The Paper Coast

by Jefferson Navicky

In Jefferson Navicky’s The Paper Coast , we find the vicissitudes of translators and sea captains; flotsam and fonts; swans and wax cylinders and burials at sea. Sometimes ghostly, sometimes arch, sometimes laugh-out-loud scatological, its stories hold the scent of salt, pine, and ether; of coffee, old books, and sardines. To read The Paper Coast is to immerse in the librarial alchemy of Borges crossed with the profane whimsy of Brautigan, infused with Dickensonian flint and slant, the blue and brume of a certain coastal Maine. Navicky’s tales are curious, beautiful, transcendent. His sentences are luminous.
Megan Grumbling , author of Booker’s Point How I loved meandering up and down this fog-laden Paper Coast with Jefferson Navicky. His characters—shadow creatures—stilled me with their strange secrets and yearnings, and their fragmented visions and obsessions—time, memory, ghosts, wolves, islands, books from the past—blended into a mysterious and haunted and thrilling whole.
Robin MacArthur , author of Half Wild and Heart Spring Mountain

174 pages, Paperback

Published February 23, 2018

Reviews

[Rocco Tripaldi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Short, imaginative tales many of which are vague enough to let the reader’s imagination fill up the space like an airbag slowly deploying on a pleasant, accident-free Sunday drive. As a Mainer, I love all of the location references.