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A collection of short fiction, flashes and longer pieces, with interconnections among many of the stories. A writer receives a strange rejection letter from a literary journal where he submitted a short story… a woman reflects on past loves while sitting around a table with three of them… two government agents intercept an ominous sounding blog post from a whacked-out teenager… a man is seduced by a close relative, only to discover belatedly that it is perhaps he who is the more guilty party to the encounter… a lonely office clerk wonders where he has seen his new coworker before… a kid turns the tables on a sexual predator… A Box of Dreams follows in the tradition of Spoon River Anthology and Winesburg, Ohio. The voices are hurt, dazed, occasionally triumphant, and seldom fully trustworthy. Illustrated in splendid style by Jacksonville, Florida artist Louise Freshman Brown.
Denis Bell’s collection of short fiction A Box of Dreams, 2nd edition,
centers itself in the tradition of Spoon River Anthology (minus the tombstones) and Winesburg, Ohio. A Box of Dreams is dark without a trace of cynicism: it invites empathy for even the least attractive of the characters; these protagonists commonly suffer from mangled memories, rightful guilt, and an inability to distinguish between delusion and reality, between past and present. The stories tease and tantalize: truth glimmers between the lines. Louise Freshman Brown’s gorgeous images are haunting illuminations.
– -Miriam N. Kotzin, author, Country Music, Spuyten Duyvil Press
Denis Bell and flash fiction represent a marriage made in Heaven. The two dozen short works in his collection, A Box of Dreams, show him working at the top of his game. In each, the reader’s mind is taken for a weird, wonderful walk that’s by turns wryly humorous and darkly intriguing. Louise Brown’s illustrations lend just the right atmosphere for an absorbing read.
- Paul Blaney, Writer in Residence, Rutgers University,
author, The Anchoress
Each piece in Denis Bell’s A Box of Dreams is a work of magic that moves steadily along, pulling you in, and not letting you go… The stories are by turns haunting, heartbreaking and funny, and they never fail to surprise… Blending the real with the surreal, these stories, more than anything else, get to the heart of our humanity, our vulnerabilities, and they do so in a way that represents the best in flash fiction.
-Dennis Pahl, Long Island University, Editor for
Confrontation Magazine
