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Inscriptions for Headstones
Thirty short essays, crafted as epitaphs, each one unfolding in a single sentence. A profound exercise in the power of the creative essay and an exceptional reading experience.
160 pages, Paperback
First published October 1, 2012
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
August 30, 2016
Author is a friend from grad school but that doesn't mean I can't sincerely proclaim that I just took a much-needed break from Proust to read a signficantly more contemporary exercise in memory, only to discover that it doesn't read like "an exercise in memory," thankfully, in fact it didn't feel like a creative writing exercise at all (my initial fear), since -- lo! -- after a bit the conceit melted away to reveal an excellent, formally interesting, audacious, moving, vivid, suggestive, life-affirming, open-hearted collection of short one-sentence autobiographical essays involving undergoing surgery to correct a weird chest cavity, beheading copperheads, Tumblr, long-lost Jordan-like friends, cutting one's own hair, staring at the embers of a fire while coming off psychoactive drugs, strict Christian upbringing (the whole thing inexplicitly expresses conversion from following G-d as a child to something more mystical/literary as an adult), haunting old family houses, advanced directives re: what to do with one's body, classic '80s NBA (Bird, Rambis) -- not to reveal all the wonders of its nature, but this is a book that gawks at the wide-open world and thereby experiences a sort of grace, making peace with the old verity of so much world/so little time upon it, walking through neighborhoods at night wondering why everyone doesn't walk at night every night (mad but not really mad at the blue glow in at least one window per house), and -- most affectingly -- being a father and being a son, plus other not-quite-polar pivot spots that make these epitaphs come absolutely alive and, whether or not you're a fan of Michael Martone or Some Instructions to My Wife or Pieces for the Left Hand: 100 Anecdotes, this writer -- who come to think of it organized a touch football game on weekends in grad school -- commands the huddle and, with confidence in your writer/reader tandem's mutal desire to win a nonexistent existential trophy, places a tight spiral into your outstretched hands after he instructs you to go long.
April 30, 2013
Vollmer's ethereal voice could not be better paired for such an existence-predicated confessionally biographical summary of a life that quite likely will be gone by the time its greatest number of readers encounter that life's description (i.e. inscriptions). If literature is indeed a conversation with the masters of any era, then Vollmer has joined that conversation -- and the others will listen. This is the type of book that sets the mockingbirds yapping to form new genres. Highly recommended.
July 4, 2018
https://msarki.tumblr.com/post/522330...
from Epitaph VIII “… and why doesn’t he look up at the stars more often and acknowledge the vastness of space and in turn meditate upon his own relative insignificance and subsequently feel blessed and lucky to have beaten the odds of never existing…”
It was a few mornings ago, while routinely walking our dog Bob Earl through the Catholic cemetery behind our bedroom window, that my wife remarked, arms expressively wide, how vast this space is that we humans inhabit. Her comment in particular was induced by her hallowed admiration for the magnificent moon still present in the northern sky. This particular morning the sun cast its spell on the old rubble limestone walls surrounding this rolling hillside containing white marble headstones, an elegantly manicured lawn, and the fantastic assortment of trees scattered about this sixty acre paradise of a final resting place. I did not answer with anything of note back to my wife as I was listening, not just to her voice and what she said, but for the sound of silence rustling through the trees. We both do that sort of thing with each other. Profoundly, at least to me, a day later I discover this book, Inscriptions for Headstones, through my goodreads pal, Lee Klein. Soon I am drifting through sentences every bit as beautiful and timely as my wife’s response to that specific morning’s majesty.
I do not think I have read a better all-around book in 2012 than this one. I expect that says something given the number of books I certainly have read, not to mention the quality of writer I am generally exposed to on a daily basis. That no doubt will give reason for select readers of this criticism of mine to abruptly disagree wholeheartedly with my initial assessment of this book and leave this page before their heads pop off.
Here is another caveat for those of you still with me: This Inscriptions for Headstones is one of the most lovely, and honest, books I have read in my lifetime. I am fifty-nine years old. This is a book I do wish I would have written myself. A brilliant plan by Vollmer to get down in words the songs of his heart. Quite the memoir even if little of it proves to be true. Nothing sentimental or creepy to turn the tide of warm and fuzzy feelings into tumbling waves of insecticides. Thirty highly skilled epitaphs too large to fit on a typical headstone unless they were super-sized to the degree my experience with houses, fries, and soft drink containers have been over the last twenty years.
I spent segments of three consecutive days in order to take my sweet time in reading these epitaphs, or inscriptions on headstones, and I could have easily devoured them all in one sitting. But that is not my esteemed style when I am on to something bigger than my own valued time of escape from mundane living. I also write, somehow, in a similar vein to this professor of language, though my brain has in no way a master plan like Vollmer does for what I am giving to the page. But then, in defense, I understand that even Professor Vollmer himself suggests to his students to just go ahead, write, and that writing is a good way to begin a composition. Basically, I suppose, we just might let the chips fly.
The fly for me is in the reviews I find myself composing. Often, when writing criticism, or putting down a thought or two about something I recently read, it triggers an emotional response from me. The response is spontaneous and surprising which encourages me enough to go on with the exercise unto its end and discover what I could possibly have been getting myself into or away from. Predictably, when I read these epitaphs of Matthew Vollmer, or something written by Lee Klein or Thomas Bernhard, Gordon Lish or Robert Walser, David Foster Wallace, and even Hunter S. Thompson, I remember in flashes pieces of my own past that I think could have been written by any of these aforementioned characters. And that is the point, I think. All these people I am interested in are vital characters on the page, but who happen to write not only well, but honestly.
It isn’t the truth we are looking for but something that feels like it. And if we were all a little smarter we would insist on reading this type of material instead of so-called experimental or traditional drivel we are all too accustomed to reading these days. And of course, Matthew Vollmer’s work might be found in some of these same literary magazines I am complaining about, but the trouble it takes to find a writer like him by subscribing to these awful things is no longer worth its time nor money to me. I rely instead on my new friends. A certain and select few who unfortunately happen to write for no monetary gain usually, but offer their wisdom and experience for what is important on the page. You should all know who you are, and if not, you don’t know what you are missing.
from Epitaph VIII “… and why doesn’t he look up at the stars more often and acknowledge the vastness of space and in turn meditate upon his own relative insignificance and subsequently feel blessed and lucky to have beaten the odds of never existing…”
It was a few mornings ago, while routinely walking our dog Bob Earl through the Catholic cemetery behind our bedroom window, that my wife remarked, arms expressively wide, how vast this space is that we humans inhabit. Her comment in particular was induced by her hallowed admiration for the magnificent moon still present in the northern sky. This particular morning the sun cast its spell on the old rubble limestone walls surrounding this rolling hillside containing white marble headstones, an elegantly manicured lawn, and the fantastic assortment of trees scattered about this sixty acre paradise of a final resting place. I did not answer with anything of note back to my wife as I was listening, not just to her voice and what she said, but for the sound of silence rustling through the trees. We both do that sort of thing with each other. Profoundly, at least to me, a day later I discover this book, Inscriptions for Headstones, through my goodreads pal, Lee Klein. Soon I am drifting through sentences every bit as beautiful and timely as my wife’s response to that specific morning’s majesty.
I do not think I have read a better all-around book in 2012 than this one. I expect that says something given the number of books I certainly have read, not to mention the quality of writer I am generally exposed to on a daily basis. That no doubt will give reason for select readers of this criticism of mine to abruptly disagree wholeheartedly with my initial assessment of this book and leave this page before their heads pop off.
Here is another caveat for those of you still with me: This Inscriptions for Headstones is one of the most lovely, and honest, books I have read in my lifetime. I am fifty-nine years old. This is a book I do wish I would have written myself. A brilliant plan by Vollmer to get down in words the songs of his heart. Quite the memoir even if little of it proves to be true. Nothing sentimental or creepy to turn the tide of warm and fuzzy feelings into tumbling waves of insecticides. Thirty highly skilled epitaphs too large to fit on a typical headstone unless they were super-sized to the degree my experience with houses, fries, and soft drink containers have been over the last twenty years.
I spent segments of three consecutive days in order to take my sweet time in reading these epitaphs, or inscriptions on headstones, and I could have easily devoured them all in one sitting. But that is not my esteemed style when I am on to something bigger than my own valued time of escape from mundane living. I also write, somehow, in a similar vein to this professor of language, though my brain has in no way a master plan like Vollmer does for what I am giving to the page. But then, in defense, I understand that even Professor Vollmer himself suggests to his students to just go ahead, write, and that writing is a good way to begin a composition. Basically, I suppose, we just might let the chips fly.
The fly for me is in the reviews I find myself composing. Often, when writing criticism, or putting down a thought or two about something I recently read, it triggers an emotional response from me. The response is spontaneous and surprising which encourages me enough to go on with the exercise unto its end and discover what I could possibly have been getting myself into or away from. Predictably, when I read these epitaphs of Matthew Vollmer, or something written by Lee Klein or Thomas Bernhard, Gordon Lish or Robert Walser, David Foster Wallace, and even Hunter S. Thompson, I remember in flashes pieces of my own past that I think could have been written by any of these aforementioned characters. And that is the point, I think. All these people I am interested in are vital characters on the page, but who happen to write not only well, but honestly.
It isn’t the truth we are looking for but something that feels like it. And if we were all a little smarter we would insist on reading this type of material instead of so-called experimental or traditional drivel we are all too accustomed to reading these days. And of course, Matthew Vollmer’s work might be found in some of these same literary magazines I am complaining about, but the trouble it takes to find a writer like him by subscribing to these awful things is no longer worth its time nor money to me. I rely instead on my new friends. A certain and select few who unfortunately happen to write for no monetary gain usually, but offer their wisdom and experience for what is important on the page. You should all know who you are, and if not, you don’t know what you are missing.
November 30, 2012
From an interview I did, for the Tottenville Review, with Matthew Volmer:
Matthew Vollmer is the author of two short story collections: the critically lauded Future Missionaries of America, a beautifully crafted sampling of spiritual longing and religious legacies amidst the lives of contemporary Americans, and, still fresh from the presses, Inscriptions for Headstones, an ambitious, poetic, and really quite singular work. There’s nothing else like it in the world. Close on the heels of his latest, Vollmer has co-edited with David Shields FAKES: An Anthology of Pseudo-Interviews, Faux-Lectures, Quasi-Letters, “Found” Texts, and Other Fraudulent Artifacts. Given that Inscriptions is actually comprised of thirty “epitaphs,” Vollmer seems especially interested in notions of authenticity, and, dare I say, Truth. I saw him read at powerHouse Books recently where, among other things, we talked (and then talked more over email) about Truth, Fakes, and fraudulence in fiction, plus his time spent at the Iowa Writers Workshop. And I must say Vollmer strikes me one of the most dynamic and sincere conversationalists I’ve met in some time. He means every last word.
SCOTT CHESHIRE
There’s something I find especially present about your stories, or perhaps I mean of the characters’ lives in these stories, and so one can’t use the story as a model for a character’s behavior and telegraph any sort of future like a boxer would a punch. Does that make sense?
MATTHEW VOLLMER
I think the thing that you seem to be responding to in a positive way is the exact thing that many readers resent in contemporary fiction: ambiguity. If I were to make a generalization about humanity, and about the average story-consuming person (whether “story” exists as a poem, play, radio drama, film, or sitcom), it would be that these story-consumers prefer to have things wrapped up neatly. Rarely do people want to be “left hanging.” They want to know exactly “what happened” or have a sense of “what’s going to happen.” In many ways, the desire to consume and live out in our lives a coherent narrative is at the core of who we are, of who we strive to become. But in literary fiction, or in stories that attempt to capture what “reality” looks like, authors often seem to care less about wrapping things up neatly, because so often in life, that’s not how it works...
http://www.tottenvillereview.com/a-co...
Matthew Vollmer is the author of two short story collections: the critically lauded Future Missionaries of America, a beautifully crafted sampling of spiritual longing and religious legacies amidst the lives of contemporary Americans, and, still fresh from the presses, Inscriptions for Headstones, an ambitious, poetic, and really quite singular work. There’s nothing else like it in the world. Close on the heels of his latest, Vollmer has co-edited with David Shields FAKES: An Anthology of Pseudo-Interviews, Faux-Lectures, Quasi-Letters, “Found” Texts, and Other Fraudulent Artifacts. Given that Inscriptions is actually comprised of thirty “epitaphs,” Vollmer seems especially interested in notions of authenticity, and, dare I say, Truth. I saw him read at powerHouse Books recently where, among other things, we talked (and then talked more over email) about Truth, Fakes, and fraudulence in fiction, plus his time spent at the Iowa Writers Workshop. And I must say Vollmer strikes me one of the most dynamic and sincere conversationalists I’ve met in some time. He means every last word.
SCOTT CHESHIRE
There’s something I find especially present about your stories, or perhaps I mean of the characters’ lives in these stories, and so one can’t use the story as a model for a character’s behavior and telegraph any sort of future like a boxer would a punch. Does that make sense?
MATTHEW VOLLMER
I think the thing that you seem to be responding to in a positive way is the exact thing that many readers resent in contemporary fiction: ambiguity. If I were to make a generalization about humanity, and about the average story-consuming person (whether “story” exists as a poem, play, radio drama, film, or sitcom), it would be that these story-consumers prefer to have things wrapped up neatly. Rarely do people want to be “left hanging.” They want to know exactly “what happened” or have a sense of “what’s going to happen.” In many ways, the desire to consume and live out in our lives a coherent narrative is at the core of who we are, of who we strive to become. But in literary fiction, or in stories that attempt to capture what “reality” looks like, authors often seem to care less about wrapping things up neatly, because so often in life, that’s not how it works...
http://www.tottenvillereview.com/a-co...
June 16, 2017
spread out your reading of this and take a breath with each story.
December 30, 2018
I was more fascinated by the experimentation with punctuation, grammar and lack of periods than the actual content...interesting essay collection.
October 3, 2015
I enjoyed this book and appreciated the creative way the author presented his essays. But I did find that I missed punctuation. :) I related to so much of what the author said, having grown up in a similar manner but then evolved to a similar place as an adult.
Ironically, the book had a passing reference to the children's book, "The Secret of NIMH", which I happen to be reading outloud with my kids right now.
Ironically, the book had a passing reference to the children's book, "The Secret of NIMH", which I happen to be reading outloud with my kids right now.
October 14, 2014
Story #2 was among my favorite things that I've read all year. The rest of the stories were also very good. All of them written as epitaphs, they started off thinking about guardian angels, but midway through started to focus on fatherhood as the main theme.
October 8, 2014
imaginative and cleverly told storying.
March 12, 2013
As I read, I found my worries and thoughts on the pages in front of me. One of the most honest and meaningful works I've ever encountered.
July 28, 2014
Beautiful flow.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews