Prize-winning author reads

It is a striking book. But initially, the most striking thing about Kirk Nesset’s “Paradise… It is a striking book. But initially, the most striking thing about Kirk Nesset’s “Paradise Road” is the absence of quotation marks.

“It’s a stylistic choice – which is to say an emotional one,” said Nesset, adding, “Characters like mine in this book aren’t stable enough identity-wise to warrant the stability that such demarcation implies.” Consequently, there are few barriers, stylistically or otherwise, to separate the reader from the characters because we play witness to what feels like a cycle of inner monologues.

The winner of the 2007 Drue Heinz Literature Prize, Nesset’s collection of short stories was written over the course of 20 years. The language of “Paradise Road” reflects Nesset’s background as a writer of fiction, non-fiction and poetry. Simple declarative sentences amble down the page, voices and narration combining to form a lyrical expedition through the characters’ mental landscape – a landscape that is often fraught with conflict as characters back themselves into corners (or in one story, a house) and have to find their way out again, providing us with jarring insight and the odd chuckle. Each story is distinct, gradually supplying morsels of detail that allow us to connect with the characters without dictating the conclusions we can draw from them.

“Paradise Road” speaks to the sometimes outlandish truisms of being human and reality that doesn’t quite seem real.

In navigating his experience with three literary genres, Nesset admits that, “at some point you can’t distinguish the fictional web you wove, the lies you told, from the ‘truth,'” providing us with a book that captures the nuances of people and their interactions in illuminating detail.

Nesset will join Heather McNaugher for a reading of his arresting book tonight. No quotation marks necessary.