Reviews are starting to come out for The Serial Rapist Sitting Behind You Is A Robot and they are…good. Really good. So far.
Mel Bosworth reviewed it over on Outsider Writers. Here’s an excerpt:
The short fictions that comprise this chapbook hit hard. Very hard. J. Bradley pulls you in with a disarming voice and proceeds to pepper your mind with sharp, cutting images that’ll make your jaw drop. There is no pussy-footing, no romance, simply one man’s searing portrayal of sex, excess, and relationships gone awry. In tight bursts, Bradley effectively represents the twisted layers of our souls with bravado.
(Note to Mel: I’ll be in Boston this August for the 2011 National Poetry Slam. You, me, two-three other folks should get together and do a reading that lights some fucking shit on fire, something that’ll make the Boston Tea Party look like Lebron James’s The Decision.)
I was nervous when I heard PANK was also reviewing TSRSBYIAR because of the review it published for Dodging Traffic (note: though I work as their Interview Editor, they are anti-nepotism, as you can see in their review of DT) until I read the review that came out today. An excerpt:
I don’t want to read these stories, but I have to read them. J. Bradley – that silver-tongued cad – makes me. You can stop reading, he whispers, but then you’ll never know. So I read, because I have to know. And it’s worth it. Bloody hell, it’s worth it.
This year has been one of transition, personally and artistically. I’m also not used to seeing such nice things said about my work (because having people to go fuck myself is a fantastic motivator to say “no, you can go fuck yourself” and then back it up). I am very glad that people like the chapbook and I hope people continue to like it.
What does this mean for me? I’ve written more fiction this year and I am going to continue writing more fiction. I will make one more run for a slam team here in Orlando using my newer work to see how that pans out but for the most part, I’ll probably be done really actively competing on a national level after that. I will always love performing, always love running the slam in Orlando (10 years in January – it has outlasted three relationships and a marriage), always love partying at Nationals (until I go to AWP next year), always love yelling at poets for their poor choices.
I owe a tremendous thank you to Matt DeBenedictis for creating Safety Third Enterprises and making this chapbook the champagne bottle that launched it. I will name a child after him, probably the girl child.
Now go get some robot rape here before we’re all out of it and your cavities remain unchapped.
