Jeff Friedman’s Broken Signals is a wildly imaginative collection of dazzling fabulist micro tales that reveals a world of inexplicable mysteries in which we struggle to love each other and ourselves. A girl coughs out salmon fillets for the family dinner; a man can’t remember his father’s face; a man’s lover believes he’s Paul Newman…a female mime pantomimes sex with her lover, but never touches him; a flotilla of clouds sails toward the horizon, each with a dog tail ticking behind it. A husband opens the doors through which his wife sleepwalks and a white owl sews together the dreams of two lovers…Broken Signals is deeply serious and knock-out funny!
Each of these potent, minute-length pieces—about family, love, and the inner life—shimmers with the wisdom and emotional precision of a dream. Together they form a moving kaleidoscope of our most urgent yearnings. Friedman’s work is reminiscent of the great 20th Century writer István Örkény, with an intimacy and freshness that is all his own.
—Dawn Raffel, author of Boundless as the Sky
Decades ago, Russell Edson was the writer who introduced me, not only to prose poetry, but also the realization that this form could be funny, quirky, and profound at the same time. Jeff Friedman is a worthy successor. This short collection ended too soon. Reading Broken Signals is like opening a door to a room filled with wonder.
—Gary Fincke, author of The History of the Baker’s Dozen
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