Sandy Florian is also the author of Telescope (Action Books), 32 Pedals and 47 Stops (Tarpaulin Sky Press), On Wonderland and Waste (Sidebrow Press, forthcoming) and Visible Stars (forthcoming from Elixir Press).

"Beastly I fall at Adam under the shade." Sandy Florian's second book dilates under Milton's Forbidden Tree, plumbing God's unjustifiable ways, and Man's. In a world made from scratch, eros and artifice, thanatos and theology give off mixed and exquisite signals, here buckled in Florian's bejeweled and rigorous sentences: "words like chords like emerald snakes, words like lords like humble smoke." Florian's intellect blazes in this bold, ambitious work: "I have a war with history."

Review

As slyly humorous as it is sublimely poetical, Florian s experimental novel riffs on Biblical stories from Genesis to Revelations to trace the career of a narrator who, unhesitant 'to taste the waste,' ventures forth from Eden to pursue meditations on imagination, quirky civic projects, and an odd love affair with the enigmatic Montgomery, all the while struggling toward a resolute affirmation of the earthbound self.

-- Robert Savino Oventile