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The World is Neither Stacked for Nor Against You is a book of disparate parts, a sort of Frankenstein monster of a collection. And indeed, there is a monster story, as well as a ghost story, an angel story, a mystical religious story, and a mystical secular story. Some of the work is experimental, some of it is outlandish, and some of it is as simple and comforting as a home-baked pie. Its stories are made of gypsum, bituminous coal, red bricks and whimsy. They are equal parts crassitude and chimera. The final one, "Publisher," the book's longest, concerns a man working for a vanity press who discovers "the real thing," a novel he is convinced will blast a hole in the complacency of modern literature. About "Publisher," John Grisham said, "It's not only funny and clever, it reminded me of the first 80 pages of Sophie's Choice. Great work." The stories have previously appeared in The Pinch, Orchid, Ghoti, Gargoyle and other fine periodicals, as well as story collections published by a handful of sincere, frabjous, small presses.
About the author
COREY MESLER has been published in numerous anthologies and journals including Poetry, Gargoyle, Five Points, Good Poems American Places, and New Stories from the South. He has published nine novels, four short story collections, five full-length poetry collections, and a dozen chapbooks. His novel, Memphis Movie, attracted kind words from Ann Beattie, Peter Coyote, and William Hjorstberg, among others. He's been nominated for the Pushcart many times, and three of his poems were chosen for Garrison Keillor's Writer's Almanac. He also wrote the screenplay for We Go On, which won The Memphis Film Prize in 2017. With his wife he runs a 144 year-old bookstore in Memphis. He can be found at https://coreymesler.wordpress.com.
