Modern Massacres

Modern Massacres by Timothy Willis Sanders (2022) I really don’t read a lot of books of short stories (except Jesus’ Son, over and over, ha)—or short stories, anywhere, really, but I like when a book feels like a whole thing, like this one—not that the stories are connected in any obvious way, thematically or stylistically—I guess in the “voice,” of course, though even that’s not that obvious. But it feels like a perfect little book—exactly 100 pages, and a great cover—it’s from Publishing Genius Press. I’d never heard of Timothy Willis Sanders—but I heard him on a podcast (otherppl, where I hear of a lot of writers for the first time) and I liked his interview. It’s funny, the book kind of makes me think of a vinyl record album, for some reason, six songs (stories) per side, as if there’s a center point. I’m not going to summarize them—but some are about childhood (which I’ve been trying to write about)—and some, the time between childhood and being an adult—I wouldn’t necessarily say “coming of age,” because I’m not comfortable with that term, exactly—but I suppose some of these stories could be considered that. Learning hard things about the world. My favorite story is one called “Officer Walter” which is about the narrator’s relationship to that particular cop, who kind of mentors at his school, and then has a questionable relationship with his mom—and then a series of run-ins with the police, involving friends, drinking, drugs, the usual. Each part of the story is a new twist—it kept surprising me—often disturbing, but also mundane—even reassuring to an extent—but sad, too—really back and forth. This is the first one that I’m going to come back to. Stories need to be read over again—like poems—well everything does—but especially stories!

8.26.25