false 1443836 3 Kevin Brockmeier -- award-winning author of <i>The Brief History of the Dead</i> -- 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.<br><br>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.<br><br>By turns daring and moving, <i>The View from the Seventh Layer</i> is crafted with the remarkable voice and vision that have become hallmarks of Brockmeier's acclaimed fiction. 1434489 18 3 2008 The View from the Seventh Layer total:178|5:57|4:66|3:45|2:9|1:1| 178 703 337 57 4 2 false false Sun Oct 05 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Thu Oct 02 10:05:28 -0700 2008 Sun Oct 05 09:16:57 -0700 2008 The Brief History of the Dead was one of my three books of the year, last year, and I figured this collection of short stories would please me similarly.

The first and title story, about a housecleaner named Olivia, is...more...]]> 4 1 false false Tue Apr 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Mon Apr 14 18:00:08 -0700 2008 Sun Apr 20 19:00:07 -0700 2008
"If only she had known when she was growing up how hard the rest of her life was going to be, how diminished, she would have been so much more joyful, so much more daring. She woul...more...]]> 4 1 false false Mon Aug 18 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Fri Jul 25 10:49:53 -0700 2008 Tue Aug 19 06:52:37 -0700 2008 immediately.

...more...]]> 3 1 false false Fri Dec 26 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Tue Jul 29 10:06:51 -0700 2008 Sun Dec 28 11:17:19 -0800 2008
But I have to admit, I didn't enjoy this as much as I did Things that Fall from the Sky. A couple of the s...more...]]> 4 0 false false Sun Dec 28 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Fri Dec 26 21:39:27 -0800 2008 Sun Dec 28 08:03:32 -0800 2008 ever. Kevin Brockmeier's The View From the Seventh Layer is a collection of really good short stories.

I have only read Brockmeier's A Brief History of the Dead which...more...]]> 4 0 false false Thu Dec 25 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Wed Dec 24 00:13:26 -0800 2008 Mon Dec 29 21:13:41 -0800 2008 amazing short stories. Brockmeier is an astounding writer; his prose is full of complex, gorgeous images, but with enough playfulness, too, to keep it from being unbearably pretentious. These are stories you can get lost in—literally: I don’t know how long I spe...more...]]> 5 1 false false Fri Jul 18 16:29:54 -0700 2008 Fri Jul 18 16:38:08 -0700 2008 more...]]> 5 0 false false Fri Jan 02 14:51:44 -0800 2009 Fri Jan 16 15:27:39 -0800 2009
"There were times when the silence was close to perfect ... We came to know ourselves better than we had be...more...]]> 0 0 false false Sun Jun 21 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Fri May 22 21:23:49 -0700 2009 Sun Jun 21 17:56:46 -0700 2009
There are a couple standout stories such as "The Year of Silence," a story I still think about and which you can also check out in The Best American Short Stories (the year edited by Salman Rushdie...who...more...]]> 3 0 false false Thu Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Mon Mar 09 22:45:26 -0700 2009 Mon Mar 09 22:54:44 -0700 2009 more...]]> 2 0 false false Fri Nov 13 10:37:11 -0800 2009 Fri Nov 13 10:40:03 -0800 2009 more...]]> 5 0 false false Sun Aug 16 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sat Jul 04 20:45:47 -0700 2009 Sun Aug 16 23:20:43 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Fri Nov 13 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Mon Nov 02 13:07:52 -0800 2009 Fri Nov 13 08:36:10 -0800 2009
The first two stories "A Fable Ending in the Sound of Thousand Parakeets" and "The View from the Seventh Layer" were...more...]]> 4 0 false false Sun May 31 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Tue May 26 11:07:08 -0700 2009 Sun May 31 17:36:22 -0700 2009 more...]]> 3 0 false false Tue Mar 17 17:59:31 -0700 2009 Tue Mar 17 18:00:20 -0700 2009
Also, his concepts are unique. No regular old, coming-to-terms-wi...more...]]> 4 0 false false Thu May 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Thu Apr 10 16:43:31 -0700 2008 Sun May 18 14:46:50 -0700 2008 more...]]> 3 0 false false Wed Apr 01 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Mon May 04 20:56:00 -0700 2009 Mon May 04 21:03:16 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Fri May 09 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Sun Apr 20 09:43:06 -0700 2008 Fri May 09 09:52:56 -0700 2008 more...]]> 5 0 false false Thu Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Sat Jan 10 16:37:27 -0800 2009 Sat Jan 10 16:43:11 -0800 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Fri Feb 27 11:36:24 -0800 2009 Sun Feb 22 13:18:34 -0800 2009 Fri Feb 27 11:36:24 -0800 2009 more...]]> http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=5956503