Three Ways of the Saw

Three Ways of the Saw offers a startling new voice in traditional storytelling that carves out a territory all its own. The vibrant prose of this debut collection—ranging in both style and length from experimental and realistic to flash and longer form fiction—searingly probes and dissects the idea of connection and alienation with one’s self, the world and others. Always gritty, often cruel, yet quietly insightful, this jagged chain of vignettes is for readers who try to hold their thoughts together with duct tape while never quite grasping the things they just can’t seem to name. With sharp attention to language and imagery, Matt Mullins wields a fine, cutting-edge use of story structure, unexpected plot turns, ratcheting tempo, and mad, swirling metaphors.

The 25 stories are sliced into three sections:

BLACK SHEEP MISSIVES: The self-destructive actions of the only son of an Irish, Catholic family, a self-appointed outcast.

DISCHORDS: Ragged, ne’er do well characters out of tune with the whole mess of society.

GHOST LIMBS: Shadowy imprints of longing and things gone missing.

Prepare your senses for aches, echoes, and arrivals at the moment of departure. Welcome to a work of literature that doesn’t shy away from the human condition—it embodies it.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Matt Mullins is a writer, musician, experimental filmmaker and multimedia artist. His fiction and poetry have appeared in Mid American Review, Pleiades, Hunger Mountain, Harpur Palate, Descant, Hobart, and a number of other print and online literary journals. He is an Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at Ball State University (BSU) where he is a faculty fellow with BSU’s Emerging Media Initiative. His recent works of interactive/digital literature can be found at lit-digital.com.