Hell of a Thing Sixteen Stories

Michael Boturs work grabs you by the throat and wont let you go. His artful short stories throb with pain hope misunderstanding reconciliation remorse and surprise. As one reviewer says The authenticity is so scary you wonder where this man has been and what demons followed him home.With his sixth collection of stories this leading young New Zealand author and journalist finds purchase for the first time with an American publisher. In Hell of a Thing a cowardly father seeks a more exciting son; two lovers on a posh date dine on self-delusion and an author turns his back on his past--until the past demands violent closure. We meet artistic terrorists renegade daughters an Uber driver from Waziristan and a crew of casino kids up past their bedtime--everything with a distinctive Kiwi flavor that lends a counter-clockwise swirl to otherwise familiar settings.There is a ring of authenticity to Boturs dialogue and physical descriptions an unvarnished street language punctuated with demotic vocabulary and agitated rhythms combined in collages of invective obscenity and acute observation. Says a reviewer: Its as if Mr. Botur hung out at fast-food outlets after midnight--swilling bad coffee listening to conversations and jotting observational notes under the garish yellow lighting.