Altmann's Tongue

First of all, it was a great pleasure and honor to attend Brians Fiction Writing courses when I was a student at Oklahoma State University. I found him the most selfless instructor of the written word and took to heart the advice he gave to me concerning my work. If you want to write, study from a master. Towards 'Altmann's Toungue', I would simply tell you that Brian is the thinking mans 'Stephen King'. There is no spoon-feeding of plot here. It is brutal, raw imagery. And it is clear that he is a true student of Poe and Kafka. If you are hungry for horror in small servings, you must dine on Altmann's Toungue.

While it doesn't seem to me to hang together perfectly as a collection, Altmann's Tongue is an amazing amalgamation of shorts and short shorts. It contains some of Evenson's very best stories, especially the title short short, which turns a sudden double-homicide into a reflection on mortal power, who gets the authority to wield it, and what happens when we begin to speak the very language of those whose violent means we oppose. For these reasons, and as its title suggests, it is useful key to many of the other stories.Evenson's written style is remarkable, tightly bunched words and curt but beautifully suggestive sentences that make the prose at once alienating and very friendly.Many of these pieces ground themselves explicitly or implicitly in attempts to understand or articulate specific historical tragedies such as the Holocaust. They last long enough to open disturbing possibilities, then recede quickly and leave the reader to ponder the pieces. No heroes, no solutions, nothing but the problems and the problems of communicating those problems. In this, stories like "Altmann's Tongue," "Munich Window: A Persecution," "Killing Cats," and others come much closer to the reality of the Holocaust and our need to remember it than dismissively heroic tales like Spielberg's "Schindler's List" can ever hope to do.