Siren Songs from the Heart of Austin

by Andrew Geyer

Siren Songs from the Heart of Austin does new and vibrant things with narrative. Magical realism adds its rainbow colors to the twenty-two first person pieces that interweave to tell the story of a group of people living in Austin, Texas. The six main narrative threads overlap and entwine around the idea of love in its myriad forms. Aqua Vitae Café, in turn of the millennium Austin, is the central connection-although the settings range from Austin to New Mexico to Guatemala and Honduras. And through it all, the Prophet Mudcat sings his siren songs, trying to usher in the Age of Aquarius by returning humankind to the water . . . .

210 pages, Paperback

First published January 15, 2010

About the author

Andrew Geyer was born in Austin and grew up on a working cattle ranch in Southwest Texas. He lived in Austin again in the 80s and 90s, along with stints in Columbia, South Carolina; Tishomingo, Oklahoma; Lubbock, Texas; Russellville, Arkansas; and Aiken, South Carolina. Geyer has been—among other things—a bartender, a waiter, a busboy, a bellhop, a cashier, a landscaper, a construction worker, a manager at a Birkenstock store, a student, a teacher, and a writer. A lover of the outdoors and an avid runner and canoeist, Geyer has traveled extensively in North America, Central America, South America, Europe, and North Africa.

Andrew Geyer’s latest book is the hybrid story cycle Texas 5X5, a collection of twenty-five interconnected fictional narratives by five Texas writers that was published in 2014 by Stephen F. Austin University Press. His story “Fingers,” the opening piece in the collection, won the 2015 Spur Award for Best Short Fiction from the Western Writers of America. He is the co-editor of the composite anthology A Shared Voice, published by Lamar University Press in 2013. His individually authored books are Dixie Fish (2011), a novel; Siren Songs from the Heart of Austin (2010), a story cycle; Meeting the Dead (2007), a novel; and Whispers in Dust and Bone (2003), a story cycle that won the silver medal for short fiction in the Foreword Magazine Book of the Year Awards and a Spur Award from the Western Writers of America. A member of the Texas Institute of Letters, he currently serves as Professor and Chair of English at the University of South Carolina Aiken and as fiction editor for Concho River Review.

Reviews

[Shelley]

Author's guest post at my blog:
https://bookfare.blogspot.com/2021/04...

[Nick · Rating 5 out of 5]

Like that other great love letter to the city of Austin, Texas, Richard Linklater’s Slacker, Siren Songs from the Heart of Austin focuses on many characters, all with different stories and perspectives on life. Unlike the former, though, Andrew Geyer’s collection of stories re-visits characters, and develops them in a much more novelistic style. The twenty-two stories blend magical realism, literary and Biblical allusions, and poetical prose into a book that is more than the sum of its parts; the reader feels as if he or she is walking the streets of Austin, visiting the settings of these stories, interacting with their first-person narrators. A range of emotions fills the pages—rage, lust, envy, regret, love—and readers will find themselves laughing at one moment, and deeply moved the next. Though many of the stories share similar threads, they never repeat themselves, a testament to the careful crafting of Geyer’s second cycle of short stories. And while some of the questions asked are never answered, we are given strong enough glimpses to come to our own conclusions about the fates of these fascinating characters.

[Jessica · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was written by one of my professors; pretty funny.