Guernica Editions

In the collection of short flash fiction, Down in the Ground, author Bruce Meyer brings both wit and philosophical curiosity to his musings on death. These stories are brief and sometimes startling. In other hands, the subject might be given a maudlin treatment but here, the tone is surprisingly restrained, and at times, ironic.

Bruce Meyer’s latest collection of flash fiction, Down in the Ground (Guernica Editions) stands as a testament to what over 60 books and a dozen simultaneous careers will get you—a lot of living. Pointing us in the direction of wisdom from unexpected sources, the poet in Meyer stirs up pricks of remembrance that reanimate the past with all its emotive and sensory piquancy intact. Breathing through young-again centenarians, weary cowboys, and a childhood that gallops undeterred down in the ground, the past, we find, is a state of mind, as easy to step into as invisibility in a snowstorm. These stories, consumable as chocolate chip cookies, show the way home.

Meyer allows humour, sometimes bald, sometimes sarcastic, sometimes surreal, to undercut the solemn catalogue of deaths distributed throughout. My favourite is perhaps, “Bobby shoved Phil into the microwave. They’d been best buddies since they were young.” That image kept me amused for days. This collection, with all its tumbling dice of fates embraced, rejected, romanticized and denied will charm you for a good deal longer than that.

Tender, funny, philosophical and smart, Meyer’s work is dazzling. His stories achieve what other writers can only do in novels. Each flash is so full of love, loss and healing it captures a life. Writing this good feels like a sort of alchemy. Superb.

Deft, elegant, and lush. Meyer reveals the inescapable trajectories and truths of ordinary human lives in in this sumptuous collection of short fictions. Masterful writing!