Author Chris Fillebrown, a long-time IPM contributor, has been working on the third book in his short fiction series about the character Phillip Young. Published in weekly installments, he has now arrived at the halfway point of his newest work exploring the touchy terrain of marriage, grief, loss and the mesmerizing mazes the central character’s internal monologue can construct and deconstruct. Below is an excerpt from Part 6 – Gathering: Early Arrival
He turned the radio off, rolled his window down. The early morning air. Smells of oil and gasoline. The sickly sweet nectar of antifreeze rising up from green puddles on the vast expanse of concrete, dripped from hissing engines. Sharp metal sounds. Highway construction. The beep of garbage truck backing up behind a shuttered restaurant. The clank of its tusks, the whine of its motor lifting, toss rotted dumpster smells onto its back.
It is this density of description that brings the reader not only fully into the realm of Phillip Young but also into an awareness of his or her own environment, re-observing a mundane activity – such as waiting for an oil-change – through the tone poems of Young’s internal monologues.
If you’d like to read more, you can begin at the beginning – in the midst of a dream – by clicking at the link below:
Gathering – Part 1 – The dream of ascending
Bonnie McClellan-Broussard 