paperback/audiobook/ebook
From Recital Publishing – Reweirding the World
VOICES IN THE DIRT: STORIES
Ian Caskey
A dozen tales set from NYC to LA, Asheville to Varanasi. Voices in the Dirt is a transgressive, darkly comical collection of stories, mostly centered around young men struggling with the specter of an incomprehensible world. A banquet server seeks enlightenment by being buried alive (breathing apparatus included!). The son of a dentist confronts an unspeakable horror at an oil baron’s mansion. Karmic retribution is served after a tourist on the Ganges steals a human jawbone from a beached corpse as a ghastly souvenir. If you like wild rides without safety bars, then have a seat.
REVIEWS
Ian Caskey is an alchemist of a purely American style, rendering pathos and transgressive energies into tales that simmer with deep humor and subtle beauty. What propels them is the vernacular, a voice indeed issued from the dirt of ‘Merica’s underground. These stories scratch itches you didn’t know you had, or tried to repress, and perhaps even afflict you with new pricks and burns to which Caskey alone might provide a soothing palm.
—Sean Madigan Hoen, author of Songs Only You Know
Book Trailers
Hear excerpts and discussions on The Strange Recital podcast
Can What You Can
After the Rides
About the author
Ian Caskey’s stories have been published in BOMB, Poached Hare, The Strange Recital, and more. He is also a fellowship alum from the Edward F. Albee Foundation. For years, Ian hosted a book club at a pizzeria in Greenwich Village, New York, dubbed The Rivoli Institute of Pizza and Literature. There he studied masterworks of fiction, miraculously not once staining a page with marinara sauce—okay, maybe once, but it was a Harry Crews book, and he would have approved. Ian’s also been a member of several other reading groups at the Center for Fiction and with other friends. He’s also a graduate of the CUNY BA program in Fiction, a student alum from The Writers Studio, and former member of several writing workshops in DUMBO, Prospect Heights, and Williamsburg, Brooklyn. He’s also a crude-animator, voice-over artist, documentarian, musician and video editor. He lives in Brooklyn, New York with his wife and dog.