and very musical - the sentences seem deliberately crafted, very rh...more
This author is one part poet and one part killer; plus two parts existentialist. As an aside, I flunked math in high school, but I know a great book when I read one. "Short Lean Cuts" is 96 pages of brilliant flash fiction, centered around the same intriguing, self-destructive, anti-helvetican narrator. The themes here are post-modern nihilism, anti-consumerism, and cultural narcissism; the humor is dark and incisive. But more than anything, what stays with you long after are the narrator's shar...more
There are some books that no amount of description, no matter how well worded or wise, can prepare you for, or even make you understand. You can read all the reviews you want, but it won't do any good...you just need to read it. "Short Lean Cuts" is definitely one of those books. Don't take my word on how amazingly fluid the language and ideas are, how raw and yet finely-tuned the prose is. Reading my thoughts on "Short Lean Cuts" will give you none of the experience of reading the book. Just re...more
1 like · like · see review
This is a dark, funny and brilliantly written novel, at moments weirdly surreal and at other times painfully realistic. The writing was really a pleasure to read.
Razor sharp snap shots
America dissected
Into short lean cuts
America dissected
Into short lean cuts
1 like · like · see review
I wrote it. I like it. You buy it?
2 likes · like · see review
Swift and dark ... and the minute I wrote "dark" I regretted it because that is an over-used word when describing books and maybe does this one a disservice. This book is better than that and deserves a better word than "dark." Let me try this again.
The sentences Short Lean Cuts are drunken slashing scalpels and by the time you finish reading this story you will be in shreds. And who doesn't want a story to do that?
The sentences Short Lean Cuts are drunken slashing scalpels and by the time you finish reading this story you will be in shreds. And who doesn't want a story to do that?
This tale is no three little pigs nursery rhyme, or Babe. This is closer to Piggy in Lord of the Flies.
Looking at the darker side of life and characters this book is as strong and shocking as it is well written. Dark in places it is probably not going to be everyone's cup of tea but it does come recommended.
Looking at the darker side of life and characters this book is as strong and shocking as it is well written. Dark in places it is probably not going to be everyone's cup of tea but it does come recommended.
Review forthcoming!
1 like · like · see review
Apr 24, 2013
Mort Chud
marked it as to-read
Feb 01, 2013
Stefan Bolea
marked it as to-read
Jan 15, 2013
Brainarchy
marked it as to-read
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Since emigrating to the United States from Romania in 1980, Alex M. Pruteanu has worked as a journalist, television news director, freelance writer, and editor. He is the author of "Short Lean Cuts," and "Gears." His writing has appeared in NY Arts Magazine, Guernica, PANK, Connotation Press, FRIGG, and many others. Alex lives with his family near Raleigh, North Carolina.
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Sep 05, 2012 11:08am
updated Sep 05, 2012 10:25pm