false 3276627 3 Haunting and fresh, shot through with empathy and humour, Pasha Malla's deceptively smooth, brilliant stories grant us entry into fascinating worlds - the forbidden, complex world of children acting out half-understood fantasies of adulthood; the familiar, modern world of young couples navigating hairpin emotional turns; a near-future world where Niagara Falls has run dry; a long-past world where a frustrated chess-master unwittingly invents a sinister machine that will affect the lives of generations to come. As in the extraordinary stories of writers such as Lorrie Moore, Haruki Murakami, George Saunders, and Barbara Gowdy, Pasha Malla offers us characters who are recognizable and situations that are familiar, and then peels back layers to reveal the strange, the wondrous, and the unexpected. The Withdrawal Method is an assured and mature first collection from one of our best young writers, one who pairs striking emotional depth with remarkable technical skill. 3312912 5 5 2008 The Withdrawal Method total:51|5:12|4:21|3:15|2:3|1:0| 51 195 121 17 4 10 false false Sat Aug 01 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Tue Aug 11 12:21:49 -0700 2009 Thu Sep 03 20:21:12 -0700 2009 1
It seems ironic (to me, anyway) that I had already partly written a review for The Withdrawal Method when I had an accident that meant I had to quit writing: I’ve had to extract my body from the computer. I literally could not sit down. Now I write this half-sitting, half-sta...more...]]> 4 1 false false Mon May 19 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Mon May 12 20:10:36 -0700 2008 Sun Jul 06 17:42:51 -0700 2008 more...]]> 4 1 false false Fri May 01 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sat May 09 13:51:49 -0700 2009 Sat May 09 13:52:06 -0700 2009 more...]]> 5 3 false false Thu May 08 06:22:58 -0700 2008 Mon Jul 21 16:39:46 -0700 2008 more...]]> 4 0 false false Sun Jul 05 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Tue Jun 30 16:34:11 -0700 2009 Fri Jul 17 13:44:25 -0700 2009
some of the opening stories felt like they were set in Toronto. i say this for no other reason than that i'm more than a little obsessed with Toronto right now and liable to read the city's presence into anything at the slightest provocation. and Malla's not actually from Toron...more...]]> 4 0 false false Thu Apr 16 14:01:14 -0700 2009 Wed Mar 25 22:33:30 -0700 2009 Thu Apr 16 14:01:14 -0700 2009 http://www.bookslut.com/blog/archives/20...

I picked up a copy of Pasha Malla's The Withdrawal Method, and I immediately thought of George Saunders' comedy tempered by a down-to-earth acceptance of reality, almost humility. Malla's stories explore the fa...more...]]> 0 0 false false Thu Nov 05 06:12:22 -0800 2009 Thu Nov 05 06:12:22 -0800 2009
Some of these stories, particularly "Being Like Bulls,"...more...]]> 3 0 false false Tue May 06 07:48:50 -0700 2008 Sat Aug 30 05:23:54 -0700 2008 weblog about Pasha Malla, so I guess take as read that I'm a big fan of his writing.

My favorite stories here were: Big City Girls, Pushing Oceans In and Pulling Oceans Out, Dizzy When You Look Down, and Respite (which had this one line in particular: "Sentences spilled into ...more...]]> 5 0 false false Mon May 05 16:07:16 -0700 2008 Tue Aug 04 07:35:39 -0700 2009 ...more...]]> 5 0 false false Wed Jul 01 17:08:36 -0700 2009 Wed Jul 01 17:34:54 -0700 2009 2 0 false false Mon Dec 15 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Sun Dec 14 12:05:19 -0800 2008 Mon Dec 15 20:14:59 -0800 2008 4 0 false false Tue Aug 18 15:32:06 -0700 2009 Tue Aug 18 15:32:54 -0700 2009 3 0 false false Mon Aug 10 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Wed May 27 11:44:19 -0700 2009 Mon Aug 10 17:49:59 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Wed Oct 14 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Mon May 25 20:22:12 -0700 2009 Tue Nov 03 08:13:09 -0800 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Mon Oct 12 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Wed Oct 21 13:59:08 -0700 2009 Wed Oct 21 13:59:53 -0700 2009 3 0 true false Fri Apr 03 23:13:16 -0700 2009 Sat Apr 25 20:18:22 -0700 2009 4 0 false false Sun Sep 20 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sat Apr 18 15:00:21 -0700 2009 Sun Sep 20 16:56:49 -0700 2009 3 0 false false Fri Oct 30 21:55:19 -0700 2009 Fri Oct 30 21:55:19 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Mon Oct 26 12:23:34 -0700 2009 Mon Oct 26 12:23:34 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Mon Oct 19 12:46:43 -0700 2009 Mon Oct 19 12:46:50 -0700 2009