This Impossible Vertical World - by Stephen Pett (Paperback)

About the Book

In the stories of This Impossible Vertical World, characters struggle to hold fast to other lives-human and animal-as the familiar deserts them. In threatened geographies, from New Mexico and Alaska to Utah and Minnesota, these hard-tested people discover a bestiary of relations: dogs, coyotes, rattlers, whales, swans, wolves, bears, loons, and tur

Book Synopsis

In the stories of This Impossible Vertical World, characters struggle to hold fast to other lives-- human and animal-- as the familiar deserts them. In threatened geographies, from New Mexico and Alaska to Utah and Minnesota, these hard-tested people discover a bestiary of relations: dogs, coyotes, rattlers, whales, swans, wolves, bears, loons, and turtles. This is an ark of stories, its passengers hoping events flooding their lives will recede on a more habitable vertical world.

Review Quotes

The Impossible Vertical World is a charming, absorbing, impressively crafted collection of stories about love, friendship, and family. Nature dominates, and his misfit characters are often fonder of animals than humans, sometimes secluding themselves in open prairies and deep woods and foggy marshes, where they feel what to do more than they know what to say.

--Benjamin Percy, author of The Ninth Metal, Red Moon, Thrill Me, and Refresh, Refresh

Wild dogs. Wolves. Polar bears. Elk. Snakes, turtles, lizards. An injured trumpeter swan. Characters taken to the limits of their patience, passion, and understanding while their lives unfold in ways they never imagined. Ordinary people coping with heartbreaking and heart-stopping situations. How well do we know ourselves...and others? these lyrical and lively stories ask us. Think: "Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom" with master storyteller Steve Pett standing in for Marlin Perkins.

--Sara Pritchard, author of Crackpots and Help Wanted: Female

About the Author

Stephen Pett is author of Sirens, a novel, and Pulpit of Bones, poetry. His short stories have appeared in many venues, including, Ecotone Cimarron Review, Missouri Review, North American Review, Southern Humanities Review, The Sun, and, Witness. He co-founded and was Coordinator for Iowa State University's MFA Program in Creative Writing and Environment and founded the journal Flyway. He lives half the year in Santa Fe and half alongside the Boundary Waters Wilderness in Minnesota.