Changing the Subject (e-book) (used book) | bookbook.eu

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PRAISE FOR CHANGING THE SUBJECT

In Stephen-Paul Martin’s new book, utterly banal situations are transformed into something extraordinary. His stories are unbirthday presents from the Mad Hatter. He is one of our great deadpan humorists. —Eric Basso

What’s so transformative in CHANGING THE SUBJECT is Stephen-Paul Martin’s wizard-like range of knowledge–quantum mechanics, semiotics, literary theory, psychology & meditation practice–delivered in a voice unpretentous yet outrageous, scary yet funny, reader-friendly yet beyond category. —Kirpal Gordon

Marked by subversive wit and philosophical insight, Martin’s prose is ultimately musical in construction, like a fugue for the ruin of time. Here, irony and longing coexist in counterpoint: Martin, a humanist in a posthuman age, is still composing figures of redemption. —Andrew Joron

Stephen-Paul Martin is North America’s foremost master of the short story. The narrators of Martin’s new stories probe center after elusive center, until we see that it’s not just the subject that’s changing, but also our sense of what it means for a story to have a subject. —Vernon Frazer


PRAISE FOR STEPHEN-PAUL MARTIN

[Stephen-Paul Martin's] fiction is fresh, breaks new ground, and concedes nothing to conventional literary formulas. —Ronald Sukenick

Martin spins his arresting tales, tales full of surprises and yet reassuringly “normal.” THE POSSIBILITY OF MUSIC is a joy to read. —Marjorie Perloff

Stephen-Paul Martin has, for many years, brilliantly wrestled with the problems posed by his own chosen material/experience. Entering his witty contemporary monologues, the reader unravels the great questions: does a person anticipate his or her own actions, as one word in a sentence anticipates the next? Or is an event an explosion of contingencies that arrive fully integrated? “I didn’t expect to become a composer,” he begins one story and this one statement articulates the magnificent and entertaining wrestling match he performs with time and act in each of his beautifully crafted stories. —Fanny Howe