A lifelong Bookseller (with a capital B), Tom is your guy when you need something new but have no idea what - except that you liked that one blue & gold book everyone read last year. Seriously. Give him a challenge, and he'll always rise to the occasion. He also really likes small press books and essay/short story collections.
I have too much to say about this book for one conversation. This isn't just the best essay collection I've read this year or the best music criticism (it is both): It is one of the most beautiful, catch-your-breath, heart-in-throat books I've encountered. It is a gift. Please, enjoy it. We don't get work this great that often.
I'll keep this short: This is one of the most impressive short story collections I've read in years.
The Transmigration of Bodies reads like a fever dream: an intense, enthralling examination of how people live in a city of the dying and the dead. It takes an extraordinary amount of sill to combine elements of noir, political commentary, hardboiled crime, and allegory (not to mention Shakespeare, with a seasoning of existential ennui) and keep the novel moving, or in this case, racing along. Herrera, clearly, has at least that much talent, and then some.
