SCORCH ATLAS by Blake Butler
Buy Scorch Atlas, by Blake Butler. Rip out your favorite story of the collection. Drop it to the ground and watch the pages flutter like ashen butterflies. Don’t worry, they won’t go far; the wind disappeared three moons ago, scorched into violet smoke by the sun.
Fall onto your knees and pray for rain. Push until grains of sand and bone are indistinguishable. When you lean your face back, burrow your fingers into the cracked earth like roots. Soak moisture from the ground, exchange water for blood.
Tear those pages into scraps and let them dissolve on your tongue like the discarded wings of cancerous flies. Swallow a handful of the bloody mud and feel it sluice down your throat. Follow chunk with chunk until your stomach distends, until the veins of your skin intertwine with print, until capillaries make intertextual connections and the only way to truly know what is inside is to watch the world disintegrate around you.
Don’t worry if you missed an inference: the story is still inside you, and in your hand is a shard of the mirror from mother’s room with which to carve, and on that rock your skin will dry quite nicely.
Reviewed by Nik Korpon
Yes, this was the perfect way to review a Blake Butler book. If people don’t “get” this review, they probably won’t like his work. If they do, they will probably love his work.
I don’t know about the book or its author but the review was damn good! Gave me an erection.