LOSS, GRIEF, SADNESS, MAGIC: An Interview with Bradley Sides

In Crocodile Tears Don’t Cause the Flood (Montag Press, 2024), Bradley Sides folds heavy themes like grief and loss into lighter elements like magic, resulting in an experimental short-story collection that feels relatable even at its most uncanny. Set very firmly in the South, each of Sides’ stories hums with an inventive playfulness that always complements, never overwhelms, the narrative. Sides was kind enough to answer a few of my questions about his craft, his collection, and more.   Elizabeth Crowder: What was your inspiration for Crocodile Tears Didn’t Cause the Flood? Bradley Sides: The book had kind of a…

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LOVE IS A SHITPOST FROM THE SOUL: A Profile of Cash Compson by K Hank Jost

“You ever waste much time with this guy?” Cash has removed from the bookshelf a tattered volume of Hunter S. Thompson. He holds it aloft with a smirk I will come increasingly to recognize as punctuation to a dry joke.  The both of us are now newly in our thirties, young but fresh in our next decade, and our trip to the bookstore has largely been a coming to terms with all that we once read and held sacred. Kerouac. Bukowski. Thompson. Hemingway. All the etceterated, quintessential, sensitive but itchy-fisted guy-reads. The one, though, that we mutually hold in unshakeable…

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X-R-A-Y Specs: THE PLUMBER (1979)

I don’t think Max’s colonization of the bathroom is an accident. It’s a place where we feel vulnerable, and many times we attach a lock to the door to prevent others from walking in unannounced.

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Transmissions: The Book Chemist

What I never do is read a book with the specific intent to review it (e.g., because I think it will be popular on the channel). It would take all the fun out of reading!

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