A Modern Way to Die
First published in 1991, and now issued in a second edition, comprising short short fictions most written in the eighties, A Modern Way to Die by Peter Wortsman, "predates the in-vogue term flash fiction, but it's surely one of the cornerstones of the tradition," (according to short form pioneer Pete Cherches). As Wortsman notes in the book's original foreword, these texts appeared "in the absence of big things to say [...] guided only by the precarious optimism of the pen." Conceived as a disjointed compendium of narrative treatments of life's common denominator, death, the book's spare hit and run aesthetic gravitates from enhanced neon hyperrealist reportage to nightmare parable to plummet the surreal substrata of the American Dream.
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"Wortsman hang[s] with the masters. . . . Dozens of dangling avalanches for people with dreamer's block."
--A. Scott Cardwell in The Boston Phoenix
"A fantastic book . . . . Marvelous writing, wonderful craft, and the breath of imagination. . . . [Wortsman] succeeded so well in his craft and art that it reads 'artless' and 'spontaneous, ' which to me is the highest of compliments."
--Hubert Selby, Jr., author of Last Exit to Brooklyn
"Wortsman achieves a level of spontaneity and accessibility--even within his most formal creations--to which most writers can only aspire."
--David L. Ulin in The Los Angeles Reader
"The best short-shorts successfully wedge a large impact into a small space, as do Peter Wortsman's stories."
--The Bloomsbury Review
"Wortsman displays a savage descriptive edge, precise and crucial, that is as natural as it is canonically reminiscent of the pan-European urbanism of such writers as Robert Walser and Robert Musil."
--Anthony Abbott in American Bookseller
"Peter Wortsman, in the light of day, seems able to connect the power of the dream narrative to conscious language to create unique works that walk a curious line between fiction and poetry."
--Russell Edson
