Nouns of Assemblage

by Riley Michael Parker, Colleen Elizabeth Rowley, Andrew Borgstrom

NOUNS OF ASSEMBLAGE collects sixty-three of the strongest voices in small press fiction, from J. A. Tyler to xTx, from Kevin Sampsell to Cameron C. Pierce, with stories ranging from romantic to absurd to over-the-top violent and back again, covering the full gamut of what small press has to offer. Every story in this collection was written from a different collective noun, or "noun of assemblage," such as A MURDER OF CROW (by Tyler Gobble), or A LITTER OF PUPS (by Joseph Riippi), or A PLAGUE OF LOCUSTS (by Frank Hinton), and none of these stories are available anywhere else.

This is the first official title from HOUSEFIRE, the innovative and groundbreaking publishing company located in Portland Oregon.

Genres: Fiction

224 pages, Paperback

First published July 30, 2011

About the author

Riley Michael Parker was raised outside of Death Valley in a series of small trailers and mobile homes, but the desert, and white trash culture, has had little impact on his writing (though he is currently working on a western).

Reviews

[Kerri Anne · Rating 3 out of 5]

Preface: This was a tricky review for me to write, if only because it was not without some personal bias I approached this collection. See, my Oh So Lovely And Favorite Cousin Frances (E. Dinger) has words living within the front and back covers of this book, and I give her five stars for (existing, yes, and) being one of the most wonderful women I've ever had the pleasure of knowing, and since she's started telling her stories I've enjoyed reading them in the various places she chooses to share them, and this was no exception.

My take on the book as a whole: While the premise of the collection was an undoubtedly interesting (and seemingly cohesive) one, more often than not, the execution of the individual pieces failed to rise to the collective occasion. I think that particular disconnect-between prompt(s) given and submissions received-is an undeniable risk, and one taken every time you're compiling a collection this large with this many separate and very distinct voices, telling separate and very distinct stories.

My primary issues: 1. The prompts were just vague enough to inspire creativity, but not focused enough to ensure the respective writers were actually saying something. Saying anything, in quite a few cases. 2. I was looking for, and ultimately really needed, a bit of back-story as to why the specific prompts were chosen. Why did we suddenly have entire sections designated as "A Tower of Giraffe" and "An Abomination of Platypus" when before we only had sections delineated by larger sub-sections of species ("Birds", "Reptiles and Amphibians", "Mammals" etc. etc.)?

Which is to say: A collection can only go so far as an inside joke between itself and its writers only.

[Three stars for so much potential, and an unexpected "choose your own adventure" story involving bats.]

[Kevin · Rating 3 out of 5]

I bet Housefire is going to be doing some cool stuff in the book (and Internet) world. There are a ton of cool writers in here, though some of the stories aren't their best (Janey Smith--you can do better than that). I think the excitement of publishing these folks probably trumped the quality of the work in some cases. I completely understand that. With that being said, I really enjoyed a lot of the stories, especially Megan Lent, Matty Byloos, Jamie Iredell, David Drury, Jess Rowan, Ben Tanzer, Mike Topp, and Gabriel Blackwell. The crazy Crispin Best story is totally goofballs and my surprise favorite of the batch.
This anthology includes my transgender sex club story, An Ambush of Tigers.

[M. Shaw · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nouns of assemblage (a.k.a. collective nouns) were invented in medieval time so that people could impress each other with their knowledge of them. Imagine an ironically-frumpy-dressed courtier strolling nonchallantly into the great hall and announcing, "I saw a parliament in the woods on the way here." Another one says, "What do you mean, a parliament?" and the first one rolls his eyes and says, "A group of owls. It's a noun of assemblage--never mind, you've probably never heard of it." In this book, they are converted into something more useful: story prompts, which Housefire has gotten some of the coolest writers you've probably never heard of to fill them in.

There are a few misses, mainly in the form of stories so well-buried under stylistic conceits as to be virtually indecipherable, though you can't fault the authors for experimenting. Thankfully, these few are within a ridiculous number of stories, most of them fine examples of modern storytelling, with character ranging from emotionally poignant to indulgently silly.

Thought provoking, great fun, and doesn't ask for a great deal of your time either.

[Matthew Hinea · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really fun short prose pieces. Some are better than others, but every piece has something worthwhile. There are a lot of good up-and-coming authors featured, some names I recognized from 'alt lit.' Really glad I bought this.