On "Wife in Reverse" by Stephen Dixon (447 words) ***

I'm reminded of a Massive Attack video, where we watch babies born, grow up, and come to the moment where grown adults meet and fall in love--and then we watch it all in reverse. Dixon's story moves in only the latter direction, and yet it is surprisingly effect, the way that reverse order almost makes sense in a forward manner. In fact, for the first half of this story, one could read the events as forward or backward, but then come the children and one has to rethink things, remember we're headed in reverse. And so it goes, here, at Matchbook.

On "Kids' Choir" by Catherine Lacey (161 words) ***

More of a description of a couple of times juxtaposed against one another than a full-fledged story with a sense of rising action and denoument, Lacey's short piece is admirable for its extremely engaging first sentence and first paragraph and for the letdown that comes with the second paragraph among all of the children. Read the piece here at Matchbook.

On "Ricky's Index Fingers" by Blake Butler (586 words) ***

In Blake Butler's hands a coming-of-age story becomes a horror story, a stream-of-consciousness experiment, and a reason to obsess about the glories of language experimentation. Our character meets himself meets a photo meets a woman. Read the story here at Matchbook.